Movie Chile Review

Skyfall

By: Jeff Acker
Published online: Monday, November 12, 2012
Appeared in: Pasateimpo

Capsule review

In Daniel Craig’s third outing as James Bond, a terrorist declares war on MI6, and the agents go underground, holing up beneath the streets of London. The talented Spanish actor Javier Bardem makes for a memorable if campy villain, and the acting from the British cast (including Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, and Ben Whishaw) is superb, but the crisp dialogue holds up better than the overall plot, which is not derived from any of Ian Fleming’s novels. Superstar cinematographer Roger Deakins gives the film polished, sumptuous look, and Thomas Newman’s score enhances the atmosphere. Rated PG-13. 143 minutes.

Full Review

Skyfall, James Bond adventure, rated PG-13, Regal Stadium 14, 2.5 chiles

Fifty years of James Bond movies, and we know so little about him. Where does he come from? What was his childhood like? In Skyfall, we find out — sort of. Director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) and a team of three writers give us a veritable Bond exposé, in a plot that shapes not only Bond’s future but his past, as well.

Though they were set in the present day, Daniel Craig’s earlier Bond films, Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008), effectively turned back the clock to an early point in Bond’s career. At the outset of Casino Royale, he is an MI6 agent, but he has not yet earned his “double-O” stripes. The following film was a sequel in the best sense, taking the storyline further, and one might have expected Skyfall to continue it. Au contraire. There’s no indication in Skyfall that we should assume the events of the earlier films didn’t actually happen, but Mendes and company make no reference to the global supercriminal organization Quantum or Bond’s love affair with MI6 agent Vesper Lynd, plot elements that bridge the earlier films. Are we starting over yet again?

Skyfall begins in Turkey, where Bond and a field operative named Eve (Naomie Harris of 28 Days Later) pursue a hired gun who has stolen a list of NATO agents embedded in terrorist groups around the world. It seems doubtful, given the reportedly insular nature of modern-day terrorist cells, that such a list would be very long, but it’s long enough for a mysterious cyber-terrorist to threaten MI6 with it, outing several agents and announcing that more will be unmasked in the coming days. Then a bomb explodes in MI6’s London headquarters, killing eight people and bringing Bond back from the retirement he chooses after the operation in Turkey goes awry. Retirement is looming for Bond’s boss, M ( Judi Dench), too, although it’s not a matter of choice. The government officials who control the purse strings for MI6 are understandably miffed about the bombing and the message it sends regarding the agency’s effectiveness.

Bond’s search for answers leads him to Shanghai and then to Macau. These sequences are filmed exquisitely by superstar cinematographer Roger Deakins, a longtime collaborator of the Coen brothers, and Thomas Newman’s atmospheric score enhances the sumptuous lighting, costumes, and sets. There’s nothing new on offer, just the same old globe-trotting, martini-downing, fist-fighting, and beauty-bedding, but it looks fantastic.

The man responsible for the bombing, Raoul Silva, is played by the fine Spanish actor Javier Bardem, who is well known to art-house fans from Before Night Falls and won a wider audience with No Country for Old Men. Silva is a former MI6 agent who seeks revenge on M. The character’s awkward combination of disarming humor and unhinged bloodthirstiness (not to mention his longish dyed-blond hair and ’70s-style earth-toned look) somewhat undermine his credibility as a threatening figure, but Bardem gives it his all. The writers (Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan) handle the dialogue well, giving Bond and Silva some crisp, memorable exchanges. MI6 training must cover repartee along with hand-to-hand combat.

In a departure from Bond-movie precedent, the bulk of Skyfall’s story unfolds within the borders of the U.K. In London, after the bombing, the MI6 crew retreats to underground tunnels, striking a note of fond respect for those who rode out the Blitz beneath the city. The crew is joined by a watchful bureaucrat (Ralph Fiennes) whose loyalties are a bit murky, and Bond has a meeting with the head of Q branch (Ben Whishaw, the murderer in Tom Tykwer’s Perfume: The Story of a Murderer), who supplies him with a few rather ordinary gadgets. “It’s not exactly Christmas,” Bond observes. “Were you expecting an exploding pen?” Q asks. “We don’t go in for that anymore.”

Skyfall’s London-bound middle third feels less like a Bond film and more like a contemporary thriller in the Jason Bourne or Jack Ryan vein. Mendes directs the action well, but the plot is not as finely tuned as the dialogue (a pattern that characterizes the film as a whole), and the connective tissue between its frenzied action sequences becomes rather thin. The intent seems to be to make the film’s climax seem inevitable, a place the story was destined to arrive at, and yet a manipulative hand seems to be pushing it there all along.

The film’s final third tightens the drama around a standoff in a remote and beautiful setting with special significance for Bond. The climactic scenes fill in blank spots on the map of Bond’s past, but Craig’s performance outshines the significance of these revelations. Since taking the part in 2006 — amid protests that, to the participants, must look particularly foolish in the clarity of hindsight — he has refined Bond’s essential character, bringing to the role not only a physical toughness that hasn’t been seen since Sean Connery’s glory days but also a thinking, brooding, even reflective presence. He’s not just a quip-spouting dandy who strolls into danger with the deck stacked in his favor. Craig gives us a Bond who suffers and makes sacrifices, a Bond with self-awareness and genuine depth. With the well of Ian Fleming’s novels and short stories virtually run dry (only the very faintest of connections inform this film’s plot), the challenge for the producers of the movies is to come up with on-screen adventures equal to his acting talent.