Skyfall

Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Bérénice Marlohe, Ben Whishaw & Albert Finney
Directed by: Sam Mendez

Rating: ★½

I think you can safely say that I’m a James Bond fan. I just spent the last three weeks watching Bond films and writing feature articles about how much I love the movie series. I have been waiting for Skyfall all year, and I wanted it to be amazing. I was hoping that Quantum Of Solace was just a temporary blip in 007’s outings, and that with Skyfall, he would be back on track.

I wanted more than anything for Skyfall to be absolutely amazing. I wanted it to take us back to the good old days of Moore and Brosnan- non-stop action with a quirky eccentric twist. But it didn’t. And I am so bitterly disappointed. Sure, it was better than Quantum Of Solace, not that this was a difficult feat to achieve, but it wasn’t that much better.

What makes matters worse is that every single film critic seems to love it. There’s almost unanimous praise for it, which I don’t seem to understand. Some people are hailing Skyfall as the best Bond movie ever. But it isn’t. It really isn’t. It’s just so… boring. And bland. It is also beautiful, and very well directed. But the plot is insipid, overly long, incredibly tedious, and ultimately, makes Skyfall unlike any other Bond film before it: an in-depth slow moving art-house interpretation of a James Bond movie.

I didn’t hate it. But I didn’t love. And that’s the problem. The first half is pretty decent, albeit incredibly sluggish at points, but it has an excellent action packed pre-title introduction, a great Bond opening credits sequence, and some very strong visually impacting fight scenes. Unfortunately, nothing really moves forward from here, and all of the slow burning tension established in the first half isn’t properly released in the second: instead we just get more talking, more character development, and a damp squib of a final showdown that is hugely anticlimactic, which can only be described as Home Alone with machine guns and an exploding helicopter.

Sévérine deserves a much bigger part in the movie- not just to be there as eye candy.

Visually this movie is absolutely astounding: the directing and cinematography are brilliant. Sam Mendes sure knows how to make a movie look great, and in all fairness to him, he makes the most out of the material he has been given. The film is beautifully shot, and there are some dazzling scenes in Shanghai and Macau, which instantly reminded me of the original Bond movies as they make exotic locations look wonderfully glamorous. The editing is also cohesive and effective, unlike Quantum Of Solace, so that we at least know what is going on. Unfortunately though, although we may understand exactly what is happening, nothing much really does happen. Skyfall isn’t actually an action movie. James Bond is known for its fantastic blood pumping thrilling set pieces- this is probably the entire point of a Bond film. We want to see car chases and gun fights and explosions and destruction. And this doesn’t happen enough in Skyfall. In fact, it barely happens at all. I wouldn’t describe this movie as an action film; I would call it a slow burning spy thriller. And sure, some people would enjoy seeing this type of movie, even I do, but I didn’t want to see a Bond film like this. I paid to see an action movie, not a stodgy character driven drama.

Skyfall is painfully slow moving at times, and seems like an art-house interpretation of a Bond movie...

There are two big action sequences in Skyfall: the opening in Turkey and the ending in an abandoned cottage in the middle of the countryside. Bond does have some combative moments throughout the overly long two and a half hour running time, and he manages to chase the villain through the London Underground, but these aren’t ‘action scenes’, and they are sparsely dispersed between the very heavy character driven backstory chit chats between all of the main characters, especially Bond and M. And this is another failing (from my point of view, anyway) for Skyfall: the fact that M is in fact the actual Bond Girl. Sévérine (Marlohe) and Eve (Harris) are hardly in the film at all, which is incredibly strange as there are two very attractive Bond Girls and they are literally only there to look pretty and to assist Bond and bring the plot forward. And sure, this did happen in the original Bond films, but at least one of them would be developed enough so that they would actually help Bond in some way, and would end up being useful enough to be dragged along throughout the film’s duration. But once again, like Quantum Of Solace, the Bond Girls are thoroughly disposable and ineffective- even M herself becomes a senseless sidekick, needing rescuing by Bond. And what makes it more bizarre, is that as replacement for stunningly supportive females, we get a whole lot of homoeroticism between Bond and the villain, which may be funny and creepy, but is just weird.

M as the Bond Girl? What were they thinking??

Even though I’m harshly criticising it, I did actually like parts of Skyfall. There were some good points to it, the visuals being the main one, and the opening action scene being the other. And the acting itself is also tremendous. Bardem, as Silva, is an excellent villain: he is what Scaramanga from The Man With The Golden Gun should have been like, and I think he is probably the most like a Bond villain from Fleming’s book series. Bardem chews the scenery of every single scene he is in, and is mesmerizingly creepy. Sadly though, even though he is a fully fleshed and believable villain, his singular aim, which is the entire thrust of the plot, becomes silly, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I wanted him to ultimately have an even more nefarious scheme. But he didn’t. His plan may be realistic, but it is so blandly one dimensional (especially since you want him to succeed in it) that I actually wanted his goal to be repopulating the Earth or causing an earthquake or something, just to lift the banality of the second half out of the film.

Bardem is great as Silva, but he isn't in the movie enough...

Craig is also on form, giving another great performance as Bond. He’s much more likeable in this one, but his backstory is completely unnecessary. Dench acts her socks off as M, and Fiennes and Finney are both good too. The new Q (Whishaw) is, unfortunately, pretty annoying and not very endearing. Hopefully he’ll be better in the next one. The Bond Girls are both charming and attractive, but one of them is dispatched in an unsettlingly and upsetting way that is completely unnecessary. I actually wanted her to live, even though I knew she wouldn’t. It just shows you that, 50 years after Dr No, the women in Bond films are still seen as throwaway pleasures.

Fiennes gives a good performance as Mallory.

I wanted to love it, and while watching it I kept giving it chances, thinking that it would get better, as it was building up to… something. But it is just too slow and, weirdly for a Bond film, dull. I’m pretty sure on second viewing I’ll enjoy it more, because at least I’ll know what to expect, and so will be in the ‘mood’ to see a slow burner. But I wanted to watch an action movie, and that’s what disappointed me so much: James Bond is meant to be an action packed adventure, and Skyfall is not that. Perhaps that is why women I've spoken to seemed to enjoy this movie a lot more than men.

One thing that I am struggling with is the actual point of Skyfall. I thought that Casino Royale was meant to be rebooting Bond so that things would change, for the better, and make Bond… different. But by the end of Skyfall, we have come full circle, as we are taken back exactly to where Bond started in Dr No. Although, in a way, this may be a good thing, as hopefully the next Bond film will be an actual Bond film, I fail to see the point in a movie that is essential a prequel to the one that will follow it. Skyfall is only there to re-establish the original rules, conventions and characters we all know and love from pre-Craig Bond films by having hardly any of them within it, and because of this, essentially makes the entire film pointless. I just hope that the next Bond film is amazing, now that we’ve got through the terminal angst that has plagued these three Craig outings, setting us up for what we wanted all along: an action packed Bond adventure.

We want to see an action movie, and sadly, there isn't enough action...

I know that in my article about Bond’s worst filmsI insulted Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace, but at least those were thoroughly thrilling and entertaining, and were actual action films (even though, in the latter movie we couldn’t see what was happening, at least something was happening). And this is the problem with Skyfall: it doesn’t really follow the conventions of a Bond film, but has been made to essentially re-establish them. And another thing that annoys me is that they could have easily rectified these issues by condensing the script, had much less talking, a lot more action, and by killing off a certain character at the midway point so that the finale could have had Bond hunting the villain down as revenge- culminating in a huge fight on the abandoned island. Sure, it would have made the meaning of title pointless, and removed a lot of Bond’s ‘vital’ character development, but it sure as hell would have been a lot more interesting, action orientated, and most importantly, a Bond movie. 

Eve starts out strong, and then disappears for most of the film...

Although Skyfall does have some thrilling moments and some unrelenting tension, as well as some excellent brawling fights and action set pieces, most of the film revolves around Bond tailing and talking to people. M is given far too much screen time, and Silva not enough. The Bond Girls should have been better, and the whole film needed a huge injection of thrills, spills and chills, to make it remotely interesting.

Annoyed. Upset. Disappointed. These are the final words of a Bond fan in describing Skyfall. Hopefully one day I can change my mind about it, and warm up to it. But more importantly, I just hope that next time, they get it right. Because if they don’t, I’m not sure what words I’ll use to describe my feelings. I have a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ rule, and so far, Bond is on two. Maybe this is why I’m so upset: because I know that if the next film is also an underwhelming disaster, I may have to say goodbye to the franchise I love for good.