By Bob Clark
In the past 50 years, there have been about 23 Bond films, give or take the ones not produced by EON. That’s a rate of a movie almost every two years, and each one at a scale and scope that would dwarf most other pretenders to its action adventure mantle. A few other franchises have been as productive, in their shorter span on the cultural horizon– the X-Men film series, launched by Bryan Singer in 2000, has managed a healthy five films so far in the past dozen years, with at least two more currently on the way. Others have been a bit more limited in their output– in 35 years there have been only six Star Wars episodes (versus at least 18 Bond films over an equivalent span), though after Disney’s purchase of the franchise that restrained approach will likely vanish at the drop of a Mickey Mouse eared hat. Plenty more have done whatever they could to milk every last ounce of audience interest in their various flagging series of spectacles, pulling whatever kinds of narrative tricks and gimmicks they could come up with– we’d probably still be seeing Pink Panther movies coming out if it weren’t for Peter Seller’s death, and that still wasn’t enough for 3 different attempts to reboot the series. With all the longest running and longest active franchises there’s inevitably been a sense of diminishing returns both in terms of creativity and general interest– you can almost track the moment the Star Trek series ran out of steam at the point when even fans stopped calling the movies by their titles and nicknamed them “The One With the Whales” and so forth.
Yet Bond remains, and likely will do so for another 50 years, so long as Western civilization holds up. And if we’re in that span treated to another 23 or so movies that fall somewhere on the same creative spectrum that Skyfall hits, then we could do a hell of a lot worse (just as there are Star Wars fans who deny the Prequels, I’d like to politely pretend that the Roger Moore years never happened, thanks very much). As an fiftieth anniversary piece, it’s fitting that this latest production arrives with a fair amount of prestige, helmed by certifiable Oscar winning director, scripted by at least one of the screenwriters of a Best Picture winner and photographed by one of the most esteemed cinematographers of his era (only one of those three actually deserves any of those awards, but still), and it’s equally appropriate that the film they come up with together works both as a solid continuation of this current generation of Double O Sevenry and as a celebration of everything that’s come and gone in the five decades past. There are copious nods to the previous Bond films and novelsthroughout– a plot engendered upon a traitorous MI6 agent come back for revenge, just like 006 from GoldenEye; the return of franchise regulars Q and Moneypenny after being absent the past two features (even Moneypenny’s coatrack comes back); a flamboyant villain with a name just a couple of letters away from a precious metal (silver’s not as played out as gold, apparently), an ugly piece of mouthgear and a sexual ambiguity so slippery he could stand as a nod to at least half a dozen SPECTRE associates.
The most poignant echo might be the dominant presence of the Union Jack throughout the film, though not in the same flashy manner as in Bonds past– no longer unfolding from a parachute, instead now draping the coffins of dedicated agents in her majesty’s secret service. It’s a telling detail that speaks volumes for how the film attempts to answer the question of where a superheroic style of agent provocateur like Bond fits in the new espionage model of the War on Terror, one that underlines the urgency of many sequences throughout the film, especially set-pieces that see spies chasing terrorist actives through the crowded Underground. We’ve seen the Bond series self consciously update itself before from one war footing to the next– one of GoldenEye‘s chief pleasures isn’t just in how it moves to a new Bond (Brosnan being the one I grew up with, both in the movies and on Nintendo 64) but also how it moves away from the Cold War and into the less defined geo-political terms of the 90′s. Following 9/11, the advent of the Daniel Craig films have at least meant that the series could pull back the reins on the more outlandish embellishments and flights of fancy in the previous administration (though I do love some of the wacky choices in the Brosnan years– a Rupert Murdoch media baron out to start a war with China for profit? I’ll buy that) and rely on something that at least more closely resembled reality.
Or perhaps, the more nebulous ambiguities of our current technologically enhanced world were better suited for the twilight espionage escapades of Bond– even during the Connery years villains like Goldfinger or Blofeld were never really affiliated with the Soviets. SPECTRE and the various other menacing fronts of the franchise never truly represented any national interests, and as such feel like a savvy fit for an era where threats come from rogue international criminal groups and syndicates. It might’ve been enough to see Bond go after cartels of ideologically based baddies in the first outings of the Craig era, but instead we managed to snag an additional wrinkle of telling realism– economics. With Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace pitting a freshly rebooted 007 against a syndicate of financiers for all the world’s terrorists and despots, the Bond franchise adopted a surprisingly skeptical view of the current state of affairs, and formed something of an odd triumvirate between the Star Wars Prequels and Tom Tykwer’s The International of big action-adventure spectacles that put bankers and capitalists squarely in the crosshairs. In a sense, that’s really not so far from the roots of the Bond films themselves– what was Auric Goldfinger’s plot against Fort Knox but an elaborate stock-market scheme on par with the current day barons of Wall Street? Greed has always been a root of so many of the classic Bond villains, and something that was universally touched upon in the Brosnan years, even at moments that rivaled Moore’s tenure for pure silliness, and a villainous attribute easily hissable in today’s perpetual crisis-mode economy.
As such, it seems almost a lost opportunity that Skyfall chooses a burned spy with an axe to grudge against the agency that gave him up as its evil mastermind without even a hint of a get rich quick scheme to line his pockets. As the menacing Silva, Javier Bardem is given a fine opportunity to recycle elements of his award-winning No Country For Old Men performance, with a few nods here and there to Heath Ledger’s turn as the Joker for good measure. Mendes and a script headlined by John Logan borrow liberally from the Nolan canon in the plot and execution of the film (though thankfully without the younger director’s penchant for shooting action sequences with a minimum of clarity or coherence– Mendes showcases a superb hand at set-pieces throughout), as well as various other classics and modern masterpieces throughout the running time. Sometimes the nods appear merely stylish– hints of Michael Mann in glass skyscrapers drenched with blue neon that turn nearly every shot into a silhouette that could fit in one of the title sequences. Others hit closer to home, particularly at the climax– a helicopter attack on the Scottish moors, an ancestral home engulfed in flames, a role reverse pieta lit dimly by fire and surrounded by massacre. Most especially, a repeated motif of Bond standing dimly lit in darkened doorways helps the movie join the club of films that reference The Searchers while just casually being far better than it, and there’s something to the idea of Bond being the same kind of dark, damaged hero as Ethan Edwards that fits better than the idea of Travis Bickle and his quest to clean up the dirty streets of per-Giullianni Manhattan.
Given that Skyfall goes to great lengths to underline how the physical and mental toll taken on agents in the field can lead to creating monsters just as well as heroes, the Ford homage helps offer a nice bit of context to the overall question of where Bond fits in the changing landscape of international politics, just as The Searchers attempted to rethink where the Ethan Edwards of the world fit into an America they helped create by bloodying their hands of it. Yet the film belabors the question with various pitstops for Judi Dench’s M to sit before governmental hearings on MI6 and the Double-O program in ways that were never quite so dwelled upon when Bond made the update from the Cold War back in GoldenEye. The question is asked so many times in the film, it begs the larger question of whether or not anybody was bothering to ask it in real life. Was there anybody out there who didn’t buy the idea of James Bond in the age of the War on Terror? Weren’t Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace enough of a reset on their own? It underlines some of the various attempts to bring things back to the patterned status quo of the past Bond formula (as the cooly partonizing Q and Miss Moneypenny return, so too do the strict gender roles that she and her superior represent), and brings out more of the conservative aspects of the character and franchise that seemed to have been evolved from in this iteration, helping to turn Skyfall, like this year’s The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises another kind of action-adventure triumverate, this time in favor of reactionary corporate elements instead of against (so much for that dream I had of Tom Tykwer helming a “Bond Vs. the WTO” movie).
After a while, however, all of the attention and suspicions of whether or not Bond or the fictionalized agency he represents fit in the world anymore hit upon something even more uncomfortable than the politics that the series represents (which, at the very least, are lightyears ahead of where Ian Fleming’s head was at times). They feel less like on-the-nose political musing or even celebratory recognition of a long-lived. At a certain point, it shows off a certain defensiveness about the series– everybody wonders aloud whether the Double-O’s are outdated or Bond himself over the hill, it makes you wonder if the EON producers are afraid that the series is bound to get lost amidst all the other blockbuster franchises out there today. But nobody out there ever asked whether or not Bond still belongs in the world– only what took him so long to come back. That was largely thanks to the insolvency of MGM, and now that the studio is somewhat up and running again, one can only hope that we can sit through another 50 years of adventures as crisp, polished and entertaining as this series has been, inviting us not merely to watch reflections of the world’s anxieties, but more importantly a chance to escape and overcome them. So shake yourself something dry and say cheers to Bond and his safe return– let’s just hope he doesn’t keep us waiting so long next time.
I did feel while seeing this movie that it may have been some sort of a throwback to the Bonds of yesteryear, specially after hearing how different “Casino Royale” and “Quantum of Solace” (specially the latter), and even if I haven’t actually seen many of the Bond films, I liked this one and received the references as if it were something to take for granted: the music, the cars, the plot, and the throwback ending was just phenomenal.
Nevertheless, even if it was filled with great action scenes and the greatest cinematography work of all year, I still found myself thinking that this needed some kind of definitive scene, something that would make go crazy with love for this movie, and then it happened, the final half hour or so in Skyfall, but then it went on too long so I just said that this was a good movie, not a great one, but still loads better than any other Pierce Brosnan film that I saw in my childhood.
“Double O Sevenry” – I would have said Sevenrie, but to each their own.
I thought it was one of the best Bonds ever made. It certainly had the most swag and polish. A perfect capstone for an ‘origins’ trilogy.
We remarked on many of the same tid bits, but there are only so many lightning rods in a Bond narrative.
Yes indeed my friend. I concur it’s one of the best Bonds ever.
Interesting that you’d say so. I’ve noticed your film tastes are a bit more classical. I know a few old Bond fans who loved this one too.
Without giving anything away, I have a lot of issues with the twists the plot takes from about midpoint to the ending, and I especially dislike the way we’re set back to the status quo of the original films instead of the more progressive arrangement we had since “GoldenEye” at least. The structural issues I have are about on par with “The Dark Knight”, and indeed it kinda makes sense that Nolan’s influence on this one would be a double-edged sword. At least Mendes captures his action sequences a hell of a lot better, though, and Nolan’s influence is kinda a boomerang, since his movies are very influenced by the classic Bond style.
One other thing that bothers me, as far as the way the film has been seen– why all the surprise and admiration over learning a few scant details of Bond’s history? We already knew he was an orphan. I mean, I suppose the detail that his ancestral home once provided refuge to Catholic priests during the Elizabethan era is a clever choice (about the same as Wayne Manor being a stop on the Underground Railroad– cute but irrelevant), but other than that, there’s nothing here we didn’t get in films before.
I like the movie. But I like “Casino Royale” and even “Quantum of Solace” more, frankly, and I hope we get back to that orginazation in the next flick.
How do you see classic Bond influence on Nolan?
I completely agree the plot was flimsy – typical action fare IMO. Some of it amusingly cheap, but that didn’t strike me as a deal breaker in view of how nice the film looks. Call it the Avatar Effect.
I think what we saw new in Skyfall, compared to all Bonds previous, was a tacit admission that the intelligence services are bad guys paid to inhabit a realm of moral hazard more than mere soldiers. Maybe we’ll evolve enough as an audience for Bond to be screen tested as an anti-villain overthrowing helpless regimes who act against us. That’d be a mindfuck and a half.
All of Nolan’s Bat-films betray a heavy dose of Bond, from the high concept set-pieces and adherence to cartoonish versions of realism (one era’s Aston Martin is another’s Tumbler) to Morgan Freeman moonlighting as the head of Wayne Enterprise’s own Q Branch (doing everything but asking Bats to return everything in pristine condition). And “Inception” had perhaps the most groan inducing nod to the Roger Moore era imaginable with those silly ski action sequences, but there you go. Granted, Bond’s an influence on plenty of blockbuster filmmakers at least as far back as Lucas & Spielberg, and Nolan’s got traces of them in his mainstream vocabulary too. They digested the influence more and made it their own, however– Nolan doesn’t break it down quite as much.
As for tacit admissions about intelligence services– didn’t we get that with “GoldenEye” already? If anything, I’d say this flick is watering down some of the gritty paranoia we had from the start of the Craig era, and bringing us back to a mindset of accepting the Bonds of the world as necessary blunt instruments to be looked up to and not questioned, for fear of being hit again by some shadowy, unapproachable “Them”. What was a joke line from M seems almost literalized here in earnest– “Christ, I miss the Cold War!”
Bob, l too was delighted by the central conceit of Quantum of Solace, which could aptly be designated “007 vs. The Shock Doctrine”. For all its faults, QOS was probably the most incisive actioner in recent memory.
If it’s any consolation, I would put money on this organization returning. It simultaneously provides the series with a new SPECTRE and the audience an analogue to the predators eviscerating the world economy. The purported reversion to the status quo (e.g., M, Moneypenny, Q) will surely be slight; the producers know full well that no one wants a return to Brosnan-era nonsense.
Given the conservative edge this flick has had as far as the heroification of spies and the espionage industry goes, I’m not entirely sure we’ll be seeing Quantum return in quite the same capacity. They represent something subtly different, but different enough from the formula that was being set in the new era of Craig. Now, however, we’re back to the nostalgia of 60′s sexual politics with M and Moneypenny (another “Mad Men” secretary), and I’m not certain the global politics will prove that much different.
Sure, Skyfall could be perceived as conservative (apropos, considering the Oedipal narrative revolves around a “family” of professional killers) but I for one am relieved that it isn’t downright reactionary. I had heard rumors that Mendes and Co. looked to Julian Assange as a model for their villain, but any parallel is mitigated by Silva’s intensely personal and singular plot against “Mommy”.
Whatever the case, Skyfall goes down a lot smoother than The Dark Knight Rises.
Yeah, Assange is kinda an easy target, with his own Bond-villain lair, isn’t he? But you’re right, the whole revenge motivation that Silva has mitigates some of the wiki-leaks channeling you have from his methodology, though personally I might’ve enjoyed seeing that pursued a bit more vigorously instead of the standard “Villain With a Plan Whose Interlocking Pieces Work Perfectly Despite Not Adhering to Any Common Sense” trope. In any case, we’ve gone a long way from recasting Rupert Murdoch as a mastermind, haven’t we?
I just don’t get where BOB is going with this review.
For almost half of the essay he’s praising this film, talking about it’s attributes and THEN, WHAM, he launches into a tirade of nit-picking that makes you wonder if he, indeed, liked the film at all. The points that he seems to have issue with in the film seem to be so small and idiosyncratic that it makes the piece feel like an enormous bitch.
I saw this film just two days ago and both Sam and I (along with his oldest son) absolutely loved the movie. The references that were thrown in from the earlier films were done in a way that didn’t seem too obvious or obtrusive. However, what I think BOB fails to see when reviewing this film is that SKYFALL, like the earlier CASINO ROYALE and QUANTUM OF SOLACE, is a PREQUEL to the classic originals that sported Connery and Roger Moore. SKYFALL is an homage to the earlier films of the 60′s and 70′s and pays tribute to those older fans that have stuck with the franchise ever since. These films are also a reboot of the franchise and, rightfully, take there time in establishing the incidentals and details that make up Ian Flemings world for a new generation of budding Bond fans. Sam’s son (Sammy Jr.) was so taken by SKYFALL that he immediately launched into a comprhensive question and answer period with me and his father on the history of Bond as we were leaving the theatre and now he wants to investigate the films to see how we have gotten to this point in the franchise. In my mind, that’s one of the great compliments a film like SKYFALL can get and, easily, one of the great compliments to a franchise that is now 23 films strong, reinventing itself, and wowing new audiences.
SKYFALL is not you typical Bond film and I was glad to see that Mendes and company took a far more human approach to the contents of the story and character analysis. By doing this, the film becomes more urgent, bonds with the audience on a deeper emotional level and presents Bond as not just a killing machine, but as a man of conflicted emotions. To nit-pick about the film making a point to tell us Bond is an orphan, or to state that the addition of the pre-determined roles of Moneypenny and M at the end of the film seem strained means to me that the author of the this review missed the intentions outside the human element completely. SKYFALL, like the two previous films in the series, are specifically recreating the myth that is Ian Flemings world of Bond.
SKYFALL is the best Bond film since GOLDFINGER and, in the hands of Screenwriter John Logan, Director Sam Mendes, Cinematographer Roger Deakins, Composer Thomas Newman (not to mention a cast that brings far better performances to the Bond series than ever before-particularly Judi Dentch as M and Javier Bardem as the nefarious villian of the piece), turns out to be one of the very best films of 2011.
I can’t remember a pure “entertainment” making me smile as much as SKYFALL did.
Yep, agreed Dennis. I simply had far too much fun to find the narrative fault that Bob has applied here, faults that are not factual, but are a result of his ever-scrutinyzing perceptions. Mendes’ classicism, Deakins’ sumptuous visuals, and some of the most extraordinary set pieces in the franchise are complimented by Bardem again as a perfect villain and the swan song of Judi Dench’s iconic M.
I summarily reject every dissenting point Bob makes here. Yes we are good friends, but our taste in movies could not possibly be more extreme. I am still trying to find out what the point is in finding serious fault with every single release. I don’t get it, and never will. I go to the movies to have fun. Yeah there are some disappointments. But if they were to the tune of 99% I’d find a different hobby. I enjoyed SKYFALL so much, that I enthusiastically moved to attend the film for a second time here this week, as Dennis chronicles.
I know. Every review, regardless to how much BOB likes the film, finally gets a “But” to it. The facts remain that BOB is missing the point entirely here with SKYFALL. This film, like the earlier CASINO ROYALE and QUANTUM OF SOLACE are prequels to the original classic films and are trying to give Bond to a new generation of movie-goers. This film is far more realistic that it’s Connery and Moore, Dalton and Brosnan, predecessors. That these new films gently slide in some of the details that signal the Bond legacy (his background as an orphan, the Aston Martin, Moneypenny’s place in the scheme of things) only add to the fabric of the Bond legend, inform the new, younger viewers first coming to the character and his adventures, and pay homage to the legacy while winking at the older members who where there from the start.
I’m 46 years old and have been an obsessed fan of the Bond films ever since I was a kid (GOLDFINGER was my first). As such, I think I’m rather particular in the way I think Bond and his exploits should be portrayed on the big screen. I saw NONE of the problems BOB had with this film (but is that a surprize? This is the same man that thinks, over all, CLOUD ATLAS is a better film than THE FOUNTAIN and Malick’s masterful THE TREE OF LIFE).
SKYFALL, in my humble opinion, is the BEST Bond film since GOLDFINGER and Daniel Craig is the best Bond since the classic Sean Connery.
I hope they keep up the good work.
I think BOB is a great guy and a seriously terrific writer. I just think he was smoking something or just NOT getting what this film, and its predecessors, set out to do.
It’s not the finding fault with everything that’s the main problem. It’s the not finding fault with most Japanese anime or George Lucas that’s the real “stick him in a straitjacket” clincher. I mean, it’s like dissing Beethoven to stick up for Burt Bacharach.
The fact is any blog now seems to have an idiot quota. We have ours like the rest, it’s an internet law.
ALLAN-I don’t know if I’d go as far as calling BOB an idiot all the time. But, on this review, and the bitching he does about this film, well, I might have to agree…
Sense is temporary, idiocy is permanent.
Wow shill out guys, it’s just one movie and one opinion, jeez.
I understand the exasperation Bob Clark can stir in everyone with his off the wall assessments and perplexing bizarro world opinions, but we are talking about Bond films here right? None in this series are that great or worthy of more than disposable interest from film lovers. I’ve seen about fifteen of these movies and none matter beyond the popcorn/junk ingested at the moment. Skyfall might be better than the typical Bond film, but that isn’t much of an accomplishment overall. I’ll tar and feather Bob if need be… but I sure as hell ain’t going to do it over Daniel Craig and 007.
And yes I will be seeing Skyfall early next week at my local theater. I’m personally more interested in the Deakins/Mendes combo, than actually following this tired franchise or it’s history. I wasn’t crazy about Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy when I first saw it with Sam, Dennis, and Bob, but a second (and third) viewing have made me consider it far better than any Bond film ever produced (by a wide margin).
Maurizio: I don’t think anyone on this thread was attempting to elevate James Bond on an even keel with Bergman, Bresson, Antonioni, Tarkovsky or Malick. The James Bond franchise did produce a number of exceptional entertainments, and the argument is strictly on whether it worked or failed in that capacity ONLY. I am neither a James Bond junkie, nor one who looks forward to the next release in this endless series, but a diversion from the art house scene with well- crafted and choreographed films that are especially character driven, are welcome in any world of the film goer. The fact that the film got spectacular reviews would seem to indicate that some people were willing to take a break from the cerebral and immerse themselves in this burst of high-octane energy and a confluence of some major talents. What makes it work are Roger Deakins, director Sam Mendes and a classy cast, along with a buffo beginning and ending and a sustained and intriguing story in between. At a time of the year dominated by prestige films, I was hardly pumped up for this, especially since I wasn’t a fan of the more pyrotechnic CASINO ROYALE. But for what it was it worked exceedingly well, and it is in that spirit that I came here to defend the film. I know Dennis liked it so much that it might be a Top 10 finisher for him.
As far as what you said about TINKER TAILOR far outstripping any Bond, let’s just say we’ll have to agree to disagree. SKYFALL for one blows it away (for me).
Incidentally, I saw a film last night that also got (spectacular) reviews, and is being bandied around for all kinds of awards. It’s called SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, and despite an admittedly extraordinary lead performance by the gifted Jennifer Lawrence I found it an extremely mixed bag. Tonight I will be seeing ANNA KARENINA, and am leaving the house in a matter of minutes.
Fair Enough Sam. I knew you were talking about Bond in a certain artistic capacity. I just can’t understand calling Bob an idiot, contrarian, nitpicker, etc over his opinion of a Bond film. Who cares either way is my final thoughts on the subject. And as for Tinker Tailor… have you watched it since that wintry night in Manhattan?? I feel multiple viewing (especially at home) work better at reaching a final assessment on the film. Since I have not yet seen Skyfall, I cannot compare the two obviously. I can say with absolute certainty though that TTSS is leagues better than Casino Royale or Q. Solace. And I’m prepared to hand out dunce caps to anyone who thinks otherwise lol.
I haven’t seen it since that wintry night, I’ll admit, but must take it in again. I agree that calling Bob or any other intelligent writer here an idiot or any other derogatory name is unacceptable and deserving of the trash bin.
Are the films really prequels, though? Can you really have a prequel to a series that spans 40 years while the character doesn’t age and physically transforms into other people? Prequels imply some sort of chronological continuity which bond eschews. The unfolding of the series only makes sense as some kind of rebirth thing, almost like Bond is Bourne. I mean on the one hand this is a post-Cold War Bond which essentially means a post-Bond Bond. And yet its also supposed to be a pre-Bond Bond. I haven’t seen Skyfall but while I quite liked Casino and enjoyed Quantum well enough, both seemed to me to be reaching when they tried to both restart and revise Bond at the same time, having it both ways.
If the films really want to get to the roots of Bond, I think they should be period pieces. But those would not be as successful probably, so we get this compromise.
Which is pretty indicative of the 00s blockbuster mentality I think: make feints toward some kind of “darkness” or “realism” or “grittiness” or “seriousness” while still retaining all the aesthetic and thematic and narrative priorities that make it impossible to actually achieve those values. It’s like popcorn movies have become afraid of the taste of popcorn, but are afraid to become caviar, so we end up with this weird in-between flavor. Dark Knight and Casino Royale worked for me but increasingly, I think, in spite of their angsty pretensions rather than because of them.
JOEL-They ARE PREQUELS in the sense that it’s supposed to be the BEGINNING of Bond. It’s a REBOOT in the sense that they are presenting Bond as a new concept to a generation of film-goers not knowledgable of the original series. To long time fans they carry a “forget everything you know” mantle over it.
Personally, and as a obsessive, long time lover of the Bond series, I think these last three films give even the Connery classics a run for the money. I think I’m the perfect person to endorse this as my criticism of all of the films comes from years of reading the original novels (I used to trade them back and forth with my best friend in high school, along with the work of Zane Gray, Hunter Thompson, Richard Matheson and an aspiring young novelist named… Um.. oh, yeah… STEPHEN KING), scouring each film with a fine toothed comb, comparing the books to the films, and memorizing all the details. In High School and College, my friends and I were absolutely nuts over this stuff and often threw about trivia at each other to see who was the ultimate Bond master. One of the local pubs on South Street in Philly (where I went to College) often hosted Bond marathons and we were always seen there getting drunk and screaming at the screens playing the movies while horrified patrons asked the bartenders to “kindly boot those annoying kids” from the establishment (they wouldn’t as we were GREAT tippers and most of the “tenders” were also students working there way through college).
So, as an expert on BOND, I say this… These films are prequels, but so much more.
Discussing it earlier with Sam, I freely admitted that SKYFALL and CASINO ROYALE would probably make my top five Bond films of all time and SKYFALL would, most likely, bank in at No. 2 just after GOLDFINGER in the top slot.
And, all of this coming from an obsessive Bond nut.
Technically speaking I suppose each Bond actor represents its own internal continuity, so “Casino Royale” a reboot from all the other actors, but a prequel in the sense that it portrays Bond’s 00-status earning assignment. There are nods and tips of the hat to the other films here and there, but if you seriously wanted to see all of them being considered as Bond simultaneously you have to go for how Alan Moore treated the character and his subsequent iterations in the pages of “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” (long story short, the “original” Bond of the books is a sociopathic rapist scumbag who served as an agent of the Thought Police under Big Brother, but after his retirement he’d become such a national hero that MI6 used his name as a cover alias for numerous agents afterwards, all of whom seem to be much nicer chaps– oh, and apparently Judi Dench is supposed to be an aged Emma Peel, or some such).
This is turning into something of a deja vu for me from my “Firefly” and “Dollhouse” reviews– writing up a piece mostly complimenting something, but being taken to task for giving it anything less than unanimous praise (at least nobody thought I was calling Buffy a slut this time). Part of my enjoyment from quality examples of blockbuster entertainment lies in digging deeper into them and standing each part up to some level of scrutiny. It’s not disparaging a film like “Skyfall” to pick it apart piece by piece and criticise some of the elements. If it weren’t a good film to begin with, I wouldn’t be parcing the good with the bad– I try to do that with everything I write about (space-operas and anime included). My experience with the film was a far cry from the one I had with, say, “The Avengers” this year, where I honestly wasn’t left with anything good to say about it, when all’s said and done.
That being said, my problems with the film are on two levels– first there’s the basic structural issues with the story and script, the various plot-holes that the narrative momentum starts falling through about midway. That’s par for the course with almost any major action movie, however, and isn’t a terribly major issue (the movie makes more sense than “The Dark Knight” did anyway). The more pressing thing is more of a personal concern of mine, and one that I’ll admit I might not have articulated crystal clear seeing as it depends upon spoiler information towards the end. Suffice to say, I think it’s a shame that the movie takes two steps back from the progressive gender politics we’ve had in the series since the advent of “GoldenEye” back to the same kind of roles the franchise started out with back in the 60′s. Maybe that’s predicated on performers wanting out after decades into the series, and maybe it’s to do with the producers wanting a younger face to the role and a longer commitment. But there’s also more of a return to the reactionary politics of the franchise that, again, I thought had been somewhat outgrown since the Brosnan years at least– I can hope for the return of the financial mastermind bad guys of Quantum in a future installment, but was it really necessary for this villain to lay it on quite so thick and bring back the monstrous gay archetype into the mix?
And political persuasion aside (I’ll admit it may be a fool’s errand trying to read the Bond series from anything other than a right-wing perspective– same with Batman really) I still think that all the hemming and hawing that’s made in the film over the age and relevancy of Bond, MI6 and the kinds of espionage and entertainment they represent are all just a wee too much. Granted, maybe it stems from the fact that the filmmakers know how long it’s been since the last Bond movie came out (4 years is a fairly long time in franchise standards– last time it took that long for 007 to return we went from Brosnan to Craig after all), but most of the time they seem to be answering questions nobody’s bothering to ask. Have spy agencies been given anything resembling this kind of scrutiny from elected officials in the real world since 9/11 (without sex scandals being involved, that is)? At times, scenes like the one between Judi Dench and the parliamentary oversight committee remind me less of actual politics and more of the nightmare scenario Conservatives dread whenever someone on the left talks about cutting military or intel budgets by some fraction other than zero.
Now again, is it expecting too much for all of an afternoon’s worth of entertainment like this to make absolute perfect sense of the world and its ills? To an extent– I’m certainly not going to expect the same kind of content from a Bond movie as I would from a Le Carre story, any more than I would expect a Sergio Leone flick to have as much to do with the “real” West as something like “Deadwood”. Any genre can have multiple interpretations– a serious spy or a high-concept action adventure– but I don’t hold one superior to the other just because it ups the realism or conventional drama over spectacle. And I don’t begrudge anyone finding enough value in pure aesthetic entertainment flicks like these enough to stick up for them in the face of even the slightest percieved criticism, either (though I wish the favor were returned a little more often). But most if not all of what others have been touting in this particular Bond I’d already found myself in the previous recent entries– I’d easily put “Casino Royale” on a top-five list for the series, but this? It stays the course, but it doesn’t alter it.