James Bond – Skyfall

Yes, I finally got round to seeing it something like six weeks after release. Was it worth the wait…?

James Bond – Skyfall

“Where the hell have you been?”

Plot-in-a-nutshell – Bond comes “back from the dead” to hunt down a terrorist who’s exposing undercover secret agents

See it if you like – the Bond films, particularly the old ones. But also the Bourne stuff.

In the weeks since it came out, I’d heard so much about Skyfall. “Best Bond film ever”, “Highest grossing British film of all time” and so on. So expectations were high and that’s never good news for a film as it has so much to lose when you finally sit down to watch it.

I have to admit, I didn’t find it as good as other people seem to have. However, that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. It was slow and ploddy in places – more of a “taught thriller” than the overblown action films we’d come to expect of Bond, but that’s obviously very deliberate.

Skyfall pares Bond back to the very basics. A smaller cast than usual, a tiny amount of fancy devices… in fact the whole “back from the dead” motif could be taken very literally as a rebirth for the Bond franchise which becomes more and more apparent the further through the film that you get – and which I can’t detail for fear of spoilers.

Daniel Craig is, of course, superb. One thing I love about the Bond franchise is that each new actor has brought with him his own take on the character and a change in mood – even Lazenby for his one-shot outing. Craig’s Bond is gritty, washed out, aging… and far more realistic than any version before. However, if I had to choose to have a fight with him or Dame Judy Dench‘s “M”, then I’m not sure which would would scare me the most. Dench is, as ever, the perfect foil for Craig’s character as she has been since introduced as the first female head of MI6 back in GoldenEye (yes, OK, so she started off opposite Pierce Brosnan).

I swear they pinched the plot from an episode of Spooks, but I’ll forgive them as they’ve laden it with some superb action sequences and a massive dollop of Bond nostalgia. The action isn’t as “big” as in many of the previous films. Even the opening chase sequence is tame compared to older episodes, but it goes with the franchise’s more gritty and realistic leaning or recent years. OK, so they’re still a little bit over-the-top, but nothing compared to the old days.

What made the film for me was the little threads and references that pop up from Bond lore, the reappearance of characters and memorabilia thought long-lost and – finally – some filmed sequences detailing Bond’s past. The sort of thing that fans know about, but which have never – if memory serves – been directly referenced on celluloid.

The ending was superb, I just felt it took too long to get there, even by way of some beautifully stylish moments (the fight sequence inside the darkened skyscraper was a gorgeous piece of action cinema). While I didn’t get bored as such, I could see Gillian’s attention wavering even by the first hour.

If you’ve not seen it yet, and going by the figures we were the last people in the UK to see it, then it’s definitely worth the ticket price if you’re a Bond fan. If you’re not, then it may give you a good introduction to the character. Certainly, you don’t need to have seen previous instalments in they way you did to enjoy Quantum of Solace.

I look forward to adding the DVD to the collection when it comes out, too. Definitely glad we braved the cold (and the Odeon’s incredibly hot jalapeños) to catch it.

Related articles

• 60 Second Movie Review: Skyfall (2012) (polentical.com)
• James Bond looking good at 50 years, and at 5 weeks; ‘Skyfall’ breaking records right and left (timesunion.com)
• [Review] Skyfall (2012) (supermarcey.com)