Skyfall (2012)

Introduction:

The Daniel Craig era of James Bond started out with such promise with Casino Royale. But things took a disappointing turn when Quantum of Solace ended up being less than the sum of its parts. The creators decided to switch gears a bit, and get some of the ingredients that were missing from the previous two films back into the mix. They also hired a director who is known for his character dramas, Sam Mendes. Would the gamble pay off?

Summary:

England’s top agent, James Bond (Daniel Craig) is on a mission to keep a list of undercover NATO spies from being stolen in Istanbul. Things get a little out of hand and Bond gets shot from a moving train and plummets hundreds of feet into a river. Rough day. Now M (Judi Dench) is under the gun, because the missing list is used to expose the agents and get them killed. With MPs demanding her resignation, she goes into damage control mode with some help from Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes).

Luckily Bond was knocked down, but not out. He returns from his mini vacation when he sees MI6 headquarters get attacked. He picks up the trail of terror leading him from Shanghai, to Macao and back into London itself. The mastermind is a former agent named Silva (Javier Bardem) who has a love hate relationship with M (mostly hate). Now he will go to great lengths to make her pay, and pay again. Does Bond have a chance to stop the madman before he destroys M’s reputation as well as her life?

Good Points:

• One of most beautifully filmed movies in the entire series
• Interplay between Bond and M is excellent
• We get some classic elements returned to the series

Bad Points:

• Some very familiar plot and theme elements
• This villain isn’t going to work for everyone
• The musical score may be too subtle for fans of the brassy material

Overall:

There is a lot to really like about this film, and most of that rests in the capable hands of Sam Mendes. He brings excellent character moments, wonderful visuals and some top-flight action to the film. Craig is still excellent in the role and everything here builds on the previous films and opens some new doors for the next one. While the script is a little too influenced by other popular films from other franchises, all told, this is one of the best Bond movies in the series, and definitely recommended.

Scores (out of 5)

Visuals: 5

Sound: 5

Acting: 4

Script: 4

Music: 4

Direction: 5

Entertainment: 4

Total:  4

In Depth Review

Bond noire?

After Quantum of Solace wrapped up Bond’s “origin” story, I was curious about where the creators would go next. They set up of the criminal syndicate, Quantum. Would they build on that idea and create a new SPECTRE concept? Would they maintain their very Bourne influenced trajectory? Would we have a hope in hell of seeing Q or Moneypenny in the next film?

Well Skyfall addressed all those questions definitively. Sadly, Quantum was dropped from this film, in favor of a more personal storyline for Bond and M. This doesn’t come as much of surprise given Sam Mendes specialty with character dramas. Most folks don’t remember American Beauty or Revolutionary Road for their intense action scenes or villains.

And yes, we don’t get away from the Bourne style visuals that have accompanied the Craig era. But there is a big difference here, Sam Mendes and director of photography Roger Deakins go out of their way to make this one of the most stunningly artistic looking films in the entire series. This should come as no surprise since the two have worked together since Jarhead, and they have created some amazing visuals together.

The movie has a lot of dialogue scenes, and moments where we get to soak in the surroundings. Camera angles, lighting and camera motion end up adding layers to the story, to the characters and to the themes of the story in ways that you just don’t expect in a James Bond film. The first half of Skyfall is gorgeous looking, with the cool blue neon lights of Shanghai contrasting with the rich golden hue of the floating casino in Macao. The vibrant colors add to the exotic feel of the travelogue, something that you come to expect in a Bond film, but handled so smoothly here.

Silva's coat fuses him with the dusty ruins.

The second half of the film introduces Silva, and from that moment the colors become less rich. Dirty whites, cold greys and deep shadows dominate the visual palate. The final confrontation at the Skyfall manor ends with darkness and flames, a visual hell, and one very similar to the inferno in Jarhead. London and Scotland play key roles in the second half of the film, but they are not glorified, but shown in an almost dreary de-saturated state (until the wonderful rooftop shot near the end of the film).  Simply put, this is the best looking James Bond film I’ve yet seen.

But even wonderful cinematography can’t save action scenes, right? One of my major issues with Quantum was the horribly edited action sequences. I ended up laughing in a few places because the chaos on the screen was so confusing it looked ridiculous, like someone trying way too hard. The rapid-fire Bourne influence had gone too far. Well, Skyfall dials all that back in favor of clearly orchestrated action scenes edited for maximum impact.

One of the most visually impressive scenes in the film.

Compared to the Brosnan era, where there was action around every corner, Skyfall keeps its action economical. The pre-credit chase and battle is handled well and gets things off to a great start. But my favorite action scene is the next one, where Bond goes hand to hand against a hired killer in Shanghai. The two silhouettes battling in front of the blazing blue neon is just stamped in my mind. Great stuff, and I love how the camera drifts slowly but steadily up to the combatants with few edits and a surprising fall.

After that the action scenes remain visually interesting and exciting, with a battle at the Macao casino with a surprise attack by a Komodo dragon. There’s the explosive escape and chase of Silva in London. Then there’s the final battle at the Skyfall manor where Bond, M and the old grounds keeper Kincade (Albert Finney) take on a mob of killers with a couple rifles, a knife and lots of old school traps. By this point we are invested in the survival of Bond and M, and the tension is pretty high. Mendes even throws in a huge explosion, just to remind us this is still a Bond flick.

Bond looks ready to take out some zombies.

Speaking of fireballs, the sound effects track is top notch. Explosions, gunfire and shattering glass are well synched and placed in the soundscape. They are also balanced very well, never overwhelming the dialogue and even allowing the music to make it’s mark. The Bond films rarely have any sound issues and always excel in this area.

For the music Skyfall shook up the mix. In 1997 David Arnold came on board to handle musical duties for the James Bond franchise. He took John Barry’s classic spy sound and modernized it with electronica, pulsing beats and a lot of power. The result was some of the best music in the entire series. Arnold had scored six Bond films and most film music fans were hoping for him to continue on. But director Sam Mendes has worked with composer Thomas Newman since American Beauty in 1999, and he saw no reason to drop him now.

So we get one of the most unique and atmospheric of all the James Bond film scores. The usual formula is for the composer to create a new theme for the film (at the very least, many have two or three new themes). This new theme is usually tied to the opening song. This becomes the identity of the film. It is mixed with the classic James Bond theme by Monty Norman, and you weave the two with some great action music.

Yellows, golds and reds are prominent in the Macao
casino scene.

Newman goes a different direction. He takes Monty Norman’s theme, and John Barry’s arrangement of the theme as a starting point. Then he uses elements of the theme in a deconstructed form. Or maybe he only uses the rhythm of the theme. Then he unleashes a full guitar version of the theme. Then he goes back to a simplified version that is barely recognizable as the Bond theme. It’s all very subtle but very interesting as well. Nearly every track is based on the James Bond theme in some way. He only uses the tune to the opening song Skyfall once, for a wonderful scene where Bond arrives at the golden casino. Check out a sample here. But other than that, the score ranges from intense action music (with some surprising electronics) to very quiet scenes of tension.

The opening theme song performed by Adele is a good one, fitting well into the classic brassy mold made popular by Shirley Bassey in Goldfinger. It’s a bit of a shame that Newman doesn’t do too much with it in his score. At the same time the song is very much rooted in the same sound as the James Bond theme. So it feels right at home with the rest of the soundtrack.

Skyfall boils down to the story of three lead characters, James Bond, M and Silva. As such, all three actors need to provide some good performances to make the whole film work. Daniel Craig has never slacked in his performance as James Bond, and here he gets plenty to work with. M essentially tells a fellow agent, Eve (Naomie Harris), to take a risky shot at the data thief as Bond is fighting him on top of a moving train. Bond sees this as M doubting his abilities and willing to loose him if the stakes are high enough. But it seems that Bond comes to accept this as a fact of his job. His life is always on the line as a 00 agent, and M always has the final call. Feelings shouldn’t get in the way. Craig plays this all very close, but his eyes tell us all we need to know.

M reflects on the toll her job takes.

Judi Dench has been a wonderful addition to the James Bond cast from since her appearance in Goldeneye. Her tough no-nonsense demeanor has always had an underlying hint of affection for Bond. When Craig came on board for the reboot, this dynamic shifted a little bit turning her into more than just a boss, but also a mentor. Skyfall gives Dench her juiciest role in the franchise since her key part in The World is Not Enough. Not only do we see her under the extreme pressure in her role as head of MI6, but we also see the toll her job has taken on her and the affect that seeing Silva’s rage has on her. Dench does a great job.

I’m a bit torn on Bardem as Silva. On the one hand, I see what they were trying to do with the character. His fury at M and her betrayal has poisoned the man deeply. Contrasting his response and Bond’s response to similar situations is an interesting game. But Bardem adds a deeper level of crazy over the whole thing. It feels a bit too much, more like a made for TV serial killer than the more realistic adversaries we’ve seen in the previous two films. But at the same time, this is a James Bond film and have a good villain is what makes the whole thing fun. I’m just not sure if the performance matches the overall tone of the film. It just feels slightly off. Contrast this performance to Sean Bean’s colder but equally angry performance in Goldeneye and I think we get a better idea of what a rogue ex-agent is really like.

The dead are a price M has to pay for.

That brings me to the other weak point of the film. There is some very obvious borrowing of plot elements in Skyfall. Some of this is intentional. This film was released on the 50^th anniversary of the James Bond film franchise. Instead of going the more obvious route that Die Another Day took with working references from each Bond film into the new offering, in this case they were much more subtle about it. Things like M writing Bond’s obituary was taken from You Only Live Twice. Having a sequence on a train in Istanbul connects us to From Russia with Love. Even the casino in Macao is a nod back to The Man with the Golden Gun.

But the film that seems to have the biggest influence on Skyfall is actually Goldeneye. There’s an obvious call back when Q (Ben Whishaw) actually mentions the explosive pen from that movie. But there is also a more subtle thematic borrowing from the 1995 film: the idea of James Bond being an old fashioned, out of touch relic. This same concept was put (in blunt poetics) by M in Goldeneye – “… I think you’re a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the cold war…” In the older film, Bond had to prove that even his “old fashioned” techniques were up to the task in a new game where Cold War rules didn’t apply. It put him against a former agent, 006, who became disillusioned with M16 and decided to take his revenge on the country he served.

Q finds himself out maneuvered.

Skyfall follows the same lines, but in this case, Bond is no longer tied to the cold war. He is tied to the physical world, instead of technological one. In this film he is outmoded by Q and the superior technical prowess of his enemy (another former agent who has turned against the country he served). The twist here is that M is now firmly on Bond’s side, tied to his “old fashioned” way of handling problems. In fact the main theme (one that isn’t subtle in the least) is that “sometimes the old ways are best”. Bond’s use of physical violence, old fashioned tailing and observing, and going directly after a targer are what end up saving the day. All the technological marvels that Q uses end up causing more damage. But the simple radio device that Bond uses actually works the way it is supposed to. The final battle is finished with a knife, not a high tech gadget. It’s an interesting expansion of Goldeneye’s basic premise.

"We've caught you at last Loki, I mean Harrison,
I mean Silva."

But there are a few things I’m less fond of. The film works wonderfully in it’s first half, creating an interesting build of suspense, action and thrills. But once we meet Silva, the movie seems to lose its grip a bit. Part of it is Bardem’s performance, but there is also a very familiar vibe to the whole basic plot. Silva allows himself to be captured, then escapes as part of a master plan to unleash even more havoc. Sound familiar? Well if you’ve seen Dark Knight or The Avengers or even Star Trek into Darkness well you’ve seen this plot twist already.

Now in James Bond flicks I’m willing to suspend disbelief, it is part of what makes them fun. But Skyfall and all the Craig films are very serious, very realistic and therefore don’t go for that full-blown fantasy feel that we see in the previous Bond films. Even Dalton’s movies had a bit more fun in them than the Craig films seem to. So when you have the villain execute a plot that is so improbable and depends on so many things to occur just perfectly for it to work – well that wouldn’t stand out in a Brosnan, Moore or Connery film. But here, it does end up looking ridiculous. Luckily the finale scenes at the Skyfall manor bring things back to earth (for the most part) and it makes for a fine ending.

Bond pulls a Batman over the city of London.

The misstep is really not much of an issue in the long run. Skyfall is a very entertaining film. It’s got some great one liners, dry humor and the inclusion of Moneypenny and Q makes this the first Craig era film that really feels like the beginnings of the story is complete. We can now jump into a full-blown Bond adventure with Craig as the fully formed hero. In the final analysis I think I like Casino Royale a little bit more, but Skyfall is a close runner up and certainly shows us that Mendes can deliver an excellent James Bond film. I’m looking forward to what he comes up with next. But please, lets leave the Nolan Batman inspirations aside for now.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

Introduction

Looking back at previous actor's second stab at the role of James Bond something is revealed. You can see how the tone would flow into the rest of their films. From Russia With Love gave us the beginnings of all the elements that would coalesce in Goldfinger. Roger Moore's Man with the Golden Gun focused more on humor than thrills. Pierce Brosnan appeared in Tomorrow Never Dies a movie that tries to balance thrills with comic book style action. What does Quantum show us about the direction of the Daniel Craig films?

Summary

British secret agent James Bond (Daniel Craig) has managed to get his hands on the mysterious Mr. White. White reveals that he is part of a much larger organization before all hell breaks loose and M (Judi Dench) is nearly killed. Bond loses White but is determined to find out who is pulling the strings that lead to the death of Vesper. He finds himself entangled with the lovely Camille (Olga Kurylenko) and her obsessive pursuit of Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric). What does Greene have to do with the mysterious Quantum group, and what does it have to do with buying up acres of wasteland in Bolivia? Bond finds himself hurtling from Italy to Haiti, engaging in boat chases, dangerous plane flights and of course good old-fashioned explosions to reach a Quantum of Solace.

Good Points:

• Daniel Craig and the rest of the cast are very good.
• Excellent location choices and some very good scenes showing them off.
• Ties up some of the unanswered questions from Casino Royale.

Bad Points:

• Poorly executed action scenes
• A plot moving so quickly and with so little down time that the viewer is never invested in the story or the characters.
• Really weak opening theme.

Overall:

A movie with solid groundwork ends up getting lost in the execution. As a result, the shortest of the Bond film feels like one of the longest. While the film does perform as a nice cap to Casino Royale it comes across more like an extended coda than a fully realized Bond film.

Score (out of 5)

Visual Aspects - 3

Sound Aspects - 5

Music - 3

Acting - 4

Script - 3

Direction - 2

Entertainment - 2

Final Grade: 3

In Depth Review

Not since Goldeneye has a first stab at a James Bond film really clicked with the public. Casino Royale was the type of James Bond film everyone wanted to see, and nearly everyone loved it. For the first time in a long while we got to know James Bond, got to see what made him tick, and what kind of a man he was. Sure some of the changes made things feel a bit off. People missed the gadgets, Q, Moneypenny, even some of the obvious humor. Me, not so much. I enjoyed this fresh take on 007. It was nice and gritty, a variation on what Dalton did in 87 and 89, and I enjoyed Dalton's take on the part.

So when I heard that Quantum of Solace was going to be a direct follow up to Casino Royale I was happy. I hoped they'd take what they had established in the previous film and just continue on that path. There was plenty of interesting places to go and it was obvious that Daniel Craig was up to the task. I wasn't hoping for a movie that would surpass Casino Royale. To me, that would be difficult to pull off. But I figured that if the story continued in the same style it would be a worthy follow up.

The final result was a movie that has its highest ratings in the sound and acting department, but is average or below average everywhere else. This hasn't happened in a Bond movie before to my knowledge and it reveals something interesting. Quantum of Solace ended up suffering at the hands of its creators. Let's take a look at what works and then see how it was diluted down.

All the ingredients for a excellent follow up to Casino Royale are in place. The script follows Bond as he attempts to find a line into who was the direct cause of Vesper's death. As he digs deeper into the mess, he finds out about Quantum and their plans for accumulating wealth and power. It seems that Greene is a key in those plans and the he was connected to Le Chiffre. Bond finds himself entangled in Greene's plot and a direct target for the powerful man. But Bond's cold fury isn't directed at Greene per se, he's after Vesper's old boyfriend. All the leads end up tying back to the mysterious man and Bond confronts him at the end of the film, after he's taken care of Greene.

Quantum of Solace offers a complex story, and one that requires us to feel with Bond. I'm sure it appealed to the cast, and they do an excellent job bringing the script to life. Daniel Craig is cold and hard in this film. He is focused on achieving his revenge and taking out anyone who gets in his way. His singular drive is completely revealed in his eyes and his stony demeanor. Some nice dialogue with Mathis and M helps bring out some of the finer points, but we get lots of physical cues from Craig.

Kurylenko as Camille also fits into her mold of a woman driven by revenge. Like Bond she is cold and calculating, but can turn on the charm to get what she wants. Her desire for revenge against General Medrano is convincing. When she finally achieves her desire, the emptiness of the execution and her situation engulfs her (not to mention the peril of the burning and exploding building) and we see a woman broken by getting what she wants. It's a very good performance and one that has plenty of ties back to Vesper.

Amalric is a top notch French actor with quite a impressive list of credits. So it seems a bit of a waste to cast him in the part of a sleazy and manipulative jerk, with little depth. He's a man who wants power and will do whatever he has to do to get it. His casual act of nearly pushing Camille to her death is chilling. His confident manner in bargaining with General Medrano was good as well. But when faced physically against Craig's Bond, it takes some stretching of imagination to see Greene as any type of threat. He does it well enough that you are satisfied with his exit.

Supporting cast was up to the challenge. I enjoyed seeing Giannini return as the weathered and worn Mathis. He's given a bit more to do this time around and his final scenes in the film add a good punch. Dench is excellent as M, she's fitting in perfectly with the new harder edged Bond film. Gemma Arterton has a small but key part as Fields, Bond's only female conquest in the film. She's good, but you wish she had a larger role. Cosio plays General Medrano with a cruel delight. He's the type of unstable creep you'd expect in a Bond film and he's a good opponent for Camille.

The locales for Quantum of Solace are pretty impressive. You start off in Sienna, Italy and get some great beauty shots as well as some horse race action. A foot chase is contrasted in an interesting way with the horse race, something that should have worked well but... I'm getting ahead of myself. Then it's off to Haiti for a key meeting with Greene and a boat chase. Then back to Europe with a stop in Vienna. This is an elegant setting with lots of cool blues and blacks. It includes one of the most impressive Bond settings with a modern opera going on and an enormous eye staring out into the audience. Then it's over to Bolivia for the bulk of the action. You've got a nice mix of scenes set in La Paz, the capital city and then into the wastelands of Bolivia with some serious heat coming off the screen. The movie wraps with a scene in snowy Russia. This is an excellent setting for the revelation at the end, a cool down for the heat of the previous scenes.

Most of the set work is very good. The new MI6 headquarters room is all done in cold white and glass. Sure some of the computer graphics are over the top, but we expect that in a Bond movie. I also enjoyed the desert compound in Bolivia. The interior was convincing as an actual building and it worked well once the action scene kicked in.

David Arnold comes back for his fifth turn as the composer. His score works fine with the action, delivering a score that matches the film in its distant style. There aren't too many flourishes of the Bond theme here, just lean mean pulse driving action. Some hints of Vesper's theme from Casino Royale slide in here and there and work well to tie the movies together. Of all the scores that Arnold has done, this has the least character to it. Not a bad score, but more functional than colorful.

Since Goldeneye gave us some serious explosions to rock the seats with, James Bond has not skimped in the sound department. Quantum falls right in line. The action scenes give you plenty to enjoy with bullets flying, water splashing, fire raging, explosions erupting and opera music rising. When the movie slows down enough to hear the atmospheric sounds, they add to the feature.

Now moving on to the less than stellar issues. The first is the extremely unimpressive theme song performed by Alecia Keys and written by Jack White: Another way to die. I'm not entirely averse to taking Bond themes in a new direction. I just wish that the title song was good enough to be worked into the movie score. This would not only contribute to giving the score it's own identity, but would have given the song a bit more personality. As it stands, this may be one of the most dispensable opening themes since All Time High from Moonraker. This weakness contributed to my lower music grade. The best Bond scores work the theme song and other themes into the score to create a solid musical feel for each movie. It just didn't happen here.

As for the script, there seems to be a lot of good intent here, as I pointed out above. But from the final product I don't feel like everything was addressed in a complete manner. The biggest failing is that the ending of the film does not deliver the punch that I think they were intending. It's a bit flat, feeling like a punctuation on something that never was an issue. And yet, I got the feeling that the cast knew that there was something deeper going on - so maybe the script was solid. But in the final product, it just feels less then complete.

In the end the execution of the entire film rests on the director. He guides how the movie is going to turn out, from filming up to editing and postproduction. I think what happened here was a director who was put into very different waters and was at a loss on how to proceed. Maybe there were complaints that Casino Royale was too long and didn't have enough action. So the verdict was to make a shorter film with more action.

I think that effort to streamline the complex story was the first nail in the coffin. I understand the need to keep the plot moving, but they way the movie ended up unspooling was actually a detriment to it's entertainment value. The characters, so well defined (for a Bond movie) in Casino Royale were really just flat here. Bond's motive and goals are never defined for the audience. The delivery of Greene's scheme is tossed in with such a blasé attitude that it never seems like a threat to anyone. Bond sees some thirsty people, OK, but he never seems moved by their plight. It's just as if he happens to stop Greene on his way to a bigger goal.

Then there is the action scenes. There is a current belief that the faster the cuts and the more movement in the camera the more thrilling the action scenes are. Put the audience into the action with hand held cameras and they will be on the edge of their seat. Or maybe it's because they are feeling ill because of the motion, or a just trying to figure out what is going on.

For a James Bond film (and any film where action set pieces are key) a lot of time and money goes into making action scenes as realistic as possible. The free running chase in Casino Royale was a perfect example of how to execute an exciting, action scene. It was clear what was happening at all times. It was fast paced, but not confusing. It moved the story forward and kept you guessing at how Bond was going to end up catching the guy. Compare this to the pre-credit car chase in Quantum. Fast edits show us cars moving, trucks driving. Cars dodging. Bond in danger. Bad guys with guns. Police watching the chase. Cars crashing. Bond in danger. More speed. More driving and then it's over. I had no clue who was in what car at what time, and didn't really care about it. In most of the other pre-credit sequences, we get a nice mini movie. Some of the best ones, like The World is Not Enough or The Living Daylights give us a bit of story with a key action scene. Here it's just a mish mash of sound and fury with a slightly funny one liner at the end.

All the action scenes suffer from this. There is no clarity here and it only makes things boring or worse, funny. The boat chase in Quantum is a perfect example. It was fast and wet and there was some kind of action going on. But I have no clue how Bond got out of it. There was an anchor and he threw it and then the boat was gone. It made me laugh. I suppose he used the enemy's anchor, but it looked like it was his own. In any case, it wasn't as thrilling as I think they hoped it would be.

For me this Bond film just didn't really meet the requirements to keep me entertained. It was fast and noisy, but other than that, it never really engaged me on any level. It was nice to see the characters again, but the execution of the story and the mismanagement of the action scenes made the movie feel so much longer than it was. It's a shame really, because there is a lot to like here, but I really think this movie could use another longer edit with better work in the action editing and you'd have a worthy follow up to Casino Royale. As it stands now, it's probably the weakest Bond film since Octopussy, something I never thought would happen during Daniel Craig's tenor as Bond. It made me appreciate the skills of a solid action director (like Martin Campbell - Goldeneye and Casino Royal and John Glen The Living Daylights, For Your Eyes Only) brought to these films. Well, it can only get better from here.