One surprising thing about Casino Royale
is how much the Bond fans loved it when the entire purpose of the film is to
show that Bond became Bond by systematically removing every human element until
he’s little more than an android. The
Daniel Craig Bond relaunch benefitted from being “of our time” so that while I
would still say those are the best two Bond films (and I’ve never been any kind
of fan) the reactions were also colored by their apparent rejection of some of
the silliness and excesses of earlier efforts.
Skyfall, though, would fit in the
mid-range of the Brosnan films, closer to straight thriller and somewhat
plausible but still lacking the focus and intensity of the first two Craig or
the better Brosnan. In fact,
Skyfall overall recycles the premise of The World
Is Not Enough with some wronged person seeking revenge on M for her
past transgressions though Skyfall combines the smart,
scheming villain and the physically damaged, violent villain into one
character. Skyfall
even repeats the device of an illegal transaction being paid through a casino
gambling debt.
And it’s that one character that’s the biggest hurdle the
film never overcomes. Despite early
claims that he can show fear like nobody, not even Bond, has seen in the end
Silva (Javier Bardem) turns out to be just another Bond evil genius complete
with lair and a barely plausible motive.
His dastardly scheme requires to-the-second timing involving numerous
people across many blocks of London needing months of elaborate preparation
just so that he can simply shoot M. Sure
he has to Make A Statement but there are more effective ways. Though the filmmakers wisely chose to omit
Silva tracking Bond towards the end they still had the Hollywood idea (even if
this is technically a British film) that hackers can do anything, even blowing
up MI6 offices in some way that makes no sense at all. The revelation that Silva was formerly with
MI6 teases us with the idea of a much more interesting film: 007 vs
006.
It’s odd that the film shares a major plot device with
The Avengers where the bad guy engineers his own capture and
is then held in a completely transparent cell while being visited by the chief
spymaster. Considering production time
there’s no way the Skyfall writers could have seen
The Avengers in time but it’s hard not to wonder if they’d
read the script, whether this was just a coincidence or if they were both
inspired by something else that escapes my memory.
But Skyfall mostly runs on these
ramshackle ideas much like the series always has. I suppose the point of Bond’s fake death at
the opening is to establish that he’s burned out because another agent was
killed or because he’s after a MacGuffin or because uh just because. You have to wonder why a fabulously wealthy
crook would want a dusty, dirty deserted island – at least previous Bond
villains hired enough henchmen to clean up a bit. (Not to mention that a faked disaster that
sends everybody off the island will attract vastly more attention not less.) Why is Bond given a 1950s-style tracker that
he has to turn on? This is the 21st
century so it would make more sense to give him a permanent subcutaneous
device. We’re asked to believe that Bond
of all people will store his old car but has not a single emergency pouch of
weapons and supplies anywhere. After all
he didn’t just walk out of that river at the beginning of the film and then
swim over to the tropical island. If
Silva is such a threat why send just one agent, especially one of dubious
ability.
And is this the place to point out that 2012 is a bit late
in the day to continue the long tradition of Bond misogyny? Of the three main women characters one is
killed as a game, one is killed after being hunted (during which she says she’s
bad at shooting just like any damsel) and one is literally sent to be a
secretary. Bloody hell. Even the doctor is so overwhelmed by Bond’s
manliness that she abandons various professional responsibilities and legal
duties to give him information.
I suspect that the idea behind Skyfall is
that it would be the fall and redemption of a “hero” (since Bond always seems
to me like a mercenary who just happens to be working for the good guys). Something along the lines of Frank Miller’s
Daredevil: Born Again though with less color. Or maybe that never entered anybody’s head. In any case the script is too episodic and
Bond far too blank a character (despite Craig being easily the best actual
actor to play the role) for the film to be anything more than the usual spy
outing. The Tennyson quote was a nice
touch though.