The more I think about Skyfall the more I hate it.
Its such a massive backstep for the series that I don't quite understand how it happened or why. Or how someone as talented as Sam Mendes got mixed up in it all. I need to try and figure it out and bleat about it for a bit.
- If your story focuses on the bad guy, you'd better make him formidable and super bad.
Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace were about Bond. They began a story arc that Skyfall for some reason breaks with. What we have in Skyfall is a standalone villain of the week piece with Javier Bardem at its centre. Now, I don't understand the logic of breaking with the story arc established in the first two films save for giving the franchise legs. However, the break would have been ok if the reason was they'd come up with this incredible villain that justified it. But they haven't. Javier Bardem is a great actor and I think he does his best with a badly written part, but he's just not that interesting. What we needed was Darth Vader or Hannibal Lecter. What we get is David Walliams in a wig loaded with abandonment issues.
Our first inkling of what to expect from the character is fed to us by one of Bardem's flunkies in the casino. She's terrified of this character we know nothing about. Literally shaking terrified. You don't know fear she says to Bond or words to that effect. Brilliant. He must be a proper balls-out psycho. But no. Bardem does nothing even remotely menacing for the entire running time of the film. He's a Mummy's boy sucking his thumb. There are five specific things in the story that are meant to illustrate how scary a guy he is. 1) We're told he's scary. 2) When we meet him he makes a partly creepy speech about rats eating each other. 3) He shoots one woman. 4) He is disfigured (how old school!). 5) He wants to get a bit sweaty with Bond.
None of that makes him the least bit menacing. It never felt like Bond was in danger, it felt like Bond would give him an absolute kicking if he could. Basically he's supposed to be scary because he's deformed and he's gay. Nice work script writers. Nice work.
- All the familiar old bullshit is back.
Casino Royale was brilliant. It was pitch perfect. The Bond franchise was a ridiculous dinosaur that could not continue because it was shit. Jason Bourne came along and the right people realised that Bond could not go on as he was in a post Bourne world. So they rebooted him and somehow the stars aligned. They managed to take the visceral grittiness of Bourne and marry it with the glamour and coolness of Bond. This is looking like a more and more impressive achievement all the time. Then we had Quantum of Solace. It wasn't great, but the action was still visceral and the story arc set up in the first film was nicely continued. It was dark, humourless, but it had to be, Bond had fallen in love, been fucked over by his love, watched her die, and found out she was being controlled by a mysterious organisation that orchestrated it all. That's not going to make anyone sing the hills are alive. But it was ok because it felt like the middle film of a trilogy. We knew we'd get there in the end, the Bond of Casino Royale would return, smarter and wiser and would wreak his revenge.
But it looks like the producers lost their nerve after Quantum came in for criticism. So what we've been given is another reboot. Out is the grittiness and the visceral stomach churning action. Back is the ridiculous action (CGI motorbike chase on Istanbul tiled roofs?, killer Komodo dragons?, a tube train plunging through a ceiling as a getaway diversion?) , the misogyny, the double entendrees, fucking Q branch, gadgets, unfunny one liners, and Miss Moneypenny. They've even thrown in the old Aston Martin for good measure for fucks sake. All of this is good for nostalgia's sake but for no other reason. Casino Royale reinvented Bond and made it relevant again. Skyfall uninvents the new Bond and goes back in time a couple of decades. We're back in Moore and Brosnan territory. Daniel Craig is still great, this plot is not.
- Needless back story
Bond has no need of a back story. His character does not need to be explained. But here he goes home to the family pile and we learn more about him being an orphan. Its unnecessary. We have Albert Finney as an old gameskeeper for no good reason. He doesn't need to be in the film. The important thing is the relationship between M and Bond, and that's already been set up. It doesn't need drumming home that M is his surrogate Mum because he was orphaned.
- Weak women
Casino Royale had a Bond girl that was smart as a whip. Quantum had a Bond girl that was tough as nails. Bond was misogynistic but was shown up for it. We weren't meant to be sympathetic to his misogyny. In Skyfall we have a prostitute who Bond climbs into a shower with uninvited, and a field agent who should really accept she's better off as a secretary and is there just as a foil for Bond's double entendres. This is an unsettling reversal, we're back to being sympathetic with his misogyny. I get that M is the real Bond girl of this film, but her relationship with Bond and her demise felt forced. The M in the previous films didn't need taking care of by Bond. She was in control of the situation. Now she's just vulnerable and needs him to protect her in some Oedipal nightmare.
In conclusion, I didn't enjoy it and if its a sign of a new direction for the series I've lost interest.
