James Bond turns 50 this year (not counting his seven-year gestation from book to film). The secret agent with a license to kill burst on the screen in 1962 to do battle with the eponymous Dr. No. The franchise has spawned 25 films, with seven actors playing the debonair agent and all of them highlighting Bond’s penchant for high-tech gadgets, droll humor, stylized bloodless fisticuffs, and trademark martinis (“shaken, not stirred”).
In Skyfall Bond is beginning to show his age. Daniel Craig entered the Bond brotherhood in 2006 as a Bond for the 21st century: darker, earthier, and more of a man’s man than a lady’s man. Now his eyes are bloodshot, his beard is grizzled, and his ears have grown to batlike proportions (more on that later). In Skyfall, acknowledging the franchise's aging becomes a running theme.
This is a Bond who has to work harder and sweat more. His hands slip as he hangs on tightly to the bottom of an elevator carrying an enemy assassin to his lair. His eyesight isn’t as sure as it used to be when he aims at a target. He feels his muscles aging — and he doesn’t like it, not one bit. But he faces it with his familiar witty one-liners, and his core fans don’t mind; after all, we’re aging too, and we’re hanging on just as tightly to our youth and our physical vitality.
As Bond walks through the halls of MI6 with head of Foreign Intelligence Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), Mallory says of the spy business, “It’s a younger man’s game.” As they pass a painting of ships in a harbor, he notes nostalgically: “It always makes me a bit melancholy: the grand old war ship being hauled away for scrap.” His point is clear: Bond’s days an agent might be numbered.
Among the cast of “young new gamers” is a new Q (Ben Whishaw), the quartermaster who provides Bond with his arsenal of tricky weapons in every new film. Serendipitously, each weapon turns out to be exactly what he needs to save the day in the ensuing scenes — kind of a deus ex machina in advance. When Bond looks quizzically at the two simple devices he is given this time, Q shrugs as much for the audience as for Bond. “What?” he asks. “Were you expecting an exploding pen? We don’t really go in for that any more.”
This is one of the best Bond films ever, and not just because of the heart-pounding chase scenes (motorcycles on rooftops!), exotic settings (Shanghai's skyline at night; a futuristic abandoned city on an island in an Asian sea; the haunting moors of Scotland), and inventive deaths (by komodo dragon, for example). The plot of Skyfall is tight and easy to follow, taking the audience from one suspenseful scene to the next. An enemy agent has stolen a hard drive that contains the names of all the British agents and their operatives worldwide. If the list is not recovered before it is handed over to the mastermind, all of those agents will be killed.
That’s all you need to know. The rest is a romp among well choreographed martial arts, unexpected villains, and beautiful but disposable Bond girls. Of course, the mastermind (Javier Bardem) has a physical grotesquery and a personal vendetta against MI6, as all good Bond villains have. Bardem plays his character's eccentricity to the hilt, balancing just on the precipice of clownishness without falling over the edge.
Most of all, what makes this film stand out from the rest is that it gives us a rare glimpse into the background of this suave, sophisticated, sardonic, and secretive super agent. I won't give away too much, but I will say that Bond has a hint of the Batman in him, and “skyfall”is Bond's “rosebud.” Moreover, Bond fanatics will enjoy watching for the numerous Easter eggs hidden throughout the film, but I won't reveal them here. (Trivia sleuths will also enjoy noticing M's magically appearing and disappearing coat and scarf….)
In a moment of 21st century reflection, M (Judi Dench) observes, “Our enemies are no longer known to us. They aren’t nations. Our enemies are opaque — in the shadows.” So, apparently, are our heroes. This film shines a flashlight into those shadows, revealing secrets about Bond, M, Q, and other beloved staples of the series to create a rich and satisfying film.
