Skyfall

Whilst the critical backlash against Quantum of Solace has increased exponentially over a time, the filmmakers still recognised at the time that they would need to make a significant impact with the next film in the series to regain the loyalty of the audience. Even though the finished product, Skyfall, is one of the best in the canon simply through craftsmanship alone, it was also aided by cultural serendipity at the time of its release, where it was able to harness the series' 50th anniversary and the London 2012 Olympics, with the film having a greater proportion of scenes taking place in the UK than the norm. Upon release, it became the highest grossing film in the UK at the time, raking in $103.2 million (not bettered by its sequel, Spectre at $95.2 million, but a fair bit behind the current title holder The Force Awakens at $123.2 million). 

But as said, the success of the film cannot simply be laid at the feet of the zeitgeist at the time. Instead, the missteps of Quantum of Solace seemed to encourage the creative team to sharpen their minds to make a Bond film which dared to move forward, whilst also acknowledging the heritage that allowed it to push on with forward momentum. 

Central to this forward momentum was the conscious effort of the filmmakers to run an alien concept through this Bond film: "theme." Most, if not all the preceding films have put plot and action at the forefront, with character development and theme being absent or barely a footnote to proceedings. For Skyfall the themes are as clear day: the march of time and encroachment of old age and obsolescence, family, and the trust we put in those family members, and the betrayal we feel when those same relatives are unable to meet our (lofty) expectations. A few of the lines in the film are a little bit too on the nose and meta upon repeat viewing  (particularly regarding frequent acknowledgements that not only is Bond potentially past it in the narrative of the film, but after 50 years, audiences may start asking whether Bond has a place at our cineplexes) but this is innovation on par with invention of the wheel in for a series which otherwise was often content to simply send adrenaline rushes, rather than tug on the heartstrings or fire off your cerebral synapses. 

The themes are thoroughly interwoven through the central conflict of the film between Bond, M, and Javier Bardem's Joker-esque Raoul Silva. M is made the clear mother figure of these two lost boys, as we learn that MI6 had a penchant for swooping up orphans for training, setting them up for a life of danger, diabolical schemes, and death. The motive of chief agitator Silva emphasises the theme of betrayal, when he, somewhat rightfully, sees M's abandonment of him to the Chinese, and the resultant torture he endures, whilst still maintaining her secrets (this plot development is also echoes back to Die Another Day, where we see Bond undergo a similar indignity at the hands of North Korea, as a result of M following the letter of the law - and yet, unlike Silva, he does not descend into villainy). Bond also undergoes his moment of betrayal, in the jaw-dropping pre-title credit scene, when M orders Agent Eve to take a risky shot, knowing there is a high likelihood that Bond will be hit rather than the enemy. M calculates the odds, and decides the shot is worth taking on the chance that Bond is unable to complete the mission without her godly intervention. She is wrong, and Bond is sent plummeting off a moving train, and into the murky depths of a running river, which finally pools out into the first Bond song to win an Oscar - Adele's magnificent Skyfall (the score throughout the film is also great, with Thomas Newman taking on scoring duties, rather than previous series stalwart David Arnold). 

This thematic resonance provides a sturdy framework for director Sam Mendes to construct his plot around, the finer details of which are a little less rigid that the theme. The first third of the movie is a nifty remix of classic Bond. Here Bond gets his new assignment, but rather than a simple debriefing from M, Bond is out of shape following his recent near death experience. The Bond that Daniel Craig plays in Skyfall, is not a Bond who is 3 missions in. You get the impression that a significant period of time has passed between the events of Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. In that time, Bond has been on many a daring escapade, probably loved and lost countless times (although, importantly, none of which would have come close to driving back the shadow of grief that the death of Vesper inflicted upon him). And it isn't just Bond who is having his competency questioned, as M too is nearing the end of her career, with Ralph Fiennes' Gareth Mallory looking to phase her out after the bungling of the pre-credit mission. And it is in this moment of desperation, that M betrays Bond a further time: rubber stamping his medicals to get him back out onto the field. Is this the cold movement of a higher up simply sending a man out to die in some desperate and vain attempt to claw back a victory? Or is this a mother's attempt to shield her child from bad news, and present him a world with rose-tinted glasses? Here, the view being that Bond is not past his prime. Cannily the film never divulges, and never provides an easy out by portraying M as either simply cold hearted, or purely benevolent. 

The first third of the film also encompasses a stunningly shot brawl between Bond and assassin Patrice, with each simply shot in silhouette, occasionally made visible by gunfire, which also manages to push forward the themes of the film. This is Bond's first major encounter after his "rebirth," and whilst we know Bond can't die, this obscuring adds a modicum of doubt before Bond's inevitable victory. This scene also marks the first instance of the primary issue with the film, that spools out in a much more noticeable way come the mid point. For now, all I will say is this: if Bond doesn't interrupt Patrice's mission, and is killed by Patrice, Silva's plot entirely fails. 

From this brawl, Craig seemingly steps into a set piece lifted from the Roger Moore era - replete with unsavoury sexual politics, and the more palatable sight of Bond evading a death trap involving an exotic animal (here, komodo dragons). This is the scene at the the floating casino in Macau, gloriously shot and framed by cinematographer Roger Deakins (pre-Spectre, this was easily the most visually impressive Bond flick). Here, Naomi Harris' Eve gets some further field work. Whilst the dialogue between Bond and her is a bit too incessantly banterish for my liking, it is in keeping with the true identify of Eve - namely Eve Moneypenny, who always spoke to Bond through office banter (read: "put up with sexual harassment until the 90s"). 

More troubling is Bond's encounter with Silva's mistress, Severine, played with brittle intensity by Berenice Marlohe. Bond learns that she was a victim of the Macau child sex trade, and deduces that her master was likely the person who got her out of that life, but now imposes his own physical and sexual abuse upon her. Bond makes the fatal mistake of offering to help her leave this new hell, if she gets him to her captor so he can kill him. When Bond offers to help a damsel in distress, it either goes one of two ways: if she is the sole Bond girl (a phrase which a recently learnt has been officially changed into the far more suitable title "Bond Woman" through production of No Time to Die) of the film, she will likely survive. If, on the other hand, there is another Bond woman, waiting in the wings, she's dead meat. In Severine's case, M is waiting to take the lead as the Bond woman for the rest of the film (of course, the relationship between her and Bond is not the "classic" Bond relationship with at Bond woman...), and as such Severine must die. But not before we have Bond naked sneak up on her in her shower, presumably mere hours after he had learnt that she was the victim of child abuse. Her cruel death only magnifies this uncfortable handling of this character, with that death coming at the at the hands of Silva. However, what really leaves a bad taste in the mouth is Bond's reaction to that death, when a shot glass full of scotch falls from her head after being shot,  ("A waste of good scotch"), seems out of place, and uncharacteristically cruel for this version of Bond, particularly in light of the traumatic history that Bond knows of Severine. 

Still, the man who pulls the trigger leading to that death, Mr Raoul Silva, manages to cement his place as a top tier villain in the series, credentials confirmed simply from his opening monologue - a long one take of him recounting rats being taught to eat other rats - and subsequent psychological and almost sexual dismantling of Bond. Silva, joyously played by Javier Bardem, charges a cavalcade of chaos through the remainder of the film, and manages to tie with the lift that drowned Vesper, and Irma Bunt in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, as the adversaries who have done the most damage to Bond. For, in a first for the series, Skyfall is the movie where Bond actually fails. Yes, by the end Silva does not know that M will shortly be joining him in death, therefore completing his ultimate goal, but she dies nonetheless, a victim of a bullet from a random thug. 

The impact of M's death works not only through the strength of writing of her character in Skyfall, but also on the back's of Judi Dench's previous appearances as the matriarch, starting with Goldeneye. M dying in the arms of her "child," Bond, her final words that she knows she got one thing right (him), pinpoints the heart of the Bond series that the majority of the films seem to miss or not even bother to aim for. Ralph Fiennes stepping in as the new M by the end of the film had big boots to fill. 

How Silva gets to this victory, well that's a little less poetic and elegant, and more like a spaghetti junction of serendipitous coincidences that have to go exactly right, failing which his grand scheme falls down. They have to go so right to the point of being able to time an escape on foot to that of a passing train in the London Underground, so that Silva may detonate an explosive as said train passes to cover his escape. The plot trope of "the bad guy secretly wants the heroes to catch him in order for him to launch a surprise strike at their heart" was probably most successfully put to screen in The Dark Knight, where Joker manages this manoeuvre with aplomb (it should be noted that we can't even say that this trope was fresh in 2008, with Hannibal Lecter pulling a similar jail escape in 1991's The Silence of the Lambs). 

Subsequent to The Dark Knight, we had the first Avengers' film pulling the same trick, and then even after Skyfall repeated it, Star Trek: Into Darkness wants one more stab at it. On first viewing of Skyfall, you may not take into account all the precise minutia that had to go right to get Silva to be able to ambush M at the enquiry but on repeating viewings they will stand out like a sore thumb (conversely, and I will die on this hill if I have to, I don't believe that Joker's plan in The Dark Knight suffers from this as every primary outcome of his plot [Batman kills Joker, Joker kills Two-Face, or Joker gets imprisoned] results in a win for Joker). The payoff of this rote and clumsy bit of plotting is thematically worth it (Bond running through London, whilst M recites Tennyson gives me chills) the particulars to get to that point are less satisfying (also by at the end of act two the instigating incident - the stolen hard-drive identifying undercover agents has been completely dropped from proceedings never to be thought of again). 

However, this tangle and resolution in act two of Silva's primary plot, allows the third act to have laser sharp focus, relegating it to one setting: the Bond family estate, named Skyfall, situated in the Scottish highlands. The conflict is clear, the personal relationships between our three primary characters is well-established, simply let Bond and M (and groundskeeper Kincade, played by Albert Finney) simmer in anticipation of the coming storm that is Silva. Here the film smartly inverts the franchise trope of Bond assaulting the villain's lair - here, they assault his. The action here is punchy, and again gloriously shot, often bathed in underworld like blues, before the cataclysmic destruction of Skyfall that paints the surrounds in apocalyptic reds and oranges. The only thing missing from this final set piece is that I would've liked a physical altercation between Bond and Silva, as rarely is Bond allowed to go toe-to-toe with the primary villain on account of them often being as physically threatening as a piece of damp lettuce. 

And so, with M dead, the film gets an epilogue which works as a miniature reboot of the series - with a new M, Moneypenny and Q (much more on him in the forthcoming Spectre review where he gets his chance to shine) standing alongside a reinvigorated and renewed Bond, ready to get back to work.