Review: Skyfall (2012)

[major_clanger]

Is Skyfall the best Bond film ever? I wouldn't say that, as it's too dependent on what your definition of a really good Bond film is. But it's certainly one of the best, and completes the task begun by Casino Royale of both rebooting Bond and the same time coming full circle back towards the tone of the best of the Connery-era films.


I particularly liked:

• the way that events and characters converge to bring us back in the final scene to the classic old-style setup of Bond being briefed by M in M's traditional office, Miss Moneypenny (albeit a postmodern interpretation).
• the return of the classic Aston-Martin DB5 - and the way its destruction is what really gets Bond angry.
• the nice development of Mallory from seeming bureaucratic outsider to being revealed to be not only fully behind Bond but someone Bond can respect on his own terms.
• the battle at Skyfall Lodge; it's a nice inversion of the usual Bond finale, in that Bond is defending a stronghold.

Bits to quibble about:

• The MacGuffin: if there was a combined list of NATO nations' covert agents - and that sort of intelligence is almost invariably material no nation shares with another - it would not be on a laptop drive somewhere.
• The tube train Silva tries to drop on Bond is conveniently and unbelievably empty for the Circle/District line!
• Silva's plans are not just baroque but rely on members of MI6 - an organisation he hasn't worked for in years - doing exactly as he plans all the way through. (I'm willing to wave this past under Dramatic Licence.)
• The DB5. It's clearly the Q-branch special from Goldfinger, complete with passenger ejection seat and hidden machine guns. But as this is the reboot continuity, where did it come from? On its own, it could be taken as confirming the fan theory that 'James Bond' is a cover identity, that Judi Dench is playing the same M as in the pre-reboot films, and that this is the same car as driven by First Bond. (Well, the first one we know of). But the whole Skyfall plot of the film makes it clear that Daniel Craig's character is, and grew up as, James Bond. Now, Craig's Bond would be quite justified in having a DB5, as we saw him win one in Casino Royale. But that wasn't, as far as we know, the tricked-out version. Bond having the Goldfinger DB5 is great fun as a plot device, but not for this film's plot.