Skyfall (Film Review)
In which Sam Mendes assembles a stellar cast as the franchise turns fifty, and I'm sorry, Sean Connery, that's settled it. I was already wavering before, but now I'm certain. Craig!Bond is my favourite. (Well, other than Bashir, Julian Bashir, of course.)
Now, usually I would build up to this, but in this case there's no point because I'll come back to it repeatedly anyway. As mentioned in a previous entry, I had a bad feeling this might be the end of Dench!M ever since reading the article about Judi Dench's increasing eyesight problem. And the existence of Ralph Fiennes' character settled it; there would have been no point to Mallory being in the film at all if it weren't to make him the next M at the end. (Well, I suppose he could have been a secondary villain plotting with Silva, but that would have been boring and also pointless.) Since we don't get a name for Naomi Harris for the longest time and yet she gets ample screentime (much more than Mallory, in fact) and characterisation, I had a moment where I went wild and wondered whether she might not be the next M as a surprise, but then thought, no, self, no way, she's too young. However, the Eve Moneypenny revelation at the end added with the fact that after first being an excellent fiield agent and then switching to administration as Mallory's right hand woman made me decide that clearly, she's destined to be a future M. (Maybe taking over from Mallory after clocking some years of desk work.) Casino Royale had Bond making an offhand remark about M's actual name containing an M and Mallory's obviously starting with one, this would even make for neat continuity in this regard. Also, her relationship with Bond starts by her shooting him in the course of duty and later saving his life, and while she enjoys bantering with him she doesn't let him get away with anything, which fits with the M tradition beautifully. In any case, Naomie Harris as a regular player from this film onwards is some balm on my wounded heart.
But, you know: if Judi Dench!M had to leave us, this was the way to do it. By making the Bond/M relationship heart, front and center of the story. By making the film's supervillain not plotting for world demise (or the end of Britain), though he's fine with colleteral damage, but for her demise and destruction. The idea of a former agent out for revenge for having been dropped by the service isn't new - the one and only Brosnan Bond I ever saw did it, too, and so did Alias, where it was Quentin Tarantino in one of my favourite two parters (or episodes, if we count both parts as one) on the show, among others. But it's the execution that matters, and it works very well here, with Bond and Silva being paralleled both in having sacrificed by M for the greater good and in their passion for her. Parallels between hero and villain are always good if they're skillfully done, and if you can manage a balance between similarities and where they end, since it's, err, good to remind the audience just why one of the guys isn't a supervillain. In this case, Bond isn't one because he gets it, he gets M by now as much as she gets him, and the idea of the service. Which isn't to say that he's not hurt as hell at the start. One thing Casino Royale, where Bond was still a work in progress, did really well was to establisht hat Craig!Bond is both a dangerous killer (not something you really believe of all the other Bonds - Connery sometimes, Dalton sometimes, but not the others) and a vulnerable human being. And if Vesper's (enforced) betrayal and death were terrible, the reality of M making that choice (and hearing her make it, and knowing, as he later says, that she didn't believe he could finish the job on his own) shatters him. In a franchise that trades on having handsome actors playing the main character as much as it trades on the beautiful actresses for each film, showing Bond looking shaken, older and an allround mess as a result and only getting back into shape bit by bit (starting, not so coincidentally, when M says she believes he's ready) was a good choice. The two archetypes of spy stories in the 20th century were always Bond on the one end and John Le Carré's morally ambiguous run down and exhausted spies on the other. (One reason why Le Carré was initially sceptical about the news that Richard Burton would be playing the lead in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold was that he thought Burton, whom he'd last seen in Look back in Anger, looked too good. Then he saw the rushes of Burton looking every inch the way you do after years of alcoholism and a generally tempestous life and was fine with it.) Daniel Craig is the only one of the Bond actors whom you can imagine also acting in a Le Carré story.
Rather fittingly, Judi Dench's M here becomes what she was already indicated as being in the two previous films, but never with so much screen time as in this one: a sister to Smiley or Spooks' Harry, with a life time of terrible (terrible not in the sense of bad, in the sense of hard with no good alternative) choices, emotional exhaustion but an iron core conviction as to why she's doing what she does, and the grace and stoic bravery to see it through to the end. Judi Dench is always good but here she shines particularly, whether she's biting ("well, you can't sleep here"), cold, passionate (before the committee, and btw, that speech was as much an argument as to why there should still be spy movies in the computer age as anything else, neatly done, scriptwriters; also, clever way of telling us what became of M's husband who was glimpsed in the background of one scene in Casino Royale) or elegic. All the scenes between her and Bond are gold, but the one where she doesn't apologize (because she stands by her choices and would do it again) but asks him whether he's read the obituary she's written for him, and their wry exchange after that, is now one of my all time favourite scenes. Says so much without spelling it out, about who these people are, in general and to each other, and is so much better than if we'd gotten something like a hug or, British stoicism beware, mutual assurances of affection.
Not that the film, or yours truly, is anti gestures per se where a spymaster and her spy, both lethal, are concerned. I mean. In the end, he kissed her. On the forehead, which was just right (feels more respectful for these particular two people in this particular dying situation), but it was the perfect way to say goodbye, and here I was, gulping like a twelve years old for bloody Bond and M, who'd ever have thought it. And despite of what I thought when fretting in advance about the potential demise of M, I won't go back to the Brosnan films I haven't watched to get more Dench!M. Because it's the combination of this particular Bond with this particular M that's so infinitely compelling.
Other observations: the scene where I first thought, Oh No, Sam Mendes And Scriptwriters, No, Not This Homophobic Cliché and then was instead impressed by the twist: obviously the Silva-interrogates-Bond one. It starts like said homophobic cliché, with the camp villain threatening Our Hero with gay sex. And then Bond says "what makes you think it's my first time?" (having sex with a man), isn't threatened at all, and Silva immediately stops, disappointed, and switches gear, so to speak, to non physical threats. Thereby making it clear to the audience that a) the threat was, as 99% rape threats and actual rapes, about power, not orientation of the threatening party, b) well, if you want your Bond 100% heterosexual, you can assume he was bluffing, but Silva clearly didn't think he was, and Craig didn't play it that way, either. Therefore: Bisexual Bond = canon. (For Craig!Bond anyway, and I do remember that interview some years ago where Daniel Craig, approvingly citing the Ninth Doctor/Jack Harkness kiss scene his mate Christopher Ecclestone was involved with, said he'd absolutely be up for a Bond boy.)
Ben Wishaw as the new Q: looked fifteen years younger here than he did as Richard II recently in The Hollow Crown and had a nice quipping raport with Bond, though not, I thought, a slashy one, not that will or should stopp anyone from slashing them.
Because it's the 50th anniversary film, we get several treats, both in terms of the Bond films and the original Fleming novels. The names of Bond's parents are indeed those given in the novel, in You Only Live Twice, to be precise, in the obituary (male) M writes for Bond there - which is also where the "example of British fortitude" phrase is from; I thought they'd go with that part of the novel backstory for Bond when Vesper in Casino Royale correctly deduces he's an orphan, but it's nice to know for sure. Q's remark about exploding pens is an allusion to and the old gimicky Aston Martin Bond uses to take M to Scotland is of course from the 60s films, as is the hatstand next to Eve Moneypenny's desk in the final tag scene. I'm sure there are a dozen other allusions as well, to be depicted by other viewers in other reviews. :)
Obvious complaint is obvious: look, this is the third time in a row the secondary Bond girl (aka the one with only five to ten minutes screen time) dies after having had sex with James B. Look, I really appreciate the primary Bond girls in the current incarnation of the franchise and the way they get to be real characters with their own agendas, not to mention the fact Bond now can have relationships with women he doesn't go to bed with (Camille in Quantum of Solace, Eve in this one, and above and beyond and forever M, though of course I like the fanfic in which they do have sex as well), but can we please stop this trend of killing off every woman he does have on screen sex with? (If we do get an on screen Bond boy, you don't have to kill him off, either, franchise.)
Trivia thought: given that Kincade mishears Bond's introduction of M as "Emma" and addresses her with that name, I couldn't help but wonder whether Dench!M was Emma Peel (making her late husband Mr. Peel who showed up at the very end of Emma's stint in the Avengers, if I'm not mistaken). And yes, I know Diana Rigg played Tracy in In Her Majesty's Secret Service as well. I'm just saying, the crossover possibilities are there, and the age would fit.
Which brings me to: writers, get your engines going and write all the M fanfiction in the world! There is already some good stuff out there, mostly from Yuletides past, but I want more, now that we shall never see her on screen again.
Ave atque vale, regina emissarii.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/835122.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Now, usually I would build up to this, but in this case there's no point because I'll come back to it repeatedly anyway. As mentioned in a previous entry, I had a bad feeling this might be the end of Dench!M ever since reading the article about Judi Dench's increasing eyesight problem. And the existence of Ralph Fiennes' character settled it; there would have been no point to Mallory being in the film at all if it weren't to make him the next M at the end. (Well, I suppose he could have been a secondary villain plotting with Silva, but that would have been boring and also pointless.) Since we don't get a name for Naomi Harris for the longest time and yet she gets ample screentime (much more than Mallory, in fact) and characterisation, I had a moment where I went wild and wondered whether she might not be the next M as a surprise, but then thought, no, self, no way, she's too young. However, the Eve Moneypenny revelation at the end added with the fact that after first being an excellent fiield agent and then switching to administration as Mallory's right hand woman made me decide that clearly, she's destined to be a future M. (Maybe taking over from Mallory after clocking some years of desk work.) Casino Royale had Bond making an offhand remark about M's actual name containing an M and Mallory's obviously starting with one, this would even make for neat continuity in this regard. Also, her relationship with Bond starts by her shooting him in the course of duty and later saving his life, and while she enjoys bantering with him she doesn't let him get away with anything, which fits with the M tradition beautifully. In any case, Naomie Harris as a regular player from this film onwards is some balm on my wounded heart.
But, you know: if Judi Dench!M had to leave us, this was the way to do it. By making the Bond/M relationship heart, front and center of the story. By making the film's supervillain not plotting for world demise (or the end of Britain), though he's fine with colleteral damage, but for her demise and destruction. The idea of a former agent out for revenge for having been dropped by the service isn't new - the one and only Brosnan Bond I ever saw did it, too, and so did Alias, where it was Quentin Tarantino in one of my favourite two parters (or episodes, if we count both parts as one) on the show, among others. But it's the execution that matters, and it works very well here, with Bond and Silva being paralleled both in having sacrificed by M for the greater good and in their passion for her. Parallels between hero and villain are always good if they're skillfully done, and if you can manage a balance between similarities and where they end, since it's, err, good to remind the audience just why one of the guys isn't a supervillain. In this case, Bond isn't one because he gets it, he gets M by now as much as she gets him, and the idea of the service. Which isn't to say that he's not hurt as hell at the start. One thing Casino Royale, where Bond was still a work in progress, did really well was to establisht hat Craig!Bond is both a dangerous killer (not something you really believe of all the other Bonds - Connery sometimes, Dalton sometimes, but not the others) and a vulnerable human being. And if Vesper's (enforced) betrayal and death were terrible, the reality of M making that choice (and hearing her make it, and knowing, as he later says, that she didn't believe he could finish the job on his own) shatters him. In a franchise that trades on having handsome actors playing the main character as much as it trades on the beautiful actresses for each film, showing Bond looking shaken, older and an allround mess as a result and only getting back into shape bit by bit (starting, not so coincidentally, when M says she believes he's ready) was a good choice. The two archetypes of spy stories in the 20th century were always Bond on the one end and John Le Carré's morally ambiguous run down and exhausted spies on the other. (One reason why Le Carré was initially sceptical about the news that Richard Burton would be playing the lead in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold was that he thought Burton, whom he'd last seen in Look back in Anger, looked too good. Then he saw the rushes of Burton looking every inch the way you do after years of alcoholism and a generally tempestous life and was fine with it.) Daniel Craig is the only one of the Bond actors whom you can imagine also acting in a Le Carré story.
Rather fittingly, Judi Dench's M here becomes what she was already indicated as being in the two previous films, but never with so much screen time as in this one: a sister to Smiley or Spooks' Harry, with a life time of terrible (terrible not in the sense of bad, in the sense of hard with no good alternative) choices, emotional exhaustion but an iron core conviction as to why she's doing what she does, and the grace and stoic bravery to see it through to the end. Judi Dench is always good but here she shines particularly, whether she's biting ("well, you can't sleep here"), cold, passionate (before the committee, and btw, that speech was as much an argument as to why there should still be spy movies in the computer age as anything else, neatly done, scriptwriters; also, clever way of telling us what became of M's husband who was glimpsed in the background of one scene in Casino Royale) or elegic. All the scenes between her and Bond are gold, but the one where she doesn't apologize (because she stands by her choices and would do it again) but asks him whether he's read the obituary she's written for him, and their wry exchange after that, is now one of my all time favourite scenes. Says so much without spelling it out, about who these people are, in general and to each other, and is so much better than if we'd gotten something like a hug or, British stoicism beware, mutual assurances of affection.
Not that the film, or yours truly, is anti gestures per se where a spymaster and her spy, both lethal, are concerned. I mean. In the end, he kissed her. On the forehead, which was just right (feels more respectful for these particular two people in this particular dying situation), but it was the perfect way to say goodbye, and here I was, gulping like a twelve years old for bloody Bond and M, who'd ever have thought it. And despite of what I thought when fretting in advance about the potential demise of M, I won't go back to the Brosnan films I haven't watched to get more Dench!M. Because it's the combination of this particular Bond with this particular M that's so infinitely compelling.
Other observations: the scene where I first thought, Oh No, Sam Mendes And Scriptwriters, No, Not This Homophobic Cliché and then was instead impressed by the twist: obviously the Silva-interrogates-Bond one. It starts like said homophobic cliché, with the camp villain threatening Our Hero with gay sex. And then Bond says "what makes you think it's my first time?" (having sex with a man), isn't threatened at all, and Silva immediately stops, disappointed, and switches gear, so to speak, to non physical threats. Thereby making it clear to the audience that a) the threat was, as 99% rape threats and actual rapes, about power, not orientation of the threatening party, b) well, if you want your Bond 100% heterosexual, you can assume he was bluffing, but Silva clearly didn't think he was, and Craig didn't play it that way, either. Therefore: Bisexual Bond = canon. (For Craig!Bond anyway, and I do remember that interview some years ago where Daniel Craig, approvingly citing the Ninth Doctor/Jack Harkness kiss scene his mate Christopher Ecclestone was involved with, said he'd absolutely be up for a Bond boy.)
Ben Wishaw as the new Q: looked fifteen years younger here than he did as Richard II recently in The Hollow Crown and had a nice quipping raport with Bond, though not, I thought, a slashy one, not that will or should stopp anyone from slashing them.
Because it's the 50th anniversary film, we get several treats, both in terms of the Bond films and the original Fleming novels. The names of Bond's parents are indeed those given in the novel, in You Only Live Twice, to be precise, in the obituary (male) M writes for Bond there - which is also where the "example of British fortitude" phrase is from; I thought they'd go with that part of the novel backstory for Bond when Vesper in Casino Royale correctly deduces he's an orphan, but it's nice to know for sure. Q's remark about exploding pens is an allusion to and the old gimicky Aston Martin Bond uses to take M to Scotland is of course from the 60s films, as is the hatstand next to Eve Moneypenny's desk in the final tag scene. I'm sure there are a dozen other allusions as well, to be depicted by other viewers in other reviews. :)
Obvious complaint is obvious: look, this is the third time in a row the secondary Bond girl (aka the one with only five to ten minutes screen time) dies after having had sex with James B. Look, I really appreciate the primary Bond girls in the current incarnation of the franchise and the way they get to be real characters with their own agendas, not to mention the fact Bond now can have relationships with women he doesn't go to bed with (Camille in Quantum of Solace, Eve in this one, and above and beyond and forever M, though of course I like the fanfic in which they do have sex as well), but can we please stop this trend of killing off every woman he does have on screen sex with? (If we do get an on screen Bond boy, you don't have to kill him off, either, franchise.)
Trivia thought: given that Kincade mishears Bond's introduction of M as "Emma" and addresses her with that name, I couldn't help but wonder whether Dench!M was Emma Peel (making her late husband Mr. Peel who showed up at the very end of Emma's stint in the Avengers, if I'm not mistaken). And yes, I know Diana Rigg played Tracy in In Her Majesty's Secret Service as well. I'm just saying, the crossover possibilities are there, and the age would fit.
Which brings me to: writers, get your engines going and write all the M fanfiction in the world! There is already some good stuff out there, mostly from Yuletides past, but I want more, now that we shall never see her on screen again.
Ave atque vale, regina emissarii.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/835122.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.