Skyfall: A Visual Feast of Dragons and Bulldogs

So, Skyfall. The 23rd James Bond film. 50th anniversary. 14th highest grossing film of all time. I feel a bit like I'm trying to take on a mountain of almost universal critical acclaim (92% on Rotten Tomatoes, gosh), but let's give this review a shot. 

James Bond starts mid-action, with Bond and a girl called 'Eve' chasing someone. Typical Bond movie opening scene: spectacular stunts, battered jeep, motorbikes, train, crane (?- I didn't really see the point of all this crane nonsense), sniper shot, 'Take the bloody shot' M, dead Bond. Wait, what? Did Bond really just die in the first 12 minutes? That would actually be a really clever idea, if you wanted to shock the audience. But fear not, he is totally fine. He survived the bullet, the fall, the waterfall, the resulting blood loss and drowning with little explanation, but he is well enough to have random sex with a random native girl and drink a shot of tequila whilst trying not to anger an angry scorpion, so okay. These spies are invincible! On another note, 'Take the bloody shot'? Ooooooo. M! I get it, she has to do her job, but harsh. Also, 'bloody': thus begins the attempt to make the most British film in cinema history.

ENGLAND

Important plot point: M has managed to lose some files containing the identity of all the undercover British spies in terrorist organisations. Yikes! That explains the 'bloody'. She must be fraught. She goes to see a disciplinary hearing presided over by Voldermort (just kidding, I like Ralph Fiennes and he is a versatile actor so I won't call him this, also, I still find it hard to reconcile his face and Voldermort's face). On the way back, her computer is hacked and a bomb explores at the headquarters. Excitement.

Boom!

Bond is at M's house, lurking in the shadows. Just to warn you, 'the shadows' are a big theme in this film. Anyway, Bond looks dreadful. Not as dreadful as someone who was shot and fell off a waterfall and somehow made it back to the UK with no possessions or even a passport (want to explain that? can 007 agents fly now?) should look, but still. He is all bearded and scruffy. His beard becomes a major symbol in this film for his emotional well being, just to warn you. So he goes back to work for the MI6 after bitching about it for a while. He does some fitness tests and it looks like he is struggling, and then he does a shooting  test VERY badly.

He gets very angry at his bad shooting. Keep yo’ cool, Bond. He then does a series of psychological tests.

Psychiatrist: M?

Bond: Bitch.

Haaaaaa. BURN. The next bit confused me, on a variety of levels.

Psychiatrist: Skyfall?

Bond: Done.

Right. So, to jump to the end, ‘Skyfall’ is his family home in Scotland. His parents died when he was a child and it is now in ruin. But why is it such a big deal? Why can’t he just answer? Also, what do they expect him to answer? ‘Old home not home anymore dead parents trauma aaaaaaah’. Or maybe ‘Stag’, seen as Skyfall is adorned with a variety of stags (I’m getting ahead of myself). Or ‘Scotland’. Or ‘House’.  I would have been better at this than Bond. Word association! Yey! Anyway, M gives him his job back. When questioned why, it is because he 'comes from the shadows'. SHADOWS! Does he come from the shadows? I thought he came from Scotland. Anyway.

Bond meets Q in an art gallery, because this is where all British spies meet, in case you didn't know. Q is a hottish geek (British theme comes back in full force: ‘I can do more damage in my pyjamas with a cup of Earl Grey than you can in a whole year on the field’. Why does he have to say Earl Grey? Why not, ‘a cup of tea’? eesh) who looks about 17 but man does he not let Bond get the better of him in a conversation full of clever wit and pointed barbs.

SHANGHAI

Bond gets sent to SHANGHAI. He goes into an art gallery that has a light installation  which looks like a vision you would have if you got transported back to the '60s and took a load of hallucinatory drugs. He then drops the assassin to his death. (He falls for AGES. It’s weird). He sees a sexy girl. Boring. Next, ‘Eve’ comes to see him! She shaves off his beard. SYMBOL: He is Bond again. They go to the casino to cash in a chip and to try and get the money. I am not really sure why, or how they think they are going to get away with it. Bond meets Over-publicized-and-under-attractive-token Bond Girl. She is scared. She used to be a prostitute. She has a dragon tattoo. GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. She has been way over publicized by the media, and she is NOT attractive enough to be a Bond Girl. 

Anyway. Bond nearly gets eaten by a Komodo dragon, but it eats a baddy instead. I looked this up, and unless the casino purposefully trained them to be dragons with a taste for human flesh, which seems unlikely, this would not happen. What is with all the references to dragons? 

I get they are in Shanghai but come on. You don't see bulldogs wandering the streets in every corner of England. Although, perhaps in this film you would. Anyway, Bond escapes and basically assaults the Bond girl (I don't know or care what her name is, she is clearly marked for Bond girl token death) in the shower, and seen as she got forced into the sex traffic industry, I thought this was thin ice. So did other people, check it out online (Wikipedia). 

ISLAND

Bond and Bond girl sail dramatically to an island to meet her boss. It is all very Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

The island is very creepy. It is completely deserted and all dusty and horrible. Creepy jazz music still plays from the speakers. So anyway, we meet the villain, Javier Bardem. He is a vision of cream; skin, hair, clothes. He reminds me of a sheep. 

Mendes wanted the villain to be 'colourless', and he has achieved it. He tells an incredibly boring story about rats, and tries to get all gay with Bond. Long story short, Bond girl dies (Goodbye! I really enjoyed your 12 minute screen presence! Really made seeing your face on the cover of every single magazine and entertainment news channel for the past 6 months worth it), Sheepie gets captured because Bond used a RADIO. Seems a bit too easy. And, of course, it is. 

ENGLAND

Bardem (I think his name is 'Silva') is in lock up. M goes to see him. Wow, he does NOT LIKE her. Turns out he was a spy she gave up ('Take the bloody shot' flashbacks), and he got tortured. He took cyanide to kill himself, but didn't die. This just confirms all spies are immortal. It 'burned his insides', and half his face is melted away, as shown when he takes out a weird metal plate. It is horrible and creepy and scary and it made him a much more interesting villain. He escapes. IT HAS BEEN HIS PLAN ALL ALONG! :O! Bond chases him through the tube, and there is a funny bit where he jumps on the back of a train and some very middle class English guy makes a quip, 'he must want to get home'. Anyway, the villain makes it to the disciplinary hearing M is at. Wait, I forget!! He causes an abandoned tube train to crash through a tunnel and nearly kill Bond! There is also a clever reference to a ladder shot from The Third Man (1949), starring Orson Welles. 

The tube chase scene keeps intercutting with M's disciplinary hearing. She is saying alot of stuff like, 'We need to work in the shadows'. SHADOWS!!!

Just as M says 'How safe do you feel?' to a really annoying woman who reminds me a lot of the really annoying woman in Harry Potter 5, Dolores Umbridge, Sheepie comes in, guns a' blazing. Ralph Fiennes shields M and is a bit of a badass, and it makes me like him a lot more. Bond saves the day, and escapes with M. 

SCOTLAND

They go to Skyfall in Scotland. It has a lot of statues of stags. There is a funny Scottish game keeper. They fit the house with make shift defences, such as nail bombs, and get ready for the attack. 

Right. Hold on a second. I understand why he is going to Scotland, and why he wants to do things 'the old fashioned way'- Sheepie is clearly A LOT better at computer stuff than they are. But why just those 2? Why can't, say, 6 other MI6 gun men go with them to Scotland and hide in the bracken? How would that have spoiled the plan in anyway? Why couldn't Bond go and pick up some BETTER GUNS instead of using a sawn off shot gun? Why did M and the Scottish game keeper hide in the church with the light on, the fools, instead of just lying down in the bracken where they would not have been found? The whole concept of this scene, whilst it was good for dramatic effect, pissed me off. 

So M and the Scottish game keeper escape through a tunnel, though M gets shot first. Bond get's thrown around a lot by explosives, then falls in an icy lake, then catches up with Sheepie just as he is being all creepy with M and trying to make them kill themselves together. He throws a knife at Sheepie, and Sheepie dies. Bond makes some witty joke about being 'the last rat standing'. Can we just let this rat story go, please? M dies of her wound in the tiny church. 

Bond rejoins MI6, 'Eve' reveals herself to be MISS MONEYPENNY. I have heard this name before, and I know she had an ongoing flirtation with Bond, but I feel I would have cared more if I was older / had watched all the Bond films, and knew who the original Moneypenny was. It was certainly no 'Try my real name', 'You should use your real name more often, ROBIN' from the Dark Knight Rises. I LOVE YOU JOSEPH GORDON LEVITT! Still, I like 'Eve', she is a fun Bond girl who is actually competent, so I hope we see her in the next Bond film. 

GOOD POINTS

• Cinematography- Some of the shots were 'bloody' amazing. Especially the explosion scenes in Scotland, and some of the scenes in Shanghai (I know I have bitched about the dragons, but I still enjoyed them). Visual, every changing feast for the eyes. 
• Funny- It is actually quite a funny film. Lot's of running jokes, which is always nice. 
• Music- The Adele music, and the camp music Sheepie played from the helicopter. Was fun. 
• 'Eve'- Keep her in the next film. 
• Ralph Fiennes- He seems like he will be a very good new M (Do they have to have a name beginning with 'M' to get the job? Seems that way).
• Plot- I like how it isn't a villain trying to take over the world, but all about exacting personal vengeance by killing M. It made it less monotonous than the other Bond films. 

BAD POINTS

• Bond Girl- GO AWAY. 
• Too British- We get it, this is a British film, everyone in Britain is very proud of Britain because of the Olympics, but EVERYONE KNOWS James Bond is British, we did not need the constant earl grey, London skyline shots, and bulldogs to remind us. I'm pretty sure they must have mentioned Churchill, but I can't remember. 
• Skyfall scene- I want to know how his parents died. Also, this scene was just a bit too anti-climatic for me, and the logistics of it annoyed me. 

Overall, I enjoyed this film a lot more than the last one, and almost as much as Casino Royale. It does deserve some awards, and I hope it gets them. I feel it can be best summed up by this: 

Bulldog, James Bulldog.