Skyfall
Don't Go! Misses the point.
Bond's baddie gets personal.
It's a bit strange that all over the world, for fifty years, people have been happy to watch various reincarnations of the same middle-class white man over and over again, doing pretty much the same thing. If even Jesus came back it would be unlikely that he would gross £32.7 million in his opening week*. Bond is cinematic Coca-Cola - a formula that has barely changed only over the decades, but seems timeless - dark, cool, but always with the same fizz and pop of sugary entertainment, and the secret ingredient that keeps people coming back for more.
This is the appeal that Skyfall is required to extend, but carries with it weighty accolades of being "perhaps the best Bond film EVER with perhaps the best Bond EVER, blah, blah, blah". Let's get some perspective, shall we Mr Bond?
Bond has a key set of ingredients which every Bond actor/director varies the quantities of. Skyfall, directed by the exemplary Sam Mendes, chooses to ramp up Bond's emotional depth and focus on the intrigue of his character. This is not a classic ingredient of the Bond cocktail, but slight variations can work wonders. In order to achieve this, Mendes wilfully skimps on the screen time of glamorous women and replaces them with the talent of Javier Bardem, who joins the fun as the campy, grotesque criminal mastermind bent on destroying certain parts of MI6. All of that sounds like it would make for an absolute Moneypenny of a movie! Yes? Well, it could have done, but instead, we are subjected to a 2 hour advert that is selling entirely the wrong things.
This is the appeal that Skyfall is required to extend, but carries with it weighty accolades of being "perhaps the best Bond film EVER with perhaps the best Bond EVER, blah, blah, blah". Let's get some perspective, shall we Mr Bond?
Bond has a key set of ingredients which every Bond actor/director varies the quantities of. Skyfall, directed by the exemplary Sam Mendes, chooses to ramp up Bond's emotional depth and focus on the intrigue of his character. This is not a classic ingredient of the Bond cocktail, but slight variations can work wonders. In order to achieve this, Mendes wilfully skimps on the screen time of glamorous women and replaces them with the talent of Javier Bardem, who joins the fun as the campy, grotesque criminal mastermind bent on destroying certain parts of MI6. All of that sounds like it would make for an absolute Moneypenny of a movie! Yes? Well, it could have done, but instead, we are subjected to a 2 hour advert that is selling entirely the wrong things.
In the very first scene, the camera lingers on Bond's Omega watch for an inordinate length of time. Then, as Adele's s-s-sumptuous voice wafts over the highly stylised opening sequence, the countless times the song had already been played on the radio detract from the excitement of the moment. Soon, Daniel Craig (in his third appearance as Bond) was sipping Heineken and being offered fifty-year old Macallan by his nemesis. Barely had his Sony Xperia phone passed out of shot when, oh hello, Sony Vaio laptops begin to appear from all angles, like evil henchmen in... well... a Bond movie. It seemed inevitable that he would soon smoothly tear open a Durex condom with a Swarovski crystal jonny opener, moments before his next sexual conquest. He didn't - and for Durex, it was a missed opportunity, with every other man and his branded dog seemingly agreeing a sponsorship deal. Notably, Bond himself also misses a pletohra of opportunities and barely gets laid in Skyfall - a convenient metaphor for the overarching impotence of the film itself.
Putting libellous allegations of James' sexual performance to one side, Skyfall is Bond, quite literally, selling out. If, like the Lib Dems, you decide to give up all of your principles and legitimacy, the first thing that you will lose is your soul. Is it possible to make a magnificent film when you are under contract to break from the dynamism of the story to spend 6 seconds looking at a watch; or are forced to change the camera angle so that "Sony" is emblazoned across the screen until it is seared into the memory of the audience? The purpose of going to the cinema is to be immersed in another world for 120 minutes, and ideally that world isn't the warehouse at the back of Argos.
Putting libellous allegations of James' sexual performance to one side, Skyfall is Bond, quite literally, selling out. If, like the Lib Dems, you decide to give up all of your principles and legitimacy, the first thing that you will lose is your soul. Is it possible to make a magnificent film when you are under contract to break from the dynamism of the story to spend 6 seconds looking at a watch; or are forced to change the camera angle so that "Sony" is emblazoned across the screen until it is seared into the memory of the audience? The purpose of going to the cinema is to be immersed in another world for 120 minutes, and ideally that world isn't the warehouse at the back of Argos.
Saying that, there is much in this film that is thoroughly entertaining. Some typically Bondy set-piece action sequences; some elegant acting from, in particular, the majestic Dench, but also the masculine, bovine trio of Bardem, Craig and Fiennes; and definitive cinematography, including engrossing shots of London; and magnificent, dramatic, phenomenal rural Scotland.
Nonetheless, having explained nearly as much of the story as I can without receiving cease and desist letters from Sony, I can tell you that the quest for "world domination", which has motivated Bond villains throughout its 50-year history, has been dropped for something altogether more…unambitious. With this, Skyfall loses another key component of Bond, and goes even further towards becoming something quite different from the films that came before it. The cull of the familiar continues with a lack of gadgets, fluffy animals (besides Bardem's hair) and virtually no definitively witty lines that made Bond, Bond...James Bond.
Yes, franchises can develop – The Dark Knight Trilogy made Batman darker, and all the better for it. But Batman is not Coca-Cola. You don't mess with Coca-Cola. No-one buys Cherry Coke or Diet Coke with Lime. People want Coca-Cola and they drink Coca-Cola., even if it will kill them. With Skyfall, we are not being sold Bond, but are being peddled something rather different. It is not clear exactly what that something is. It may be decent, James, but it's just not Bond.
Don't Go. Give us back our Coke.
* Biggest UK opening week of ALL TIME.
And I'm not saying Jesus is a middle-class white man. Historically he's more likely to be a working-class Jewish man. But, I'm just saying.
Nonetheless, having explained nearly as much of the story as I can without receiving cease and desist letters from Sony, I can tell you that the quest for "world domination", which has motivated Bond villains throughout its 50-year history, has been dropped for something altogether more…unambitious. With this, Skyfall loses another key component of Bond, and goes even further towards becoming something quite different from the films that came before it. The cull of the familiar continues with a lack of gadgets, fluffy animals (besides Bardem's hair) and virtually no definitively witty lines that made Bond, Bond...James Bond.
Yes, franchises can develop – The Dark Knight Trilogy made Batman darker, and all the better for it. But Batman is not Coca-Cola. You don't mess with Coca-Cola. No-one buys Cherry Coke or Diet Coke with Lime. People want Coca-Cola and they drink Coca-Cola., even if it will kill them. With Skyfall, we are not being sold Bond, but are being peddled something rather different. It is not clear exactly what that something is. It may be decent, James, but it's just not Bond.
Don't Go. Give us back our Coke.
* Biggest UK opening week of ALL TIME.
And I'm not saying Jesus is a middle-class white man. Historically he's more likely to be a working-class Jewish man. But, I'm just saying.
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