Skyfall

Directed by Sam Mendes. Written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, John Logan and Ian Fleming. Starring Daniel Craig (James Bond), Javier Bardem (Silva) and Naomie Harris (Eve).

Bottom line: Skyfall is a pretty good Bond installment. It's worth seeing if you are a 00 fan or if you are in the mood for an action movie. The story is rather lacking but it has great action and visuals.
3/4

I don't think I really have to spend much time setting up the story of a James Bond movie. It's James Bond after all! There is a bad guy who wants to hijack/destroy the world and Bond has to save the day.

Now, I know a James Bond movie isn't a haven for feminism but I'd like to see an attempt at an active female character. I thought Halle Barry was a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, there are really only two potentially solid female characters in this movie, Eve (Harris) and Sévérine (Marlohe) and they both fall flat. Judi Dench plays M well, but she is more like a mother figure so she’s out of this discussion.

Eve starts out promising; she is on a mission with Bond. As he is fighting a villain on a train, she is ordered to shoot the guy. She misses and shoots Bond instead, who, after falling a hundred or so feet head first into the raging rapids, is considered dead. Ok, so she missed. Halle Berry wasn't perfect either. She sort of redeems herself saving Bond in a fight but ultimately, she realizes her place: a secretarial position. As Bond says, "Field work isn't for everyone." Before she realizes the truth in his statement, she meets up with Bond in Shanghai while he is shaving (shirtless, in his underwear). As you might expect, she volunteers to shave him. Eve has the gem of a line saying, 'Same old Bond, but with new tricks.' The scene fades to fireworks over the casino. Soon we are introduced to the other female presence Sévérine, the cliché and beautiful prostitute-with-a-heart-of-gold. This kind of subplot ticks me off: 'Yeah, don't worry, pretty little lady, the strong white male will come and save you'. I mean, what if she wasn't gorgeous? Well, for one thing, she wouldn't be talking to James Bond. The movie makes sure to tell us she was abducted and forced into prostitution as a child to hit all sympathy notes....then I guess she decided to make it a career.

I suppose a more subtle example of this irritating sexism comes in the last half of the movie. M is on defending her actions as the head of MI6 and the female prime minister is berating her actions. Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) interjects 'for the sake of variety, perhaps let the defendant speak,' then nods to M so she has the floor. The male character has the power to silence even the most senior women.

James Bond was/is the best spy in the world, but in this day of advanced technology is he still relevant? We hear a number of references to 'traditional' methods or 'the old fashioned way'. When shaving, for example, he uses a straight razor. I wouldn't consider this antiquated but the characters do. When preparing for the final assault, the caretaker refers 'the old ways are sometimes the best' as he pulls out a knife to complete the arsenal. When Bond meets the substantially younger Q (Ben Whishaw), they are looking at a painting of, in Q's words, a "...grand old war ship being ignominiously haunted away to scrap... the inevitability of time." Have you seen Live Free or Die Hard? If you have, you can expect to see the same theme played out here and it doesn't just stop with Bond. M must prove that the entire MI6 department is still relevant. When asked to defend herself and the department, she says that the enemy no longer has a flag or even a face. The world is more opaque and the enemy hides in the shadows and 'that is where we must do battle'. That's a pretty conservative position, in my eyes. (Tell that to the wife of the dead US ambassador to Libya) That when confronted with terrorists we still need traditional resources, be it spies or soldiers, to defend our home front. (How would you defend our home front?) It also helps explain why the only gay character, Silva (Javier Bardem), is the villain.

Speaking of Silva, he was the top MI6 agent before Bond. I won't spoil his back story, little as it may be. He is, in essence, the bastard child of the traditional methods and the modern methods. He is evil, gay and has a lot of advanced technology. Thinking about it now, that is how he fits into the conservative stance of the film; if we aren't, as a society, careful about how we progress, then our recklessness may come back to haunt us. This isn’t to say technology is bad; Q has all sorts of benevolent systems. One of his gadgets, for example, is a preventative measure (instead of a destructive one).

Although Skyfall feels like a thematic missed opportunity, it is a solid action movie. It has a lot of action packed sequences. It has the polish of a really expensive movie and the momentum is consistent throughout.

I am always intrigued by how a movie represents computer technology. Will they show big long lists of numbers? Will they use technical keywords like “download” or “file”? Fortunately, Skyfall doesn’t assault you with jargon nor does the movie dwell on anything in particular. Q mentions something fancy-sounding, translates it and moves on.

It is interesting to see the thematic relationship between modernity and tradition manifest itself in the movie itself. One could say that unless it addressed current issues (like cyber-attacks) then it would be a somewhat dated film. Oppositely, if it embraced the pop-culture representation of cyber-threats, it would become a stupid movie. Skyfall attains a balance and benefits, as a result.

In terms of a complete movie, I recommend going to see it in the theaters and maybe even spending the extra bucks to see it in Imax.