Runtime: 2 hours, 23 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Sam Mendes
Quick Impressions: When I was ten, my grandparents took me to the movies to see Turner & Hooch, in which Tom Hanks & a slobbery dog team up to solve a murder. Though privately I questioned their taste, I never turn down a trip to the movies, so I enjoyed my popcorn and had a pretty good time until the end credits rolled and my Grandma declared, “That was cute! Of course, if you hadn’t been with us, we would have seen James Bond!”
I was like, “WHAT???!!!!”
(My grandma had a similar moment seconds later after I told her that I would have preferred to see License to Kill—which I still love, by the way, because Desmond Llewelyn gets so much screentime!)
Honestly, who doesn’t love a good Bond movie?
I waited a week to see Skyfall because I was fairly sure I could convince my family to see it with me, and of course, that was not a problem. Even my three-year-old—when asked if she wanted to see James Bond—declared, “Of course! That will be awesomeness!”
Her enthusiasm was not misplaced. Skyfall is a great movie. It’s even better than License to Kill (and light-years better than Turner & Hooch). As far as I’m concerned, every Bond movie should feature a Tennyson recitation, a rollicking chase through the London Underground, and Albert Finney as a Scotsman with a shotgun. Skyfall also gets bonus points for most effective incorporation of a Reformation priest hole.
Since it opened, I’ve heard people raving that Skyfall is the best Bond movie of all time. Going that far seems extreme. I mean, the franchise spans fifty years. How can you compare installments made decades apart? Goldfinger is an amazing movie (and still my favorite), but you can tell that it was made in another era. Skyfall does its best to side-step and wink at Bond clichés, but those things weren’t clichés yet the first few times we saw them.
I will say that Skyfall is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year, and probably one of the most emotionally satisfying Bond movies as a standalone. (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service works well as a standalone, too, but it’s not anywhere near as entertaining a movie as Skyfall.)
Of course, even though Skyfall would be highly watchable for someone with no previous Bond experience, you’ll get the most enjoyment out of the movie if you’ve quite familiar with the franchise (especially if you’re in the majority of Bond fans who very fondly remember Sean Connery originating the role). You do not, however, need to watch Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace first. (It might be helpful, particularly to introduce the relationship between Bond and M, but everything completely essential to understanding the film, Skyfall itself gives you.)
The Good:
Bond movies don’t usually win Oscars for some reason. (Well, the most likely reason is that they don’t usually deserve them.) But I like Skyfall’s chances for Original Song. I’ve seen so many outstanding animated features this year, and not one of them features an obvious musical standout. Frankly, I’ll be stunned if Adele’s song doesn’t get a nomination.
(Of course, I was stunned last year when there were only two nominated songs, though on the plus side, they were my two favorites of the year.) The song is immediately likable, quite catchy, and liable to stick with you a while. Plus Adele has lots of fans who would tune in to see her perform at the Oscars, so I’m now pretty much expecting that to happen. I also think the song’s major competition is the original song from the upcoming movie version of Les Mis, which I haven’t heard yet. So far, I’m rooting for Adele for the win.
I also think Roger Deakins is likely to get a cinematography nod. (It probably helps that he’s been nominated nine times before.) I don’t know much about cinematography beyond what looks good to me, and Skyfall is stunning from the first frame to the last. The urban scenes in Shanghai made me want to put in purple overhead lighting at home (which I’ll have to discuss with my husband), and the casino in Macau is like something out of a pleasant dream. London also looked great. So did Scotland. The film had a clean, cool aesthetic and often looked like an exceptionally well-rendered video game. (I mean that as a compliment, but the correlation may have occurred to me because I spent so many days playing Golden Eye in a haze of Vicodin after undergoing an exceptionally complicated wisdom tooth extraction.)
Actually, I expect Skyfall to get several Oscar nominations, but none for the major categories (unless somehow it sneaks into Picture).
The problem with increasing the maximum number of Best Picture nominees with the idea that more audience favorites will now be able to get recognition is that even if the five extra slots were devoted exclusively to the year’s most popular movies (which they haven’t been so far), still not all of the most awesome movies of the year would get in.
I will be extremely surprised if the Academy Awards somehow nominates The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, and Skyfall for Best Picture. I just really don’t see that happening. Maybe one of the three will get in (and I will die of shock if that one is The Avengers, so maybe Skyfall has a shot, but it’s kind of a long shot.) Skyfall may be a dark horse for a Best Picture nod (which is strange, when you think about it, because it most definitely is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year). With only five slots for directing, though, it’s a virtual guarantee that Sam Mendes won’t be nominated, but the box office success of the movie is a huge victory for him.
(I mean, every time Mendes directs a movie, people ask, “Will this be as big a hit as American Beauty?” and until now, the answer has always been, “Nah.”)
I don’t expect there to be any acting nominations, either, but I’ll highlight the most likely performances now, anyway.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Judi Dench):
I’m not a Hollywood insider, but I’ve been watching the Academy Awards since I was a child, and I’m pretty sure that Judi Dench is the only one who has a solid shot at a nomination. For one thing, everybody loves Judi Dench. She’s getting older, but she still looks lovely and keeps turning out quality performances (like her essentially leading role in the well-received The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel earlier in the year). For another, M is at the center of the story (both in terms of plot and character development), and I haven’t clocked it, but I’m pretty sure that Dench gets more screentime than anyone but Daniel Craig. Finally, Dench is a marvelous actress who augments an already prominent role with a superior performance. (It takes a talented actor to make moments of introspection come across more powerfully than dialogue on screen.)
She reads Tennyson beautifully, and I love that scene (even though it’s extremely contrived. See if I care. It was still wonderful to watch). There are also at least two separate moments I can think of when she stands staring out of windows. Dench does so much with these quiet, poignant opportunities or reflection. Without saying a word, she draws us in completely.
(Wouldn’t it be amazing if both Dench and Helen Hunt (The Sessions) got Supporting Actress nominations, and then Dench won, but in her acceptance speech declared that Hunt’s performance was superior? That will never happen, and I’m not even sure that I want it to, but it would be like a mirror of the Academy Awards in 1998.)
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Albert Finney):
Full disclosure: I love Albert Finney. He’s one of the most versatile and compelling actors I can think of, and I think it’s absolutely disgusting and ridiculous that he’s never won an Oscar. I really wanted him to win for Erin Brockovich, and I also hoped he might at least be nominated for Big Fish. Albert Finney is one of those performers who has deserved an Oscar many times. (Who else could pull off Ebenezer Scrooge, Hercule Poirot, and Daddy Warbucks?) The man is seventy-six years old now, and this is the most exciting part he’s had in years. Granted Kincade comes across as incredibly useful comic relief, but what’s wrong with that? He’s an exciting character that the audience (vocally) loved, and he gets to deliver what might be the best line in the movie (based on the audience response it elicited). It’s actually very difficult to pull off comedy in a dramatic situation without reducing the character to a gimmick. He’s particularly fantastic during the shotgun practice scene. I doubt he’ll get a nomination, but I can dream.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Javier Bardem):
Javier Bardem has an Oscar, and two other Oscar nominations, and a baby with his Oscar-winning wife Penélope Cruz, so it’s not like he needs a nomination. But he gives a tremendous performance as a memorably charismatic and strange villain. In fact, Bardem makes Silva easily one of the most memorable Bond villains of all time. Most previous Bond memorable villains are so memorable because we’re told and shown that they’re incredibly strange. Silva is also incredibly strange, but this actually comes across in Javier Bardem’s performance. Somehow, Bardem manages to make Silva both incredibly strange and incredibly real, so he ends up being much scarier than many of his predecessors. The cosmetic enhancement he reveals under interrogation, the theatrical contest he proposes to Bond before his arrest—these are the types of bizarre things we expect from a Bond villain. But Bardem takes a guy who is creepy on paper and makes him even creepier in person. He’s fantastic the first time we see him, in the scene in which he tries to intimidate a captive Bond.
The Other Performances:
Daniel Craig is very good as a more realistic, human Bond with psychological scars, adversity to overcome, and decisions to make, but he doesn’t do anything spectacular enough to get Oscar recognition in an already crowded category.
Ben Whishaw already favorably impressed me once this fall in Cloud Atlas, and he’s a very welcome addition here. I hope that he and Ralph Fiennes—also very good, as always—stay on for future installments.
My husband was quite impressed with Bérénice Lim Marlohe. I agree that she was beautiful but wish the character had gotten more development (or maybe that she had been given more opportunities to continue to develop).
I preferred Naomie Harris to Marlohe and loved what they did with the character. Besides being attractive, Harris makes Eve feisty and fun, a pleasure to watch as she interacts with Bond. (My stepson didn’t believe that she also plays Tia Dalma in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. He protested, “She got a lot prettier then. She was so ugly in Pirates of the Caribbean.” Maybe I have strange taste because I thought she was pretty as Tia Dalma, too. (I mean, she didn’t exactly exude a girl-next-door quality, although I guess that depends on where you live!))
Helen McCrory is also very good in a small part.
Best Scene Visually:
I’d actually give this to the surreal opening credits set to that unforgettable Adele song. The entire movie looks great, so it’s really hard to pick out just one scene. But I liked the way the opening song included visual elements of the casino, and the scene of Bond approaching the casino included the melody of the song. As I said before, the casino is so surreal and dreamy. It seems to exist in some supersaturated hyper-reality.
Best Scene:
Of course, my favorite action sequence was the one that took place mainly in subterranean London. You know you love the London Underground when you see the radio surprise Silva has in store for Bond and think longingly, “Ah, I wish I were there!” How can you not love an action sequence that dials up the drama, takes place in London, and unfolds onscreen as someone recites lines from Tennyson’s “Ulysses.”
And if you think that’s a little too much of the movie to qualify as one scene, then I suppose I liked Silva’s initial chair time with Bond the best.
Best Action Sequence:
Scotland!
Funniest Scene:
That all depends on your sense of humor. While you’d hardly call it a delightful romp, Skyfall is much more whimsical than Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. There are quite a few jokes, but they do not come in the form of done-to-death puns or ridiculous stunts—unless you count Extreme Elevator Pull-Ups and Dragon Wrestling.
A lot of people laughed at Bond’s response to one of Bardem’s less than successful efforts to unnerve him. (I mean the part when Bond is tied to the chair.) Even though Bond is clearly just messing up Silva’s attempt to mess with his mind, I do remember a lot of hubbub several years ago when Daniel Craig reportedly said that James Bond ought to romance men as well as women.
(I can’t remember exactly what he said, and I’m not even sure that he actually said it. All I know is that the story floated around in entertainment news for several weeks way back when, and this scene could well be winking at that.)
Kincaid is also very funny, and so is Q, though he’s no Desmond Llewelyn.
The Negatives:
The movie starts out with a bang, but then it slows down for a while. The scenes in Asia look (and sound) fantastic but seem almost too surreal. For me, the pace really picked up once Bond met Silva. Up to that point, I’d been appreciating the movie, but once Silva was introduced, I loved every successive scene more and more. (It helps that I’m a huge Anglophile who wishes I had an old house in Scotland that I could use to explode helicopters.)
The scene with the elevator fascinated me more than anything had to that point. Part of me wondered, Is that really necessary? Is there not maybe, an easier way? Then I thought, Is he really behaving like someone fit for field duty? But that gave me pause. I’m not sure if the movie was being a little extreme, if Bond was being a little extreme, or if I have absolutely no idea how practical things (you know, like secret agents, elevators) work.
The scene in the casino was like ingesting a Halloween’s worth of eye candy, but I found myself wondering a little about the dragons. (Of course, to be fair, I brought a three-year-old to the movie with me, and this was the part where I was pulling a muscle in my shoulder trying to rescue her errant bag of fruit snacks. So maybe I missed some things.)
What I really didn’t like was the scene in the shower. I know that she had been disappointed when he didn’t show up before that, but how did he know that? And while I’m on my rant about women being treated in an unfair manner, I found it so interesting that M was being taken to task for being a “bad mommy.” If M had been male, would Silva have called him a “bad daddy”? It seemed like most of the complaints people leveled against M were gender based (except for losing the list, obviously). I’m not saying that the movie was taking a sexist position.
(In fact, it went out of its way to feature a female minister brow-beating her.) But when M is asked to “think on [her] sins,” the audience is being offered that food for thought, as well. From a certain point of view, she is horribly guilty, but one of the things she’s “guiltiest” of is being a non-nurturing woman. What kind of a Bond movie is this? Can you imagine, a movie about James Bond showing us how a strong, professional woman responds to an attack that is, in part, unfairly focused on her lack of traditional femininity! And that’s in the dead center of the plot. (Of course, she does win us to her side by embracing this mothering role and being, ultimately, the best mother she can to James Bond.) Still, the franchise has come a long way since the days of Pussy Galore!
Overall:
To my surprise, Skyfall was one of my favorite movies of the year. It looks and sounds fantastic. The action scenes are impressive, even inventive. The story is solid, and the performances are universally strong (much stronger than they have to be, really).
My three-year-old cried when she woke up at the end and realized she’d slept through the last forty minutes of the movie and “didn’t get to see what happened.”
“Well,” I said helpfully, trying to cheer her up, “the bad guy lost, and….”
“NO! DON’T TELL ME!” she wailed, like I had just revealed a massive spoiler.
And she’s got the right idea. Skyfall is a movie you should see for yourself. It’s not perfect, but it’s very hard not to love.