Bond battles the fun police
FILM REVIEW by Adam Kamien. Fifty years after the world’s most famous – and prolific – super-spy first saved the world and got the girl, James Bond is at it again in Skyfall, the 23rd instalment in the franchise and one that will likely polarise fans.
Is it a ball-tearing action film with exhilarating set pieces and high-octane thrills? Sure. But is it pure Bond? Probably not.
MGM pulled out all the stops for this one. Acclaimed Jewish helmer and Oscar winner Sam Mendes is in the director’s chair for his first foray into the world of action films, while fellow Oscar winner Javier Bardem provides the Yin to Bond’s Yang as the baddy-in-chief.
Dame Judy Dench – also an Academy Award winner – returns as M and Daniel Craig is back for his third go at Ian Fleming’s iconic secret agent.
Nine-time Oscar nominee and frequent Mendes collaborator Roger Deakin frames the film beautifully, with some visually breathtaking sequences dotted throughout.
The result is a smart, classy, cut-above action movie, but there’s little to distinguish it as a Bond film, other than the odd, superficial reference.
The camp absurdity and style over substance that has been the Bond ethos for half-a-century is sorely missing. There are nods to exploding pens, island lairs, deadly animal-filled pits and cars of Bond films gone by. But on the whole, Skyfall is far too earnest, harkening back to the bad, old days of the Timothy Dalton era.
Pierce Brosnan’s Die Another Day, the last film before Craig wielded the Walther, might have been an unholy mess, but it was more a Bond film than Skyfall.
Mendes and co seem determined to humanise Bond, complete with detailed backstory about his orphan upbringing and a midlife crisis. Some have lauded Mendes for dragging a dinosaur, kicking and screaming, into the modern era of brooding Bournes and Batmen, while others, this reviewer included, feel as though the fun has been sapped from the franchise.
Skyfall is currently screening.
PHOTO of Daniel Craig as James Bond in Skyfall.