Skyfall

2012 marks 50 years of James Bond films, starting in 1962 with Dr. No. And the latest installment in the series, Skyfall, is one hell of a way to celebrate. Daniel Craig returns for his third go as Bond. Sam Mendes, director of films like American Beauty, Jarhead, and Revolutionary Road, takes over behind the camera. While the renewed series took a bit of a misstep with the last film, Quantum of Solace (a film hurt by the writer's strike, often having to work without a script and unable to get proper rewrites), after the magnificent Casino Royale, Skyfall gets the series back on the right track.

Bond starts on a mission to recover a hard drive which contains the identities of undercover NATO agents in terrorist organizations from a mercenary. He's shot and falls off a bridge. MI6 presumes him dead. Bond, of course, isn't dead. He uses his apparent death to retire, a bit upset that M gave the order for his partner, Eve, to take a shot though she didn't have a clear view and could easily hit Bond instead (which she did). However when MI6 headquarters is blown up, he makes the decision to return. He's reinstated though he performed poorly in the tests. He uses shrapnel he had been hit with in his fight with the mercenary to find him.

Bond tracks the mercenary to Shanghai, where he finds him in the middle of a job. They fight in a high rise, but before Bond can find out who he works for, the mercenary falls to his death. Bond searches through his kit and finds a chip for a Macau casino. Bond goes to the casino where he finds a woman whom he saw in the room with the mercenary's victim in Shanghai. She had seen him also and warns him that he is going to be killed. Bond disposes of his would-be dispatchers and joins her as she makes her way to her boss' island. They're captured and Bond is introduced to Raoul, the mastermind behind the attacks on MI6 and the undercover NATO agents. Raoul blames M for the torture he received when he was an MI6 agent. Bond is able to dispatch Raoul's henchmen and apprehend him, with MI6 having found them thanks to the radio transmitter Bond was given by Q.

So Raoul is captured and imprisoned in MI6's emergency headquarters. However, this was part of his plan. Knowing that they'd tried to access his hard drives to see what's on them, it instead hacks into the MI6 computer system when they crack it and opens all the doors, including his cell. Raoul kills his guards and escapes to go after M while she is at a public hearing over the stolen hard drive Bond was originally after. Raoul shoots up the hearing, Bond, who had been chasing him, shows up to save M. He arranges for Q to show a false computer trail of where they're heading, and takes her to his childhood home, Skyfall, in Scotland.

They know that Raoul will eventually find them, but they use the time to prepare. It almost becomes a grown-up version of Home Alone as they set up traps around the house. In the eventual fight, the house is destroyed and Bond kills Raoul (this is a very oversimplified summary as I don't feel like going over all of it because that's not why I'm writing this and I don't want to give everything away).

The film is exciting and interesting. They get back to making Bond a real character, like they did in Casino Royale. He's vulnerable and has actual emotions (he cries here. Bond cries!). The third act, at Skyfall, is very different to the rest of the film but very intense. You never know what's going to happen. Craig gives a great performance as Bond, again. Javier Bardem is extremely creepy, in the best possible way, as a Raoul. He makes you uncomfortable and isn't that what the best Bond villains often do?

I think the most striking thing about the film is how beautiful it is. It was shot by renowned cinematographer Roger Deakins (his other works include O, Brother Where Art Thou?, No Country For Old Men, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and The Shawshank Redemption, among many, many others, seriously, look up his filmography). I think it's safe to say that no Bond movie has ever looked as amazing as Skyfall does. The fight between Bond and the mercenary in the Shanghai high-rise, silhouetted against video screen advertisements on buildings across the way is just simply gorgeous. A wonderful sequence of shadow and lights reflecting off the glass walls. Bond's approach to the casino in Macau is also extremely striking. This isn't just an action movie, this is pure visual art.

Raoul's incredibly forethought plans in the middle of the film (to get captured, that they'd search his laptop so have it ready to hack their systems, have disguises, explosions ready, etc) stretches believability a little bit. I didn't find it particularly distracting though. It's more or less par-for-the-course for these types of movies (the Joker's plans in The Dark Knight come to mind) really. It wouldn't make a very interesting movie, or for a formidable opponent, if the villain's plans fell apart easily and the hero didn't feel and appear to always be a couple steps behind. But it's otherwise a really excellent film, with great story elements that build the Bond character, story, and legend, with some nice little call backs of the older films. A fantastic way to mark half a century of Bond films.

4 1/2 out of 5

Bonus! Because I really can't talk of Roger Deakins' cinematography enough, here's some screenshots: