With the world around us modernizing constantly and things always changing, the timeless character of James Bond truly seems to defy time itself. The majority of the film is set in present day London, so there are definite up to date technologies revealed, but Bond, although the times have changed, is still the classic British special agent that so many fell in love with some fifty years ago. The updates in the latest blockbuster entry into the Bond franchise, Skyfall, captures audiences’ attention, but the old nuances of the classic James Bond is what really grasps the hearts of so many Bond fans, old and young.
Skyfall begins with Bond and fellow MI6 operative Eve (Naomie Harris) in Turkey in a mad hunt for a stolen data drive that contains the identities of numerous undercover MI6 agents. When they fail to intercept the drive, it falls into the hands of Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), a mysterious figure who schemes to use the information to reclaim revenge on M (Judi Dench), with whom Silva holds an old grudge. At the same time M and Bond have to contend with Gareth Malloy (Ralph Fiennes), a bureaucrat who arrives at MI6 in the wake of the failed mission and forces the two to evaluate the competency of the organization’s leadership. Skyfall does a phenomenal job of following Bond in pursuit to find Silva and the stolen data drive.
Can Bond stop Silva from enacting the revenge he has on MI6? That’s the question at hand.
The twenty third James Bond film was not a disappointment by any means. The action and special effects kept me along with many others interested throughout. In an action film like Skyfall, the storyline can get lost in the effects. While the story of Skyfall was great, the plot was hard to follow at times. Confusion is never fun within a movie and that is definitely how I felt watching: confused. If there was one part of the movie that I could say was the most confusing and lacking sense, it was the opening scene. The movie starts out with Bond on top of a train fighting one of Silva’s henchmen for the stolen data drive. M orders Eve, Bond’s accomplice in the mission, to fire at the two on the train. Without spoiling anything, let’s just say a character is killed and miraculously comes back to life, without any rhyme or reason.
Leaving out the fact that the film created confusion, the movie itself was actually very good. Of course there’s action, guns, and fighting, but the best part of the film was the cast without a doubt. Daniel Craig, in his third Bond film, was excellent, no surprise. Craig had a different swagger from the other films he was in, but at the same time he is still the classic James Bond, and that is what is most admirable about his character. Along with Craig, Judi Dench, Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes, and (in a small role) Albert Finney were all fantastic.
My favorite character though, and I’m sure many will agree with this, was Bardem’s completely warped, deranged character Raoul Silva. Bardem was simply terrifying. He had that “fear factor” that wasn’t so much “scary” if you will; he just had that overall psychologically creepy character. He manipulated people with his exquisite vocabulary and overall speech that quite frankly left me frightened. He had that overall scare factor, almost like Heath Ledger’s Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight. Like Ledger, Bardem wasn’t necessarily scary; he was creepy and that just left the audience, along with myself, petrified.
Looking back and reflecting at the movie as a whole, I would say that Sam Mendes’ Skyfall was a success. It had a very attention grabbing storyline, and although lost at times within scenes of confusion, it was still very good. The cast was simply amazing and I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if Bardem is up for any award nominations in the near future.
Skyfall was great and I’m sure many Bond fans across the world were just as pleased with it as I was.
