This year marks the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film series. Maybe that's why the 23rd official Bond film, Skyfall, spends so much time defending old things, old methods, and old ideas. In fact, a variation of "Sometimes old ways are the best" is said almost any time the explosions let up--and that exact phrase is repeated at least twice.
This heavy-handed argument may come off as grumpily defensive to some--Get off 007's lawn!--but it seems intended to be a declaration for the series' relevance, both a celebration of Bond history and a return to it.
Surprisingly, Skyfall strays from the deeper, grittier, more human Bond introduced in 2006's Casino Royale and continued in Quantum of Solace. For the first time, Daniel Craig's Bond isn't so dark, moody, or conflicted. It's back to lighter fare; thankfully it's not overly silly or dopey. And when it's all over, the pieces are in place to continue the franchise as if Casino Royale never happened. The quips are back. The odd nemesis with a weird trait is, too. As are the flirting, the winks at the audience, and the tone-deaf, insensitive commentary on women.
This is your father's James Bond. And director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) makes it thrilling, fun, and fresh. For Bond devotees, there are great homages and treats.
Skyfall opens with Bond tasked to retrieve a top-secret list of MI6's undercover agents. While this action sequence starts with a fairly standard car chase, it builds to proper levels of Bond audaciousness as he drives a tractor over cars--all of which are being transported on top of a speeding train. The pre-credits sequence ends with a quiet and poignant voiceover of a character declaring: "Agent down." The list is out. MI6 director M (Judy Dench) is under fire for a hasty, controversial call. And Bond is out of commission.
M's character has been more integral in the Craig films than in most of Bond's past, and that remains the case here. (After all, if you have Judy Dench, you use her!) In the wake of Britain's largest intelligence leak, the Prime Minister and a key official (Ralph Fiennes) are cracking down on M, MI6 and the double-0 program.
Are M and Bond washed up, played out? Are they relics of an "old-fashioned" golden age of espionage? Is MI6 itself an outdated institution--not fit for this new world and modern warfare? Several scenes involve debate over whether an "antiquated instrument" like James Bond is still needed in a digital world where a young computer wiz like the new Q "can do more damage on [a] laptop in [his] pajamas than [Bond] can do in a year in the field."
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SOURCE: Christianity Today
Review by Todd Hertz
K-Drama TRCT by The Oracle Magazine
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