Skyfall (2012)
Synopsis
Someone is committing elder cyber crimes against M but they’re not asking her to send money — they’re taunting her for her past mistakes. Bond, nursing his body and ego after effectively dying, can relate to this ageism but in facing M’s past, he must also face his own.
Particulars
Director: Sam Mendes
Writer/s: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan
Producers: Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli
Stars: Daniel Craig as James Bond, Judi Dench as M, Javier Bardem as Raoul Silva, Naomie Harris as Eve Moneypenny, Ben Whishaw as Q, Ralph Fiennes as Gareth Mallory, Bérénice Marlohe as Sévérine, Rory Kinnear as Bill Tanner, Helen McCrory as Clair Dowar MP and Albert Finney as Kincade
Budget: $150-200 million
Shot: Extensively across the UK (including London Underground, Hankley Common in Surrey and Pinewood Studios), Turkey and establishing footage in China and Japan
Inspired by: An original screenplay with some elements from different Fleming novels
The people’s choice
Skyfall has always been a bit of a point of contention in our household because Alex and his dad reckon it’s the best Bond film, whereas for me and my dad, Casino Royale has always worn that crown. In the interest of détente between the families, we repeated our 2021 Christmas gift of WASO tickets to both sets of parentals with a 2022 Christmas gift of Skyfall WASO tickets. A grand time was had by all and the fragile difference of opinion remained.
I hadn’t watched Skyfall since this orchestral experience and we unfortunately didn’t make it to the shop cinema to give this viewing the setting it deserves. Nevertheless, the film is impressive enough to stand on its own. Here are my own words of praise.
The strongest pre-credits sequence there’s ever been
Casino Royale did something properly innovative with its pre-credits scene and it’s that film that Skyfall was up against. They wouldn’t have the novelty of introduction this time, so how would they create a talking point in a now-established era?
Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were inspired by the Bond fake out death in You Only Live Twice and I say good instincts. I gasped when it happened in that film but Skyfall takes it to a whole other level.
The impact from this stellar pre-credits sequence doesn’t just come from the fact that Bond gets shot and the henchman gets away. It’s the tension built through the train fight. It’s Moneypenny’s greenness and M’s “take the shot” despite being told it’s not clean. It’s the breathtaking silence after we see Bond take the hit and plunge dramatically into the river below, earning his own Aragorn cliffhanger. And it’s that horrible misplaced guilt in Moneypenny’s voice as she says “agent down” over the radio. Eek!
Ladies and gentlemen, Adele
The transition from Bond’s aforementioned Aragorn journey by water down into the title credits is, in no uncertain terms, stunning. His lifeless silhouette, the giant hand that grabs him and pulls him to the depths, the inky figures hinting at the film’s final showdown; we have the returning Daniel Kleinman to thank for this but there’s someone else we need to thank for lending enormous gravitas to Skyfall’s title credits, and her name is Adele.
The opening sombre horns, those first few piano notes, the velvet in her voice and the power as it builds — Adele and her songwriter Paul Epworth created lighting in a bottle and I don’t think it’s a hot take to call ‘Skyfall’ the greatest Bond song of all time. In fact I know it’s not; it won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, the first time a Bond song had ever done so.
The cinema and production of it all
This is easily the most beautiful and cinematic Bond film in the entire franchise and looking at the team behind it, it’s not hard to see why.
Skyfall had on its team production designer Dennis Gassner, who would contribute to the incredible look and feel of Blade Runner 2049; set decorator Anna Pinnock, whose work on The Grand Budapest Hotel would contribute to one of the film’s Oscars; Casino Royale editor Stuart Baird, a refreshing return after the often confusing, frenetics cuts in Quantum of Solace; and costume designer Jany Temime, oft-nominated for her work on the Harry Potter films and whose suit and dress work here made me take notice.
Legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins signed on due to having worked with director Sam Mendes on Revolutionary Road and Jarhead but who signed Sam Mendes? A drunk Daniel Craig, if reports are accurate, who offered Mendes the directing job at Hugh Jackman’s Christmas party.
Mendes also brought across Thomas Newman, my favourite percussion-y composer, and screenwriter and long-time friend John Logan, who rewrote the script but kept most of Purvis and Wade’s basic story. Sidebar: Logan would go on to helm a personal favourite TV series of mine, Penny Dreadful. It’s a wonderful, theatrical show executive produced by Mendes and starring Bond alumni Timothy Dalton, Eva Green, Rory Kinnear and Helen McCrory.
A Bond in decline
One of my favourite things about The World is Not Enough is that Bond sustains a shoulder injury in the film’s opening, seduces the doctor to fake his health report and then things keep happening to exacerbate the injury. It’s one of the few things that humanises Bond in the Brosnan era but in Craig’s we’re spoilt for choice.
Bond has sustained torture before (in North Korea and in the balls) but his physical injuries in Skyfall are way worse than anything we’ve seen before. Watching him struggle through his training again — in activewear, no less — being unable to shoot straight and conceding “you know what, can we?” when Tanner suggests they pick the tests up again later is a side of Bond I feel privileged to see.
The fact that he doesn’t actually pass his fitness or psych tests and that M doctors the results is also a really nice touch. In part I think she does it because she’s facing her own ageist accusations but she also knows Bond is the best agent she has and even if he’s operating at 60%, he’s still her best shot at finding and beating Silva.
The ghosts of M’s past
By now we know that M’s mother status does not always translate to softness towards her agents. She left Brosnan’s Bond in a North Korean prison for 14 months before being forced to trade for him, a move she makes clear to Bond that she regrets. She advised her oil magnate mate not to pay the ransom when his daughter was taken hostage, setting off a chain reaction of MI6 destruction. And in the opening scene of Skyfall, she orders Bond to stop fussing over Ronson — an agent who’s been shot — and go after the assailant. Ronson dies, foreshadowing the central tension of the film.
One of the great things about Skyfall is that the scrutiny M is under, while slightly ageist in nature, is completely justified. Helen McCrory’s MP grilling M over the stack of MI6 bodies in her wake is annoying but when you ask yourself why you’re getting cranky at the lady asking the questions rather than the lady refusing to apologise, you realise how brilliant M’s characterisation has been.
Skyfall provides a most satisfying conclusion to my beloved M/Bond dynamic and illustrates why she goes to bat for Bond when she clearly hasn’t for other agents who’ve trusted her. Bond understands her position, accepts her flaws and never lumps the blame for his actions onto her. He doesn’t expect her to be Mother and unconditionally support him in every move, which ironically frees her to do so.
Silva, on the other hand, insists that “Mummy was very bad” and blames every shit thing that happened in his life beyond espionage on her. Grow up, dude. Self-appointing as your boss’s favourite and then being outraged when she chooses duty over you is weird. She’s not your mum!
My final “I love and will miss Judi Dench” gushing belongs to the scene where M recites one of her husband’s favourite poems before the Intelligence and Security Committee. He was only ever in the background (asleep next to her in Casino Royale and a voice in Quantum of Solace) but this little detail about his penchant for romance and how it complemented her stoicism is really tender and made me well up. May they be reunited.
A confident return to formula
Skyfall is the first film of the 21st century to successfully reinstate some of the Bond hallmarks while maintaining modern sensibilities. It’s confident and each choice feels well suited, from the excellent casting of Ben Whishaw as Q, Naomie Harris as Moneypenny and Ralph Fiennes as presumed M incumbent Gareth Mallory, to the return of the Aston Martin under different circumstances. That Bond had to pay for it himself — and that it still gets utterly destroyed — is a nice homage to 50 years of Bond’s low regard for prestige automobiles.
The film pulls off a grand villain intro too, with Silva’s slow walk towards Bond/the camera and his allegorical rat tale providing an iconic Big Bad moment that the modern Bonds have been a bit afraid to attempt. Javier Bardem is genuinely terrifying as Silva, so mission accomplished.
I only have a few notes for Skyfall. The CGI critters (Komodo dragons and a scorpion) have always bothered me and they still do, especially in an otherwise gorgeous looking and real feeling world. I also prefer the MI6 explosion in The World is Not Enough — which used a real explosion in a large-scale replica — to the digital one used in this, proof that miniatures and practical effects where possible are always the better choice.
And finally, while I’m not sure this could be helped due to the nature of her background story, Sévérine doesn’t make much of an impact as a Bond girl apart from being another damsel Bond can’t save. I think Bérénice’s performance is great though, as are her nails.
Skyfall is excellent and I completely understand why it’s so many people’s number one. It’s very well scripted, very moving and for the most part, immaculately executed. And so it should be; the talent involved in the production was unprecedented by previous standards.
Its place in a ranking really does come down to personal preference, franchise impact and whether you favour the beginning of a trilogy or the end. For me, Casino Royale, without as dynamite a creative team, still has that slight edge. But Skyfall is the closest second there ever was.
RANKING CATEGORIES (70%)
Bond execution = 10
Villain = 9
Bond girl(s) = 6
Song = 10
Opening titles = 10
Plot/action/gadgets = 8
Franchise identity = 10
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT (30%)
10/10