Skyfall

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Apprehension sets in when we arrive at the Bond family manor in rural Scotland, the name of which lends Skyfall its title. The Bond films of the last fifty years seem to have made a pointed effort to not delve too much into James Bond as a coherent person--all the easier to replace aging actors, a cynic may say--and all we've gotten is "007." This works fine, assuming the films are good, but they're not always (I will never fully understand anyone who claims that Roger Moore achieved better than one or two decent Bond films). If Casino Royale truly was a reboot, then maybe we now deserve to see everything that made Bond who he is. We previously knew that he was an orphan, but little more. Skyfall introduces the blood and flesh, brick and mortar of his youth, revealing there is a person inside the agent, rather than an agent inside a person. And though these revelations all but kill the intriguing theory of James Bond being more of a code name than a person, the film series will prove the better for it. 

Outside of the character and the mythology, Daniel Craig is the greatest beneficiary of this development. What was once (on his good days) a two-dimensional hired killer is now a fully fleshed character, who happens to be a hired killer. There is a psychology and a reasoning behind the action hero. And this, by the way, is what the best so-called "gritty reboots" have always done: pare down the gimmicky action and give us a reason for the stunts. Craig is in the driver's seat of one of the most interesting heroes in cinematic history, one who changes and grows, if usually for the more grim and haunted. The brash, sharp-edged rookie from CR has evolved into a hard, field-ravaged machine. This owes as much to Craig's vulnerable, not-so-clean-cut performance as it does to the careful writing. There's always a lot of hyperbole surrounding this discussion, but I find it fair to say that Craig is quickly approaching the top of the Bond heap, with Connery still in the lead only because he was first. 

Judi Dench--even during the earlier Brosnan films--has always been an inspired choice for M, finally bringing a few measures of depth to Bond's boss. Where once MI6's boss could sometimes seem little more than a careless, bemused old man, enjoying Bond's antics, Dench brought a severe professionalism to the character, and a patience for Bond that could occasionally run out. But it's perhaps not until Skyfall that Dench is used for all her acting talents, delivering an M that is defiant but faltering. She is old, outmoded and, her slow understanding of that fact is sad because we realize how attached we've become to her, how attached Bond has become to her. Her death is sudden--a minor quibble, as that might've been handled better--but it could not have ended at any other time; she was never going to retire. Dench's M gets shuffled out not because we need her to move on, but because Bond needs her to and because MI6 needs her to. And that the story has more to do with her than any world-in-peril super-plot is a welcome development in a series that has too often felt the need to top itself over and over, in an increasingly impersonal fashion. 

Perhaps the bigger news--even bigger than M's fate--is the return of the eccentric, theatrical Bond villain. Javier Bardem (once again proving that if you give him a funny haircut, he will make it terrifying) brings an ebullient energy to Raoul Silva's quest for vengeance. When Silva arrives at Skyfall for the climax on a helicopter blaring The Animals' "Boom Boom" over a megaphone--one of several scenes in which Bardem simultaneously inspires both terror and glee--we see the flip side of the gritty reboot's gift for grounded transcendence (yes, I'm sticking with that description): the song is an organic pairing for his mission, a spurned madman's way of announcing himself and his plan. There is reason and history to Silva's mad methods and even his home base gets a back-story. When you make the villain interesting on his own terms--more than just someone for the hero to fight--you elevate both. 

I don't have as much to say about Naomi Harris' Moneypenny, other than that I like her. A lot. That this Moneypenny has been in the field--and can hold her own there--gives her much more interesting possibilities than someone who just has an easy and fun rapport with Bond (which, yes, this Moneypenny also has). 

Same with the new Q: a high-tech whiz kid with both feet planted firmly in the 21st Century. Portions of MI6 might prefer someone with an equal grounding in the old ways, but that's what Bond is for, right? 

The Bond series has flirted with irrelevance more than once. Skyfall boldly makes that theme central to its story and comes out the better for it, injecting desperately needed humanity into a series that can still be about escalating action, exotic locales, dangerous women, and insane villains, as long as there's a beating heart at the center. 

Grade: A-