Competence, Darkness, Beauty

Rating: 7/10 (12 November 2012)

I expected not to like this film, not seeing how it could possibly manage to avoid staleness, so its competence was a pleasant surprise.
Part of the way Mendes freshens things is by subtracting parts of the most familiar stories that we know every Bond film will have. The seduction scene is a notable instance. We need only one shot here to mark the happening of the inevitable, and don't need to be told at all when it results in Bond's capture.
To complain about the many gaps and inconsistencies in the film is fair enough, but I think misunderstands the nature of the undertaking. These things are designed by committees. They are meant as vehicles to serve up compelling moments, and mostly that's what this one does best. How else do you explain the Bond death scene?
This has some of the brooding darkness of The Dark Knight and uses several of that film's tropes and plot points in ways that turn the realism up a bit. A notable instance of that involves Bardem and reminds one of the CGI Two-Face. Since it is briefer and more subtle, the effect works much better here, yielding one of the film's most resonant moments.
Mendes plants a Turner painting early on that had the effect for me of transforming the billowing smoke at the end into a reference back to the painting. The resulting implication that we have gone into a painting would be meant, I think, to help with the suspension of disbelief needed to enjoy a strikingly beautiful sequence. It's not for everyone to take an interest in such things, but I was amused by it.
Some pieces struck me as gratuitous such as the derailed train from "Hugo" and the repetitious asides about how silly MI6's gadgets are, which are undermined by the fact that two key plot points are built around those devices.
Much has been made of the centrality of M's character. I thought Dench was a weak link in this otherwise solid cast. I suspect we forgive her incompetence because she is Judi Dench.
The computers=magic stuff is all straight from 1995. Have we really made so little progress in how we think about and visualize technology since "Hackers?" Is that a bluetooth Bond is wearing at the beginning?
Can a person learn anything from a film such as this one? It aims only to be momentarily compelling. That it mostly succeeds on that score is remarkable enough.