From Scotland With Shotguns

Rating: 10/10 (23 November 2012)

In "GoldenEye," the modern M (Judi Dench) calls Bond "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War" and announces to him in that same film "If you think for one moment I don't have the balls to send a man out to die, your instincts are dead-wrong," a sentiment put to the test in the bang-bang motorcycle rooftop turned train chase outside of Istanbul that opens "Skyfall."
M's decisions to protect an encrypted list of embedded spy names thrust the film into the dazzling title credit sequence, a swirl of underworld imagery, with Bond being sucked into a whirlpool that dissolves into a skull, a cemetery with an open grave, Chinese red dragons swirling about, and shattering mirrors featuring Bond shooting himself. Post credit sequence set to the incomparable Adele theme song, Mendes then cuts to M, and this film centers itself on her. She is the Bond girl in this film, facing an imminent forced retirement from Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) as well as an oversight board for her running of MI-6. M is seen drinking a lot in this film, and Trevelyan's words from Dench's first film regarding drinking to silence the screams could be directed at her. Her words and actions put her agents in mortal danger, and culpability is hers. "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," the Bard wrote in "Henry IV, Part 2," and M struggles to relinquish hers until the job is done.
Bond returns to action after a mission gone awry with a bullet in his shoulder and grudge against M. He returns to a subterranean M1-6 as a result of a terrorist attack on the headquarters itself. In the tunnels underneath London, M reevaluates Bond and sends him off to China to retrieve the stolen list. The hunt leads to a shimmering assassination sequence in a Shang-Hai skyscraper with the complex interplay of light and shadow as well as a spooky scene in a Macau casino, all reds and yellows and Komodo dragons. Bond is shown entering the mouth of the dragon that marks the casino's front (he might as well be crossing over the river Styx with his coin for Charon), and Mendes's film embraces this image: Bond entering death, Bond entering his own past. Komodo dragons swirl underneath the steps of Bond as he meanders into more and more trouble. Another ship to an abandoned island. A bad guy awaits, over one hour into the film, and Javier Bardem delivers a provocative performance filled with verve and fun, as well as pathos. Bardem is given three powerful entrances as villain (one a long extended monologue as he approaches a captive Bond, one a Hannibal Lecter-style incarceration, and one announced by an Animals cover of John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom" as he steps off a helicopter-ride of death, automatic weapon in hand, revenge on his mind). Bardem proves capable in all three sequences, a lethal Byronic hero who implores M to "Think of your sins" as well as proves a mirror to Bond. Silva's tortured past implicates M, and he serves as a reminder of her own guilty conscience. Silva is what Bond could become and also a tie back to Alec Trevelyan. Silva is the collateral damage of the actions of both MI-6 and M.
"Skyfall" delivers a Bond film of impressive emotional heft. Mendes has won the Academy Award for directing (and Bardem and Dench, both for acting) and seems as interested in the visual palette of the film (tunnels, abandonment, archways) as he is in letting his small cast dig into the material.
The staging of the final thirty minutes of the film in Scotland at Bond's ancestral home is quite possibly the most exciting Bond action sequence ever put to film. The less said about it, the better. Dench is strong here, as is the supporting cast of Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Rory Kinnear, Ben Whishaw, and the great Albert Finney. There is a sufficient amount of wry humor in the film, ably delivered by Craig; Silva asks Bond his hobby, and Bond spits out, "Resurrection."
Mendes has resurrected the character and the series from the depths of "Quantum of Solace," a nonsensical, muddled step backwards from the character-driven "Casino Royale." He has resurrected the notion of a Bond song being a smash hit, something entering the pop culture beyond Bond. He has resurrected the conceit that Bond the man is infinitely more interesting than Bond the visual effect. Pierce Brosnan left the series several years back in "Die Another Day" with an invisible car and hang-gliding while a laser sliced an iceberg behind him. Craig and Dench have, with help from director Martin Campbell and now Sam Mendes, grounded the Bond series in a man, a man who was a child once, wounded and vulnerable by his parents' death. Bond is a man gripping by his fingertips, yet able to pull himself up. Bond is haunted, yet capable and confident, able to stand on a train track and ignore the approaching train. Bond is a lone warrior, staring out from the rooftops at the end, in a nod to the recent "Batman" series, always on guard.
"Skyfall" is about the changing of the guard with the Bond series in many ways, and I am proud to place it alongside "From Russia With Love," "Goldfinger," "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," and "License To Kill" as a masterpiece.
Four stars, my highest rating.