A 'Beautiful' Bond Job!

Rating: 9/10 (10 November 2012)

You grab your seat, with a bucket of popcorn, anticipating a bond-wagon to roll you over and you see a start which is perfectly in line with that anticipation- a mad chase in a Non-British, Non-American country which provides cultural variety, crowded streets, colorful landscapes and everything one has traditionally associated with a location for a spy chase sequence. Even before you get a chance to settle in, you are asked to get ready for a trip as start credits begin to roll along with some brilliant visuals and trippy music.
I have always considered Bond movies as wholesome entertainment packages with which a lot of famous names have been associated over years. I could never see it fall in the category of serious cinema where I would want to spend a lot of time. But I was pleasantly surprised and was full of hope the day I got to know that Skyfall is being directed by none other than Sam Mendes who has created more than one masterpiece in his not so long career and is a master at slow plot building/twisting and also loves to create life like characters who are complicated,dark and layered.
Skyfall is a rare experience in itself .It is a blend of what Bond movies have stood for over five decades and what Mendes has perfected as an art. It is that rare bond movie where scenes are not exhilarating but are absorbing in nature. Here, director doesn't want the adrenaline to rush but wants your senses to go numb and flat before they surge back with a different kind of excitement. Skyfall is by far the most beautifully shot Bond movie ever. The climax sequence which is being shown to be happening at the time of dusk in some beautiful Scotland countryside location is one of the most hauntingly beautiful shooting sequences that you will ever come across. The manner in which blueness of sky and the glow of fire and bulbs complement each other is a sight to cherish. The portions shot in Shanghai and Macau are neither loaded with nor devoid of what you are used to see in a Bond flick but refreshingly suck you in the scenes through beautiful frames and lighting and most importantly a surrealistically relaxed treatment.
In times where Nolan has created the most revered anti-hero character, it is very natural that any director, how so ever acclaimed he might be would tend to get inspired by the character of Joker (The Dark Knight). It would be extremely unfair to say that Mendes and his writers drew inspiration from Joker's character while they created Silva's character for Bardem but there is no doubt that there is uncanny similarity in the development and treatment of both these characters. Javier Bardem plays a fantastically devilish ex-agent of MI6 who takes the path of cyber- terrorism to seek revenge from M, the head of intelligence wing of British secret service played by Judi Dench. She has played her part satisfactorily as required by the plot but the expectations are much higher when an actor of her caliber is cast in a production like this and that certainly is an area where Skyfall could have thrown few more punches.
Go and take a plunge in the world of Mendes's Bond. It could work for you just like it worked for me but I have a feeling that a lot of 007 aficionados would feel a little cheated.