Movie Review: Skyfall

credit: Skyfall

Despite being released back in 2012, there are plenty of people who are still getting into the James Bond franchise at this time, and Skyfall is just one of the many titles that a lot of superfans would suggest they watch. There are those who would say that at one point, the storylines tend to blur into one another since the gist of it is that James Bond gets the girl, saves the day, and eliminates the bad guy. Hey, it’s a common trope among action movies, and Bond is one of those that helped to revolutionize the idea. After all, Bond has been one of the biggest names in action for so long that one could be forgiven for the idea that he inspired a great deal of the movies that have come along since his inception. There are many different ways to pick apart every Bond movie, but to do so would be to incur the ire of those who have been watching the movies from the Sean Connery days up until the present. But still, sometimes, one can’t help but pick at certain points within a franchise since it brings a sense of equality to the movies. 

The movie starts off like a Bond movie should, with a chase in progress. 

The movie starts off with action, as one might hope, since Bond and a villain named Patrice are fighting atop a train as Bond and Moneypenny are attempting to retrieve a list that contains the names of various undercover agents around the world. If the list is allowed to slip into the wrong hands, the agents will be killed. But when Moneypenny is given the green light to take a shot at Patrice before the train heads into a tunnel, she accidentally shoots Bond instead, and he’s presumed dead when he falls to the river below. A while after this incident, M is set to be forced into retirement by Gareth Mallory, the new head of operations and a former SAS officer. After a cyberterrorist attack on MI6, Bond returns to active duty, despite failing all the tests that he’s put through in order to make certain that he’s fit for duty. 

Bond, as usual, gets to travel quite a bit and do things that one might consider to be more fun than daring. 

After failing to stop Patrice from committing an assassination, Bond fights him and attempts to find out who his employer is, but Patrice falls from a skyrise to his death before saying anything. When Bond cashes in a chip that he found on Patrice, he ends up running into Patrice’s accomplice, Severine. As another Bond girl, she’s quite beautiful, so one can imagine what was bound to happen since this is James Bond we’re talking about, and imagining any Bond movie without a romantic liaison would be kind of ridiculous. It’d be like a Jean Claude Van Damme movie where he doesn’t perform a perfect split. But as one could guess, this wasn’t bound to last since, upon making their way to an island on Severine’s yacht, they’re met by former MI6 agent Raoul Silva, who murders Severine and tries to recruit Bond into his service. 

credit: Skyfall

Some people don’t think they’re expendable.

The fact that Raoul didn’t think he was an expendable asset obviously left an imprint on him, much as the cyanide capsule he tried to kill himself with left a mark on his body. It’s always felt a little harsh to think that one’s country would disavow any knowledge of them if a mission went awry, but the general idea is that a country isn’t supposed to be committing acts of espionage, then those who are willing to undertake the mission are bound to be given the understanding that if they’re caught, the country will act in their own interest.  Raoul’s quest to not only destroy MI6 but also take M down on his own is an obsession that leads to a very bad end and makes him a lot sloppier than one might think since revenge is one of those things that, in a movie, will eventually consume a person. 

M’s death is kind of tragic. 

One had to know that M wouldn’t last for every Bond movie since it’s been made clear that not every character is going to make it to the end of the franchise if there is an end. But thinking that M would go out like this wasn’t exactly on the minds of a lot of people since she’s been one of the better parts of the franchise for a while now. One could say that she went out in a manner that was far better than being bombed into oblivion, especially since she was allowed to die while helping Bond to eradicate a real threat to the agency.