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Did you know Skyfall is a James Bond movie with the most Academy Award nominations? It is also packed with proven movie stars and Oscar winners in its cast. Daniel Craig as Bond is pushed to the limits, and outside of No Time to Die, Skyfall is the movie where he loses the most in fighting supervillains and saving the world.
Not everyone liked Skyfall, and he did miss on some things, but it is overall arguably the best in Craig’s era and one of the most intriguing Bond movies of all time. Here are his top highs and some undeniable lows.
Javier Bardem is an incredibly plausible villain
Oscar winner Javier Bardem gave Skyfall a stellar performance. An unstable man driven by insecurities and hurt feelings toward M and Bond is excellently acted by Bardem. In many ways, Silva is a mirror image of Bond, and his outcasting from the Mi6 is puzzling at first. However, as an intelligent and capable former agent, Silva created an elaborate plan to hurt his former employers and showcase that letting him go was a mistake. Deadly Silva pursues revenge, and his unstable character will lead to his imminent downfall. Bardem’s performance is one of the pillars of Skyfall in every way.
Star-studded cast
Bond is a niche action movie with often cliché performances by even star actors. In Skyfall, the producer gathered a decorated film crew with three Oscar winners: Javier Bardem, Judi Dench, and Ralph Fiennes. In addition, Daniel Craig and Albert Finney were nominated for the Academy Awards. While previous accomplishment doesn’t mean the cast will automatically be great, in the case of Skyfall, all actors were in line with their reputation. British actor Ben Whishaw took Q’s challenging role, filling it perfectly.
Dancing around the Oscars with cinematography
Critics and fans agree Skyfall is one of the visual most impressive Bond movies. From the opening scene to the Shangai chase and grand Skyfall finale, Roger Deakins performed incredibly as director of photography. Perfect dark scenes and photography in fight scenes were top tiers earning Deakins Academy Award nomination for cinematography.
Adele’s theme song
Bond movies have a long line of top artists performing theme songs, including Tina Turner, Madonna, and Paul McCartney. However, Skyfall featured the upcoming British singing sensation Adele and her astounding voice range. Adele created a song that works perfectly as an emotional anchor of the movie and simultaneously has a life of its own outside of the film. The song Skyfall earned an Academy Award, and it is one of the brightest pieces of the movie package.
The end of the line for M
Judi Dench fits perfectly in the role of M, the MI6 mastermind behind Bond’s adventures. She first appeared in 1995 GoldenEye. Over 17 years played in seven movies and had one cameo appearance in 2015 Spectre.
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Hard-boiled personality devoted to the cause till the end, M had a fitting lot in Skyfall. But, unfortunately, she doesn’t reveal the extent of her injury to Bond and basically sacrifices so that James can take down Silva in the end.
What are Skyfall’s cons?
Skyfall is too long, with 143 minutes of runtime. It’s hard to keep the story of an action movie together for so long, and Skyfall seems inconsistent sometimes.
The movie reveals James Bond’s origin story, which can be interesting, but it steals some appeals from the mysterious super agent. The Bond was always silent and never revealed his cards. Finding out about his childhood didn’t add anything to his charisma. Whatever screenplay writers came out with would have been lacking.
While Javier Bardem is incredible as vicious Silva, his master plan is confusing. He ended up blowing the subway for no good reason. His ultimate goal was to get back to and kill M, and if producers had cut down some of the stops in his plan, the movie could have been even better.
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The last fight in the movie is spectacular but somewhat out of character of the Bond movie. It had too many fireworks and looked like a borderline war or superhero movie over-the-top battle.
We could nitpick about Skyfall more, but in the end, it is one of the finest movies in franchise history, with the great Bond, worthy adversary, and incredible supporting cast.
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