Skyfall

Before I talk about Skyfall, I have to tell you about the Bond Experience.  A new 007 movie is an event. You can’t throw on a hoodie 10 minutes before showtime and roll up there like it’s no big deal. Save that for Bourne. Here’s what I did for my Bond Experience, I suggest you give it a shot.

1) Put on a playlist of every theme from every Bond film.

2) Put on a tuxedo and spend the next twenty minutes doing combat rolls and roundhousing your sofa.

3) Make a litre of martinis (shaken!) and dump them into a flask.

4) With only two hours left until the big premiere, meditate thoroughly upon the pros and cons of each Bond incarnation.

5) Do all of this alone. Bond’s secret agent lifestyle means he can’t get close to anyone, and neither can you. For the true Bond Experience, you have to become Bond.

Half a flask down, I sauntered over to the New Picture House. Even though it was packed, I had no problem getting a seat. No one wants to be next to the guy who’s sitting in a tuxedo at the back of the theatre, reeking of vermouth. Fancy, trashed, and completely alone: I was ready.

The first half of Skyfall is classic Bond, almost to a fault. There are chases, gunfights, fistfights, one-liners, exotic locales, and various incidents of drinking, gambling, womanizing, and tuxedoing. Now, I love all of these things (obviously), but I was starting to fear that the film might be a step backward (like Quantum of Solace). The great success of Casino Royale, at least in my mind, was that it cut out all the goofy shit that had been creeping into the series. It made James Bond a character you could take seriously again, all while telling a more cinematic, down-to-earth story without constant explosions or space lasers. I was afraid that Skyfall would be reduced to another slog of clichéd action set pieces strung along by an inane plot. Fortunately, I was wrong.

Despite the traditional setup of the first half, there are little moments when we’re made to ask ourselves, just how relevant is James Bond? When international espionage is more easily accomplished on a laptop and “for Queen and country” no longer rings quite so true, is Bond a hopeless anachronism? Yet once our villain shows up (the splendid Javier Bardem), everything comes together. The second act rebuffs any doubts, bringing us back into Bond’s country of origin, as well as the origins of both the Bond character and the spy-thriller (the final section could be a deleted scene from The 39 Steps). As it reaches its conclusion, the film becomes both a destruction and a celebration of the old Bond, leaving the series open to charge ahead in new directions while holding on to what made Bond great to begin with. Maybe it was just the litre of martinis, but as the final shot came to rest in a near-replica of M’s office from Dr. No, I felt pretty warm and fuzzy. Bond isn’t back; he never left.

I give the whole experience f-f-f-five stars out of five.

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