Skyfall : Old Dog, old tricks

Went and saw Skyfall, the latest James Bond film which also marks the fiftieth anniveresary of the movie franchise, in true traditional James Bond fashion this one starts off with an action sequence where Bond is chasing some crazy guy through some foreign country. This opening sequence ends a little differently though with the antagonist unceremoniously shot and falling from space a la Felix Baumgartner (or so it seemed any way) into a raging river, and then over a waterfall into the abyss. The opening credits with theme song then play in a style reminiscent of the old Bond movies before we find Bond doing it with some hot girl in some exotic location far removed from where he was shot, apparently having lost the zeal for his job. London is under attack and the whole world knows about it, even Bond on his remote island can catch the latest on CNN which prompts him to return to his homeland. He waits in the dark in M’s house before announcing his comeback and learning of the implications of his failed mission in the opening sequence.

The film goes on a bit as he tracks down the guy that got the best of him in the opening sequence which then leads him to Macau and the villain of the film, Silver (Javier Bardem), an ex-MI6 operative, crazy and now evil, and possibly swinging for the other side (or maybe he plays for both teams, it’s hard to tell), any way back to the story. He has used his modern day gadgetry and IT nouse to do whatever he likes and now he wants revenge on M who betrayed him and gave him up to the Chinese. Having taken over some island and run his netowrk from this secret hideaway, complete with its own open data warehouse with blinking lights, kilometres of network cabling, and noise-free cooling, he has now got M right where he wants her, although one has to wonder why he couldn’t just surprise her in her apartment the way Bond did at the beginning of the film. Once again faced with impossible odds, Bond is able to save himself with mechanical-trap like reflexes and movements and capturing Silver, although he couldn’t save the beautiful Bond girl this time.

But of course Silver isn’t that stupid, he wanted to be captured and once in London the game twisted again and he was the one holding the aces, so through unnecessarily complicated schemes, superior H4X0rZ l337 skills, and luck he managed to get into a situation where he had the chance to kill M in a public area where everyone could see, but through sheer determination and persistence Bond is able to save the day once again and force Silver to plan B. At this point the film has started to drag on a bit, but we must carry on and fight it out to the end so we see how Bond has set the trap for Silver, knowing that Silver has the technological advantage, the game is then turned and played on Bond’s terms, using old school techniques such as hunting rifles, gas cyclinders, gun powder, and medieval siege defense techniques, Bond is able to overcome and kill Silver using the old and trusty throwing knife. In the end though, M still died from a bullet wound but perhaps it was not the way SIlver wanted her to go which meant that the good guys still won the day. From my point of view, the film was quite entertaining especially if you ignore all the overly complex schemes and counter moves that had to absolutely fall perfectly for the whole thing to come together (as you have to do in these films), the last part did drag on a bit. Javier Bardem was awesome though, I think that he is the ultimate bad guy actor and very much look forward to seeing him play the crazy psycho that you never want to run into in many a future film.

Picture taken from wikipedia.