First review of Skyfall: 007's return is premium Bond

Sam Mendes gives James Bond fans a real treat in Daniel Craig's third outing as 007
1/3
10 December 2012

This is, you might say, the Diamond Jubilee Bond. You might have thought it would be hard to surpass Bond’s role stepping out with the Queen at the Olympics? Well, Skyfall runs it close.

Right from the first sequence, a chase through Istanbul that channels Bourne and The Italian Job, it’s got moments of pure joy for the buffs. Bond, as we already know, gets shot by his sidekick, on M’s instructions, in a vain attempt to nobble the man who stole a disc with details of every single Nato agent who is embedded in terrorist organisations – think Wikileaks here. Well, he returns: embittered, battered, aged…and with stubble. Fancy. M too, is harder, if that’s possible, and so you would be, if you were about to be pensioned off by a sneery Tory – Ralph Fiennes – from the Commons Security and Intelligence Committee. So far so dark and bitter.

But the treats keep coming, even while we’re wallowing in the psychological depths. Even for those of us who adored Desmond Llewellyn, everyone’s favourite armourer, Ben Wishaw, a tecchie geek, is a joy as Q. As Bond said to him, drily: “you’ve still got spots”. “I” he retorts, “can take out more people on my laptop before I’ve had my first Earl Grey than you can in a year in the field”. Javier Bardem, a hottie in every other context, is a marvel as Silva, a villain who manages to combine Jaws (you remember that Titan with the silver teeth?) and, ahem, Julian Assange (he’s blond).

But it’s the succession of references to earlier Bond that make audiences laugh out loud: that’s the beauty of Sam Mendes in charge. There’s a drinking scene with a scorpion, Chinese dragons and, for good measure, Komodo dragons, train-top fights, spiralling scenes through water, jokes about exploding pens, a gag about getting into deep water and, I promise you, the piece de resistance, a return to the Aston Martin DB5. With a red ejector button.

The only drawbacks really, are that the girls – the very pretty Berenice Marlohe and Naomie Harris – get next to no good lines, not much in the way of jokes and little in the way of action, apart from fluffing up a shooting. And the episode in the Underground will mean that you’ll think long and hard before going on the District Line again. Other than that, it’s Premium Bond.

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