Skyfall (2012)

4 years after Quantum of Solace, we finally get Skyfall, the 3rd Craig Bond film - and it was by far his most successful one at the box office and critically (though his 1st, Casino Royale in 2006, is regarded as his best by some). Much of this success can be attributed to its status as a 50th-anniversary Bonder, with a lot of accompanying marketing. The pic begins with a strenuous chase sequence in Istanbul (locale for From Russia With Love in 1963 incidentally), culminating on top of a moving train; Bond has a lot of trouble with this single target he's been chasing and fighting, and then to add to his troubles, a female agent takes a long distance shot on orders from M and hits the hero instead. Bond takes a big fall but ends up in some waters; he is presumed dead by MI6 but, after the credits, it's revealed that he's in fine shape on a foreign beach somewhere, enjoying a retirement of his own choice. Well, "enjoying" may be too strong a term; Craig plays him as his usual sullen self and this beach he's living on now has not changed his disposition one iota.

Anyway, MI6 is attacked directly by some unseen diabolical menace - an explosion kills several staff members and this prompts Bond to return to London. Some problems with this latest Bonder already by this point: First, it mimics the 3rd Brosnan Bonder, The World is Not Enough (99), which indicates a pattern to this franchise that the filmmakers can't seem to avoid.  In that earlier film, MI6 was also wracked by an explosion early on, and things got quite personal with M. For whatever reason, the Bondmakers of the past couple of decades have felt  that lending these "personal" touches to the Bond universe and characters was the better way to create thrilling cinema - or at least get a rise out of fans.  The other issue is with Craig as Bond: the story also suggests that Bond is getting old and outmoded (he fails his tests to re-enter MI6 but M admits him anyway). The new Q looks like a little kid sitting next to Bond. Themes such as this have also been flirted with in past Bonders (remember Never Say Never Again?). But, Craig, unshaven, really does look like a grizzled old guy in the early scenes and it's distracting.
It seems as if these annoying gimmicks have saddled the past few Bonders - another one was Die Another Day (2002), in which Bond was also separated from MI6 for a long period of time. All this soul-searching and angst, mostly involving Bond & M, simply do not fit in the Bond universe. The filmmakers obviously feel they need to give the franchise some edge in these modern times, for new audiences, but all they're doing is melding James Bond with all the other super agents and their emotional problems. Bond, thanks to such, ah, nuances, loses his distinction. Even worse, M becomes the equally-important character in this latest adventure and that's just bizarre. Bond is off to Shanghai, where he finally catches up to the assassin who got away on that train but he doesn't get anywhere with "the list" - a top secret list of undercover agents which some bad guy got his hands on. The bad man releases a few names at a time and these agents start getting executed. Next up is Macau, a special casino with Komodo Dragons and finally an abandoned island, where Bond finally meets the bad guy, his dark counterpart, Silva (Bardem), a former MI6 agent (now, of course, this mimics the plot of Goldeneye).
Silva's goals and motivations are very personal and even petty - he became a cyber-terrorist years ago but he's really out for revenge against M, whom he looks upon as a mother figure which betrayed him. Silva's experience parallels Bond's, but the latter simply looks on it as part of the job, registering only minor annoyance at M's supposed error. Silva is somewhat effeminate and cutesy in his demeanor, even suggesting an attraction for Bond soon after they meet. It's all quite creepy and even perverse - again, a direction that modern filmmakers probably think they need to take in the decadent 21st century.  I'm not impressed with or wary of the main villain, just repulsed - give me the strong pragmatism of blackmailing the entire world which SPECTRE often indulged in; that made more sense. Silva is as expected devious and slippery, even as he's easily captured. The whole thing concludes on Bond's old estate and functions as a new beginning for the Bond franchise. I admit, I was rather tensed up by this point. BoG's Score: 7 out of 10