Five years on, ‘Skyfall’ remains the decade’s best action movie
(apart from Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol)
It was a canny concept: let’s get a real filmmaker to do a Bond movie. Sam Mendes was hired to take on the 23rd instalment of the 50-year old franchise; his hiring paid off like gangbusters.
Skyfall is the best Bond movie because it tries to be something different. It ignores the formula long ago established for the series but maintains its key elements — misogyny included — and manages to satisfy Bond fans and cynics at the same time. An incredible, once-presumed-impossible, feat.
When I first went to see Skyfall, in the middle of the hype about Just How Great it was, I don’t think I fully appreciated how much I’d come to admire Mendes’ achievement. Only in the past 5 years, as it has popped up on ITV every now and then, and I have found myself compelled to watch it start to finish again, has it dawned on me just what a flawlessly-executed piece of mass market moviemaking it is. These are the best things about it:
We know James Bond. We don’t need to be introduced. And Skyfall doesn’t bother, smashing in with a non-stop opening action sequence that’s unpredictable and exceptionally staged.
The opening credits are magnificent. The song, as fatigued as we may have become with its singer, is bloody excellent.
Roger Deakins shot this movie, and you can really tell. Some stuff in it is just as impressive as Blade Runner 2049’s visuals.
Javier Bardem’s Silva is a delightful antagonist. His flirtations with Bond (while arguably stereotype-affirming) are really quite enjoyable, and his oral disfigurement is a pretty terrifying reveal.
It takes a filmmaker with guts to throw a poem in the middle of a James Bond movie, but M’s reading of Tennyson’s “Heroic Heart” is exactly what Skyfall needs as it transitions into its dark last act.
Thomas Newman is the man, and the best Bond composer since John Barry. His music for Spectre is the best (only great) thing about that film, but Skyfall remains a wonderful score in its own right.
The stripped-back last act in Skyfall Manor is the perfect ending to the 50th Anniversary Bond movie: exposing the roots of this franchise’s spirit (minus the expendable sexual partners and heavy drinking). Albert Finney’s appearance is a great surprise. It’s all done so very well.
Skyfall has all the elements of a rewatchable movie: there isn’t a single dull moment in the whole thing, and at almost 140 minutes that’s a real accomplishment. I doubt there will again be a Bond film I enjoy this much (unless Chris Nolan takes a shot at one, c’mon Chris!).
