Skyfall: Go and tell the King…
Much has already been made of the frankly embarrassing mess of product placement in Skyfall, but in this case it felt more like the product was placing the camera on its best side; the hand of accountants with as much directorial clout on certain shots as Sam Mendes could claim on his slim majority. Also, and I’m sure this was a torture spared at screenings for critics, our experience was marred not just by the usual creative deadweight of adverts but, more damningly, six adverts which featured Daniel Craig in character. I’m not sure where you stand on the issue, but don’t want the watch, laptop, car or beer of fictional characters being foisted on me moments before I’m expected to form an emotional attachment to them. Far from making me desire the unnameable crap which was being shamelessly shilled in high-definition, it made me wince all the more embarrassedly whenever the camera lingered too long on a piece of consumer electronics or a drink turned so as to display its label indiscreetly. When a car was revealed with the brass blare of Monty Norman’s Bond theme I actually swore, and I’m fairly certain it was aloud. I was sick of Bond, as an iconic figure and as a brand, before Skyfall even started rolling, and every unnecessary corporate-directed shot brought that sickness back in ever-increasing waves…
Of course between bouts of nausea I was able to refocus my eyes on the screen long enough to develop an opinion on the film proper. Skyfall is a far less earnest affair than its predecessors; at least, it operates in both light and shade. The return to camp works for Craig’s Bond, it provides a certain levity that was justifiably lacking in Casino Royale and less justifiably lacking in the moribund Quantum of Solace. Javier Bardem’s Mr. Silver is a throwback to the villains of old; an obvious threat whose affectations undercut his menace whilst making him unpredictably offhanded in his violence, and it’s only his sociopathic and sanguine manias which keep him from upstaging the much more measured performances of Daniel Craig and Judi Dench, whose M finally gets more to do than alternate expressions of frustration and relief. All in all , Daniel Craig’s credit as “Ian Fleming’s James Bond: 007″ has never seemed more apposite: The dispassionately casual misogyny and hyper masculine aggression, the laboured puns and a body count buried under jingoism and self-regard, even the use of kitsch gadgets and an obsession with conspicuously expensive accoutrements, all these elements are in play, for good or ill.
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