Skyfall: Haters can hate, but Bond is still here.

Let me spare you what you already know. Skyfall is clearly a good movie. Even if you haven't seen it,  nearly every critic from here to Timbuktu has more or less proclaimed it a hit , and every person happy to post about something other than the finally ended election spin-off has blown up Facebook with the news. Thus rises my challenge, and why I held off for almost a week on writing this particular review.

Surprisingly, an extremely intelligent person I know told me he hated the film , going as far as to publicly denounce my general opinions about all movies because I enjoyed a film he apparently nearly slept through. Now it goes without saying that for his blasphemy this friend of mine has been rebuked, and that the half a bottle of a certain Russian beverage that was once his has been amply drunk in memoriam of his once revered taste. But still, his assessment of the film, as misguided as it was, left me agitated. Common sense dictates that if there is one person who feels such a way about a film, that there are many others. So naturally, I sought them out, asking them what it was they had against the film. What I got instead was not a barrage of criticism against the film in particular, but rather the entire James Bond series, which as luck would have it celebrates its fiftieth anniversary with the release of Skyfall.

Skyfall finds its title character in a position we are unaccustomed to seeing him in. He is weak, failing medical and psychological examinations in a time when MI6 is under fire as being out of date and more trouble than it's worth. We see Daniel Craig physically domineered, bleed from bullets and at times look almost deliberately old- something completely contrary to the criticisms of Bond I heard as a character with no wounds, or physical limitations. The camera never hesitating to scan an unshaven face, with  sharp grey hairs reminding us of streaks in an aging lion's mane. And yet, in those same camera shots of a smirking Bond, there lies the genius of director Sam Mendes, for it is in acknowledging the series' past faults that the latest Bond really makes its money. Funnily enough the faults that film addressed lined up exactly with most of the criticisms of people who didn't like the series.

Bond picking some scabs...or looking metaphorically in the mirror.

Firstly, Skyfall actually makes use of it's acting cast. One of the major attractions with James Bond other the years is that it has often been a who's who of British acting, with legends such as Judi Dench, provided with glorified cameos, with dialogue and screen time horribly similar to the "six-lines a movie phase" that plagued Alan Rickman (Snape) in the first two Harry Potter films. In the Daniel Craig era however, Dench's character , known as M, has been given decidedly more meat to work with and it is around the troubles of her character that Skyfall is centered, giving the bond fan a view of the world of MI6 that has been seldom visited in previous Bond films. But while finally giving the old their due, Skyfall also ushers in a new crop of characters, in particular Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw, who usher in a new energy and deliver strong performances that cap an exciting year for both, with Naomie Harris soon appearing as Winnie Mandela in a biopic based on The Long Walk to Freedom, and with Whishaw's impressive turn in my earlier reviewed Cloud Atlas. Mendes puts the icing on the cake with a measured deployment of Ralph Fiennes, ensuring the presence of a British acting legend in the series will continue.

The major star of the film remains Daniel Craig, settling into a balance of character that after the love affair of Casino Royale seemed like just a marriage of convenience in a below par Quantum of Solace. Craig's Bond is just as suave and yet Bourne-like as in the past two installments, but is also witty, dry, and funnier. Perhaps the most refreshing thing about Skyfall is that it abandons the obvious giggles of Bond-girl names like Pussy Galore (I shit you not- it happened) and instead opts for clever dialogue and hilarious innuendos provided from the unlikeliest of sources, while never losing it's serious image. Mendes uses this clever writing to make fun of previous James Bond films, having characters like Whishaw's "Q" remind a Bond disappointed with his weapon allocation that it's not all about the exploding pens. Only one sequence could let Mendes down in this film, and it's one that I will not say too much about in case you haven't seen the film. What I will say, is that the movie line "This is my house and I have to protect it!" fluttered around the theatre for a few minutes before everyone realized that we weren't watching some child star from the nineties who managed to somehow date Mila Kunis, but rather Daniel Craig teaching Bond new tricks while respecting tradition, just as much as Adele's haunting introduction music surely reminded viewers of Shirley Bassey's memorable Goldfinger.

Well at least we know Mila Kunis isn't shallow...

Bond is clearly going to endure, and with Craig scheduled for two more films, and the speculation surrounding Idris Elba (coincidentally playing Mandela himself alongside Naomie Harris) as a possible replacement rising, the show will clearly go on. I for one await intrigued; acknowledging Skyfall not as the best Bond movie of all time, but as a sign of good things to come.