Skyfall: Is a Cold War relic still relevant today?

This installment of Bond asks if 007 and his era of spy craft are still relevant.  This leads into the theme, which is pretty in your face throughout the film, which is have the times past 007 and M?  It's the class of old school verses the new.  This theme seems appropriate in the fiftieth year of the Bond franchise.  Bond was created in the post-World War II, Cold War era.  It seems fair to ask how this Cold War invention play in today's digital terror era.

This theme plays itself most visible in the first scenes with Bond's new Q, which is the first Q of the Daniel Craig era.  Q in this film looks like he's straight out of college, as does the new Moneypenny by the way.  Bond meets Q in an art gallery as he stares at a painting of a old warship being brought in to be scraped, as I said the theme is pretty in your face.  Q gives Bond his gadgets for the mission, which are a gun and a radio distress signal.  Bond looks at Q and asks if that's it.  Q follows with a quip about not having any exploding pens.  Gadgets have been part of the lure of the Bond films I have seen.  You always ask what were the gadgets, who was the girl, who was the villian, and who sang the opening song (in this case Adele).  This is a very conscious departure from past films to emphasize the  conservative way Bond is being cast in this film.  They are basically sending him into the field with a gun, radio, and a good luck.  Of course, they didn't go completely old school as the gun will only fire if it reads Bond's fingerprints.

This movie just as much about Bond as it is M.  Both have story lines which questioning their usefulness at their advanced age and antiquated ways.  This actually increases the drama as you question if either of them will be around in a next film.  It had a very Dark Knight Rises feel to it.  As in that movie, Bond fails (and falls) on an early mission and is assumed dead, but in contrast to Bale's jail-hole dwelling Batman, Bond is living comfortably on a beach drinking his life away.  Bond returns to action after a terrorist attack on MI6.  His skills and mental state, however remain suspect, just as Batman's did throughout Dark Knight Rises.  M's ability and decision making choices are immediately questioned as she must choose whether to order a shot which could hit Bond or take out a target with sensitive information in the opening scenes.

The villain in this film is played by Javier Bardem who is a former MI6 agent, which M had sold out to the Chinese.  His mission is to destroy M, much the same way she destroyed him.  Bardem, who plays Silva, is reminiscent of Dark Knight's Joker and Dark Knight Rises' Bane, in that they have a grand plan and seem to be a step ahead of everyone.  You should skip ahead to the last two paragraphs if you don't want spoilers.


Other similarities include how Silva allows himself to be captured to compromise the new bunker MI6 and escape into London, much like the Joker in Dark Knight.  Silva has a Chinese island which was abandoned after he claimed there was a chemical leak, much like Bane is able to control an island in Dark Knight Rises.  Silva, in the end, is a little confusing to me.  Was his goal destroying the entire intelligence agency or just M?  It seems like he could have done either with a lot less grand planning.  It almost seems as though he planned the whole getting caught part to escape into London to kill M.  A plane ticket and hiding out in M's house, which Bond is always able to do, seems a lot easier.  Well, then maybe he got caught to trying to take down MI6 again, but he already did that once and there is no further story line about this motivation after Silva escapes into London.  In the end, he just seems obsessed with killing M, who is like a mom to both Bond and Silva.  This  doesn't seem like it would be that difficult with everything else he's accomplished.  But then again maybe I'm analyzing someone who isn't the most stable of people

That being said, the drama over Judy Dench's future role in the series is gripping.  The action scenes are wonderfully ridiculous.  Bond, M, and Bond's groundkeeper Kincaid preparing his boyhood home has a bit of a Home Alone/Saving Private Ryan feel as they prepare to defend against a much greater numbers.

The visuals in the film are pretty stunning and I'm not just talking about the scenery from Turkey to China to London.  The film expertly uses light and takes shots off glass and mirrors to show reflections.  The best scene is the assassination scene on the upper levels of a Shanghai skyscraper which shows glass, outside advertising, and obscured views.  There are also many other scenes at Bond's childhood home which wonderfully use of light through bullet holes and fog (in different scenes).

In someways its almost as if the film is asking us to believe that Bond is still relevant and he is.  Bond is still very alive in all of his gentlemanly brutish, British swagger.  He's classic and this movie shows how a tuxedo, a martini, and an Aston Martin never go out of style.