REVIEW: Skyfall

Skyfall (2012): Dir. Sam Mendes. Written by: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan. Based on the character created by Ian Fleming. Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Bérénice Lim Marlohe, Albert Finney and Ben Whishaw. Rated PG-13 (Guns and girls). Running time: 143 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

James Bond was having a bit of an identity crisis. Where does the suave secret agent fit into the movie landscape of 2012? And do we even need him anymore? If Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible movies have a firm grip on over-the-top, cartoonish action, and the Bourne franchise continues to hold the mantle of gritty realism, what can 007 offer that his American competitors cannot?

2006’s Casino Royale, the first film to feature Daniel Craig in the role, reinvented Bond as a stoic hero. Mr. Craig’s rugged face and understated performance gave the character a noir edge that nicely offset Bond’s more charming side. For my taste, 2008’s Quantum of Solace took the character too far in that direction – too brooding, too moody – and risked encroaching on the well-worn territory of other franchise reboots that adopted a darker tone, namely Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight movies.

Skyfall, Mr. Craig’s third Bond movie and the twenty-third overall in the series, strives for balance. There are moments of sheer ridiculousness (as when a construction excavator is driven while atop a speeding train), plenty of breakneck chases and a few brutal fistfights. Daniel Craig is as intensely focused as ever but there are hints of a smile hiding behind the rim of his martini glass. And as for my question posed above, Skyfall answers that too.

Elegance is the special ingredient that makes Bond distinct from his peers and keeps the series a worthwhile entertainment. Skyfall is a classy action picture, evenly paced and in no great rush (though at 143 minutes, it is too long). Director Sam Mendes soaks in the film’s international locales and shoots them in rich, frequently gorgeous wide shots. The movie hops from the rainy streets of London to the neon-streaked skyscrapers of Shanghai and ends at a stately abandoned manor in the Scottish countryside.

Mr. Mendes also indulges himself at the right times. The big explosion that punctuates the film’s climax has to be one of the biggest, and certainly one of the most thorough and satisfying, movie explosions in recent years. And in the opening scene he spends what would surely be the whole budget of other movies on a chase that begins on foot, blasts through a Turkish marketplace with cars and motorcycles, and ends on the aforementioned train.

So, yes, this is a good Bond film. I would probably rank Casino Royale a little higher, but I’m hardly a Bond scholar, so take that for what it’s worth. I’ll admit there were a few moments when the movie lost me and I had no clue what was happening or why but I was never bored.

How could I be with Javier Bardem strutting around as Raoul Silva, the blond-haired, flamboyant villain of the film? Mr. Bardem, clearly enjoying himself, delivers his monologues with no shortage of flair. His laugh is a sinister little laugh but he means to do great harm to Bond’s employer, MI6. A disgruntled former agent, Silva has major beef with M (Judi Dench), the agency’s head, and will not be satisfied until she is dead.

Meanwhile, MI6 faces scrutiny from government bureaucrats who question the spy agency’s ability to function effectively after a list of undercover agents is stolen and leaked to the public. Leading the investigation is a government higher-up played with subtle menace by Ralph Fiennes.

It is up to James Bond to protect M and preserve the agency’s future. Naturally, while saving the day, he also finds time to tangle with a lovely named Sévérine (Bérénice Lim Marlohe) as well as fellow field agent Eve (Naomie Harris). The always great Albert Finney makes an appearance late in the film too as a wily, old groundskeeper.

Skyfall is marked by a back-to-basics approach that works well. When a brainy kid shows up as Q (Ben Whishaw), MI6’s technology developer, he gives Bond a sleek and simple gun and nothing else. “Exploding pens and the like,” he says. “We don’t do that anymore.” There are probably a few too many winks and nudges like this in the film, as though the filmmakers were trying to defend the franchise’s relevance with coy in-jokes, but I appreciate the movie’s straightforwardness.

Even the theme song by Adele, the first actually decent Bond theme in years if not decades, has the feel of a series reinvigorated. Skyfall is not another revamp of the franchise but rather an affirmation of its continued quality. There is still a place for Bond at the movies and he didn’t even need to change up his style to prove it.

- Steve Avigliano, 11/12/12

REVIEW: J. Edgar

J. Edgar (2011): Dir. Clint Eastwood. Written by: Dustin Lance Black. Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts and Judi Dench. Rated R (Language). Running time: 137 minutes.

2 ½ stars (out of four)

Leonardo DiCaprio assumes the titular role in J. Edgar, Clint Eastwood’s stately biopic about the former head of the FBI. The film consists mostly of routine biopic fare but also finds room for some deeply Freudian moments that flesh out some of the less factually certain details of J. Edgar Hoover’s personal life.

The film opens in the late 1960s as Hoover nears retirement and DiCaprio resembles Orson Welles’s Charles Foster Kane more than a little as he shuffles around Hoover’s Washington office buried under prosthetics. Hoover dictates his biography to a revolving series of interns and the film uses this framework to launch into flashbacks that detail the formation of the FBI and Hoover’s subsequent efforts to improve and perfect the Bureau.

In these flashbacks we are introduced to all the salient players in Hoover’s life: his personal assistant Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), his mother (Judi Dench) and FBI Assistant Director Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer). Meanwhile the film addresses still relevant issues of national security when they were in their formative years of debate and controversy. To what degree must the American people’s privacy be sacrificed in order to protect the country from its enemies? Hoover’s insistence on obtaining information at whatever cost can be viewed as a sort of early Patriot Act philosophy but Eastwood presents this from a historical, not allegorical, perspective.

Hoover also understood the importance of good PR and much time is spent on the media spectacle that was the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, one of the first opportunities for the then-young FBI to prove its worth to a captivated public. Eastwood also has some fun depicting the FBI’s tenuous relationship with Hollywood and the movies’ representation of gangsters and G-men. Many of these scenes engage in the self-conscious reminders that we are watching a historical drama that have become typical of a big-budget biopic. Some of these moments are playful (Hoover’s radical idea of creating a centralized database of so-called “finger imprints” is met with much reluctance) while others are tedious (when talking to Bobby Kennedy, Hoover has to clarify that he means the President when he says, “your brother”).

Though J. Edgar enters decidedly murkier territory in terms of historical accuracy when presenting Hoover’s personal life, the film finds its stride dramatically when it strays from the strict facts. Judi Dench smolders and snarls with maternal oppression as Anne Marie Hoover, whose relationship with her son (mostly depicted in scenes set in her bedroom) seems eerily intimate yet cold. Despite their closeness (Hoover continues to live with his mother long after most birds choose to leave the nest), she has little regard for her son’s emotions.

The same cannot be said of Clyde Tolson, whom Hoover takes on as his right-hand man early on and quickly forms a deep friendship with. Their relationship, which always seems on the verge of blossoming into something more but never quite does, provides J. Edgar with its emotional core; the pair’s scenes of understated flirtation are among the best in the film. Armie Hammer, whose face resembles that of a Ken doll – both rugged and smoothly plastic – had a star turn playing opposite himself as the Winklevoss twins in last year’s The Social Network and again reminds us how important a strong supporting performance can be. In his scenes with Hammer, DiCaprio loosens up and gives his portrayal of Hoover some much needed warmth and humanity. Underneath the hard-edged FBI director, DiCaprio finds an emotionally complex man.

Unfortunately the film never convincingly pulls these two halves of Hoover – the professional and the personal – into a coherent whole. The script, written by Dustin Lance Black (who won an Oscar for his Milk screenplay) feels disjointed. The film does not fully connect the anguish of Hoover, the private citizen, to the ambition of Hoover, the public figure; there is no Rosebud to provide us the narrative key into his life story. Had the screenplay been better focused, these contradictions of character might have made a scintillating portrait, but though the film offers some fascinating anecdotes and plenty of austere reminders of Hoover’s historical legacy, the man himself remains an elusive figure.

- Steve Avigliano, 11/18/11