Thoughts on Skyfall

 [I know I covered Bond recently, but I've just seen the new one.]
 
 A few days from now, a nice man from MGM will come to your house and informed you that there's a new Bond film out.
 That's because this is the only way left that they haven't already tried to tell us there's a new Bond film out.
 So, again: There's a new Bond film out. It's new. And in the cinemas.
 I'm not saying it's over-hyped, but under the category "News About Adele," her theme song for this movie warranted more fanfare than her firstborn child.(Incidentally, congrats to Adele on the birth of little MGM Skyfall Bond Bondington Bond Vaio Laptops Bond New Bond Bond. ....Junior.)
 Now that the hype has died down, what are we left with?
 Honestly, I'm not sure.
 On the one hand, we have an exciting, well-put-together movie (for the first two thirds) that feels in many places like classic Bond, without ever being overly silly.
 On the other hand, we have an awful third act and a film that feels like we've seen it all before.
 Briefly: Whilst searching for a disc of stolen information, Bond is accidentally shot in a way that he immediately recovers from, and swims to a pub. 
 Returning to London via the same magic, security-free, ticketless, "no passport or money required" airline that Bruce Wayne used to get to Gotham in "Dark Knight Rises," Bond interrupts M in the middle of pouring some of the brandy that she already said she didn't like in "Goldeneye." (I'm sure Courvoisier paid good money to be in this, but M emphatically told Pierce Brosnan that she preferred bourbon to brandy.)
 Apparently now completely useless after his two weeks off, Bond is shown missing a target and struggling through physical and psychological tests. We're reminded that Bond is getting older, but M decides to sign off on his mission anyway, as soon as he's met Q, who is played by one of The Inbetweeners.
 There's a bit of fighting and shagging and some Komodo dragons, before Javier Bardem turns up and allows himself to be captured, before revealing that he is, secretly, one of the best disfigured bad guys in the series' history.
 Because nobody at MI6 has had time to see any movies lately, nobody realises that Bardem has got himself caught on purpose as part of a master plan, like pretty much every major bad guy over the last few years. He then escapes, obviously, and goes after M.
 Bond gives chase by sliding down the stainless steel divider in the middle of the tube station escalators, something which you definitely cannot do.
 This was a moment of genuine annoyance for me. I'll buy into your cars-with-ejector-seats and your hand print reading guns, but anyone who has ever seen the London underground knows that there are little metal fences welded onto the escalator dividers to make sure nobody slides down them. You can even see these same metal barriers behind Bond on a different escalator in the next shot of the film. One of those strange little details that I couldn't get over, and ended up yelling about to a bemused barmaid in the pub afterwards.
 Meanwhile, back at the movie, Javier Bardem has cornered M in court, and is laying waste to what appears to be an endless line of black policemen. (Seriously, there's this one black copper who I swear turns up and gets shot twice in a row.)
 Bond arrives and decides to go rogue, abducting M and spiriting her away to an entirely different fucking movie.
 I really can't recall the last time a film had such a shuddering, lurching gear change as "Skyfall." For two thirds of the movie, everything is espionage, exotic locations, sexy broads* and private yachts.
 Then, apparently due to an unspecified head injury, Bond decides that the best way to protect his employer is to take her to his family's ancestral home, Skyfall Lodge, in the absolute bug-fuck middle of nowhere in Scotland.
 The entire tone and palette of the movie change in one scene, and once we arrive at the bleak, grey mansion and start wishing the movie was back in Macau, we meet Albert Finney, who has been cast as Scruffy, the Janitor.
 Scruffy prepares to fight the bad guys alongside Bond.
 I think, tactically, this is a mistake. I'm not one to pass judgement, but Scruffy has been living in an abandoned mansion for many years now, and he hasn't shown any signs of normal human behaviour.
 Realistically, if the owner of the mansion you worked in disappeared one day, after a few years, you'd probably move in. In fact, by the time Bond pitches up again with M in tow, the most likely scenario is that he'd walk in to find the place decked out in zebra skin and full of drunk hookers, with Albert Finney looking sheepish as he's caught in the middle of slipping the last of the family heirlooms into an envelope marked "Cash My Gold."
 Instead, Scruffy has just sat in an empty house for years on end. This isn't the sort of person I'd willingly give a weapon to, because he's either one typewriter away from re-enacting "The Shining," or else he's some sort of robot. "Welcome home, Master Bond. I will protect this human woman with you," I kept expecting him to recite, tonelessly.
 After a final shootout, some spoilers happen, which I'll put in red below. Skip past them if you haven't seen the film.

 In a move that absolutely everyone saw coming, M gets killed.
 This is a real flaw with modern movie reviewing: They tell you that there are spoilers, but they don't tell you what they are. Personally, as soon as someone says "There's a big plot tiwst in this one!" I immediately start trying to work out what it's going to be. I can't help myself, and it ruins the movie for me in a lot of ways.
 As soon as early reviews started talking about plot twists and spoilers, I thought "Well, they'll probably kill off Judi Dench, because she's winding down her acting career." I was right. It's not that the "twist" isn't obvious, just annoying that people mention it at all. STOP SPOILING SPOILERS, movie reviewers.
 And now back to your regularly scheduled ranting.

 ...With the Klingon Warship heading straight towards Bond, all seems lost until Iron Man harnesses the silicon in Posh Spice's tits. (Sorry, but it was a HELL of a plot twist back there.)
 Kidding aside, the whole movie ends on a note that can best be described as "business as usual," and that's probably my chief objection.
 Daniel Craig won fans and critics over by taking Bond in a new direction; the end of this movie essentially dumps the character in the same rut that Craig worked so hard to pull out of.
 By the end of "Skyfall," we have Q, we have Moneypenny, and M is a middle aged man again. By necessity, this means the next installment will essentially be indistinguishable from a Connery or Moore film.
 Some fans may want that, but I can't escape the feeling that the franchise has painted itself into a corner and left itself with no new worlds to conquer.
 The oft-mentioned age issue is strange, too. By acknowledging that Bond is getting older, and then surrounding him with a younger supporting cast, we risk some awkward scenes in a few years time. Daniel Craig is signed up for two more movies, by which point he'll be about fifty. The last thing we need is Bond slowly becoming Roger Murtaugh, griping that he is "too old for this shit" as his adolescent co-stars track the bad guys from their newfangled smartphones.
 It's guaranteed that "Skyfall" is going to be a huge hit, and it is an entertaining film. It manages to walk the fine line between recent, more serious efforts and the slightly comic-book qualities of the character.
 I really want to like it, but ultimately, the movie left me with a sense of foreboding about the future of the franchise. I guess we'll just have to trust that the powers that be know what they're doing.
  


*I don't know why I'm talking like James Cagney, either.