Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Skyfall’ on Netflix, High-Grade Bond Entertainment From Start To Finish

2012’s Skyfall (Netflix), the Sam Mendes-directed 23rd entry in the James Bond film series and third to star Daniel Craig as Bond, was a worldwide smash, earning over a billion in box office receipts as well as an Academy Award for Adele in the Best Original Song category and a well-deserved nomination for cinematographer Roger Deakins. Is Bond over the hill? Are the Bond films themselves? Not if Skyfall had anything to say about it.

SKYFALL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: With a touch of the film series’ classic opening sequences, James Bond (Daniel Craig) emerges from silhouette, his Walther PPK/S drawn, as he enters pursuit of the assassin who made off with a hard drive containing the names of every NATO agent embedded in terrorist cells across the earth. With MI6 operative Eve (Naomie Harris, taking on the mantle of Moneypenny) as his driver, the two hurdle through the chaotic, sun-blasted streets of Istanbul, Turkey in hot pursuit of their quarry. The chase is a real thrill, ultimately involving dirt bikes clambering over the rooftops of the Grand Bazaar and Bond engaging the assassin in hand-to-hand combat atop a moving train. Pretty typical for a Bond actioner, that is until a bit of friendly fire takes out 007, who falls wounded from the train into a deep gully. Agent down, assumed dead. And the list is in the wind.

Back in London, M (Judi Dench), director of MI6, has a firestorm on her hands. The Istanbul fiasco is an intelligence community nightmare. Plus there’s the civilian in charge of oversight to worry about, Mallory (Ralph Fiennes). He leans on the longtime MI6 director to retire with dignity. “Oh to hell with dignity,” M spits back. “I’ll leave when the job’s done.” But her pride can’t stop what’s coming, and when MI6 HQ explodes, it all leads back to Istanbul, the list, and the nasty business of international spycraft.

Naturally, James Bond is not dead, and naturally, he returns to aid M in catching whoever’s orchestrating all of this. But James has been hitting the bottle, and remains plagued by childhood trauma. He’s also clawing bullet shards out of his biceps. There are some who believe Bond and the entire 00 program to be over the hill and out of touch. Nevertheless, Bond gallivants to Shanghai, and then on to Macau, exotic locales that lead him straight to a deserted industrial island controlled by a mercenary hacker called Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem, menacingly flamboyant). Silva’s connections to Bond and M run deeper than your everyday supercriminal posturing, and in the rousing final hour of Skyfall, Silva lays more waste to MI6 and points northwest in Great Britain in pursuit of twisted vengeance. The rampaging destruction tests the aging Bond’s mettle, but also fortifies his relationship with M, the only authority figure and voice of reason that he’s ever truly respected.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? This third Craig outing of the Bond character dialed back the Bourne-isms of his previous appearances — the well-received, very worth it Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace — while still allowing for his physicality and knack for gunplay. But Skyfall also went more elemental with the Bond Movie signifiers, craftily tying in the superspy’s signature drink, introductory line, and even his most iconic ride, the silver birch Aston Martin DB5. (Complete with machine guns behind the headlights, natch.) Things explode at an alarming rate in Skyfall; this movie is often peak action, pure adrenaline. But it’s how the film explodes and rebuilds the Bond mystique itself that makes the biggest bang.

Performance Worth Watching: Dame Judi Dench, CH DBE FRSA gets the nod here. The Academy Award-winning actress was 77 in Skyfall, and takes on the biggest M presence in any Bond film yet. She’s at home matching wits with Fiennes and government flunkies in the corridors of power, of course, but she’s also comfortable going out on the lam with James, riding shotgun as they set a trap for Bardem’s villainous Silva. And all the while, Dench mixes steely determination with deft touches of emotion and a deliciously forked tongue.

Memorable Dialogue: Yes, it was the featured exchange in the original trailer for the film. So be it. “What are you doing here?” asks Kincade, the wizened gamekeeper of Skyfall Manor (Albert Finney, the legend, in his final role). “Some men are coming to kill us,” answers James Bond with a determined gleam in his eye. “But we’re gonna kill them first.” Kincade winks at M. “Well then, we better get ready.” And off goes Skyfall on its fun preparing-for-battle sequence. (Just Dench fashioning IEDs out of crushed light bulbs and shotgun shells, no big deal.)

Sex and Skin: It wouldn’t be a Bond without a tryst or two, and James finds himself in the arms and steamy superyacht shower of Severine (Berenice Marlohe), the beautiful associate of criminal mastermind Silva.

Our Take: Ripping action sequences that birth their own internal action sequences, whiz-bang gadgetry that here most often takes the form of dazzling computer magic (except for when it doesn’t, like with a simple radio frequency transmitter), far-flung, high-concept location shoots, and numerous exquisitely cut Savile Row suits — Skyfall scores big points in every Bond Film category you can think of. In Sam Mendes’ hands, this entry in the series spreads around its share of rubble and destruction, too — at one point, a train traveling through the London Tube is sent lumbering through a subterranean blast hole and right into one of Winston Churchill’s ancient bomb bunkers — but it’s also adept at exploring the meaning of the Bond character, both as a conceit and an individual. James is told he should put out to pasture more than once, and each time, he proves the haters wrong, whether with fist or trusty sidearm. But you can tell it weighs on him, this cycle of violence, as does the changing face of contemporary spycraft. “Our world is not more transparent. It’s more opaque. It’s in the shadows,” M tells a hectoring government subcommittee. And in a wonderful trick, Skyfall scales down to a two-person game as she and her most prized agent attempt to outwit or outright kill their aggrieved, quite possibly insane adversary.

Craig and Dench are in fine form in Skyfall, their witty rejoinders recalling Bond scripts of old. Bardem comes alive whenever his main villain has a chance to stretch out, diatribe style, and what is a Bond villain without lengthy diatribes? There’s fine work in support here, too, with crafty reboots of the Moneypenny character (a perfectly cast Harris) and even Q, played with impish wit by Ben Whishaw. Fiennes, too, is a fine addition to the Bond universe. Mendes went on to helm 2015’s Spectre, which didn’t quite achieve the heights Skyfall set, though it did delve deeply and satisfyingly into Bond’s traumatic past.

(Worth noting that Craig returned in the COVID-delayed No Time to Die, but the future of the James Bond Franchise is currently up in the air.)

Our Call: STREAM IT. This is for the Bond completists, of course — the character call-backs and specific signifiers are dynamite. But Skyfall is a rip-roaring action film, too, with elite direction, terrific lighting and editing, and strong work from a talented cast.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges

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