Skyfall: How Does One Tweak a Franchise?

 It was touch and go for a while there with Mr. Bond. MGM's ongoing financial worries put the fate of 007's big screen adventures in doubt and while James Bond fans worried that 50 years of tradition would be coming to an end, people like myself who never cared for the franchise gave a collective shrug. But then speculation turned to preparation as it seemed like MGM scraped together enough money to dip its toes once more into the theatrical waters: they had a script from franchise regulars Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and prestige writer John Logan; they had an unorthodox yet provocative director in Sam Mendes; and, of course, they had Daniel Craig. James Bond fans were elated when "Bond 23" was confirmed while people like myself who never cared for the franchise, again gave a collective shrug.

Then Skyfall was released and the skeleton crew left over at MGM looked like geniuses. The newest Bond film grossed the highest opening in franchise history in its first three days of release while receiving almost unanimous praise from audiences and critics alike. James Bond fans breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that 007 would likely be here for years to come while people like myself who never cared for the franchise were finally forced to stop shrugging and start paying attention.

In this latest installment, things aren't looking so good for James Bond (Daniel Craig) and the fine British folks over at MI6. It stars with a botched job in which an adrenaline pumping fight on top of a speeding train ends with the seeming death of everyone's favorite secret agent when a shot taken by Bond's partner, Eve (Naomie Harris), hits the wrong target and sends Bond plummeting into a river below. It was a high risk, high reward situation ultimately decided by M (Judi Dench), the upside of which would've seen the procurement of an encrypted file listing the names and locations of every MI6 agent infiltrating terrorist cells all over the world. The downside of which would've resulted in the aforementioned plummeting scenario.

We know for a fact that there's no way the filmmakers would've killed off Bond within the first 20 minutes, but seeing as M (Judi Dench) and the members of British Parliament aren't privy to such privileged information, Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) arrives soon after the mission fails as a representative of the Prime Minister to fill M in on her mandated "early retirement." The Prime Minister apparently does not look kindly upon the loss of highly classified information.

If Bond's seemingly untimely end was the frying pan, then what comes next is the fire. Q (Ben Wishaw) informs M that the encrypted file is being remotely accessed from within MI6. A trace on the signal further reveals its being remotely accessed from M's own desk. Not much else can be deduced on account of the MI6 office being blown sky high soon afterward. After she bears witness to the incineration of decades worth of hard work, M receives a cryptic and threatening message from the unknown saboteur:

Think On Your Sins.

A voice from M's past has seemingly come back to haunt her at the worst possible time. Bond's re-emergence provides a silver lining, but only a lining. Not as young as he used to be and carrying scars both literal and metaphorical, Bond is sent back into the field to find the identity of the attacker despite having retaken and failed his aptitude tests. That's not the best news when it comes to dealing with a brilliant digital hacker who is always one step ahead.

Whoever had the bright idea of hiring Sam Mendes to direct Skyfall deserves everyone's adulation as it's Mendes' skill as a director that allows the film to walk that fine balance between honoring the legacy of the James Bond franchise while opening the door to viewers who may have been unimpressed by the tropes and archetypes in which the franchise had become complacent.

At this point, we all expect Bond films to be chock full o' car chases, gun play, hand to hand combat and lots of explosions, so the puzzle any director has to solve is how to execute the expected in an unexpected way. Mendes opts to forgo the shaky, handheld choreography that has been implemented in every action film since Paul Greengrass first called "Action" on The Bourne Legacy, and brings instead a smoothness to Skyfall's set pieces that provide both a visual coherence on a micro level and an emotional evenness on a macro level.

What helps is that Skyfall may also be the most visually stunning Bond film in the entire franchise courtesy of legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins. Skyfall traces Bond's journey from crowded London to a tranquil exotic beach, from the bright neon of Shanghai's evenings to the foggy hills of Scotland's afternoons. And at each locale our eyes are treated to the sumptuous feast of Deakins' ever adapting visual mastery, which features many shots that more resemble paintings than a mainstream Hollywood film. It would be a stretch to call the film's cinematography arthouse, but certain scenes are shot so beautifully that I couldn't help but wonder if Mendes wondered just how far he would be allowed to push his dramatic inclinations on a James Bond film—"hey, let's light this fight scene solely by neon billboard and that one with only candlelight!"

The symmetry of the shooting and the breathtaking locales also serve as pleasant distractions to the fact that on a script level, Skyfall is as mediocre as just about any other James Bond film you're likely to see. Mendes has name dropped Christopher Nolan's Batman films as an influence in his approach to Bond and while the groundwork certainly exists for a Bond adventure that takes itself a bit more seriously than others – here's a Bond film that recognizes Bond's finiteness and the consequences of M's actions – but the more grave or psychologically engaging themes are only touched upon rather than explored in any real depth.

For instance, early in the film we're introduced (rather cryptically) to the idea of the titular "Skyfall" during a word association exercise exam being given to Bond. His terse response of "Done" accompanied by his leaving the room would lead us to believe that whatever Skyfall may be, it weighs heavily on the unflappable agent and that its discovery further down the line will lead to some profundity or, at the very least, catharsis. When Skyfall's laborious 143-minute running time finally runs down, the film's title makes sense in a "oh, so that's where the name comes from" sense but not in a "so that's why the title is important" sense. Even at its best, it seems that the James Bond franchise is still a slave to 50 years of tradition, never able to elevate itself above the slickest of Hollywood expectations.