James Bond: Skyfall part 6
After we check in with M and a minor contretemps with Mallory, where again old and new clash (Mallory insists M’s methods are outdated, M insists that this threat must be matched by a similar answer — a shadow against a shadow), we swoop back to the South Pacific, where Bond and Severine arrive at Bad Guy Deserted Island (looking a little bit like Mol’s Dream World from Inception). Bond is strapped to a chair (evoking painful memories of Casino Royale?) in what appears to be a server room, facing rows and rows of data — the modern weapon. And here’s our Bad Guy, Silva, monologuing straight out of the box, literally (he steps out of an elevator), which the director handles beautifully by combining the monologue with a Lawrence of Arabia-length introductory shot of Silva walking towards camera. So that Silva literally comes into focus as the monologue goes on (it’s also an echo of the first shot of the movie, with Bond coming into focus as he comes down the apartment corridor in Turkey). The monologue, of course, is Silva’s story about Rat Island, and his grandmother’s solution for killing the rats, turning them into cannibals, changing their nature. Bond says “I made my own choices,” Silva counters with “You think you did.” Fate and determinism seem a little heavy for a Bond movie, but then it fits the Craig Bond well, with the enormous shadow of Bond History looming over him. Character is habitual action, and James Bond is nothing if not end-to-end habitual action, and the question of the motivator behind that action is central to the Craig reboot. The Bonds of yesteryear are pure fantasy, stylish assassins who travel the world, stay at expensive resorts, gamble in stodgy establishments. Craig does all that, but when he goes to the expensive resort he gets in by stealing someone’s car at the valet stand and when he gambles in Monte Carlo it’s on business. You get the impression that the Connery Bond does nothing but read Esquire on his off-hours, but Craig looks like he’s never read a magazine in his life. He’s a thug who has lucked into a job where he gets to pretend to be stylish, and learns he’s good at it. That, all by itself, is more “character” than Bond has ever been invested with. When Connery quit, the producers replaced him with a male model, which shows exactly what they thought of the character: a stylish, attractive form, useful for selling products: cars, clothes, accessories, James Bond movies.
James Bond: Skyfall part 5
Now that the pieces have been put into place, James Bond can finally embark on an adventure. In short order he will visit a skyscraper in Shanghai, a ritzy casino in Macau and an abandoned island in Japan. This is Act II, which is largely procedural, the thrust of which is Bond Finds the Guy Who Took the List. Step 1 of “Find the Guy” is “Find Patrice,” who is in Shanghai on a job.