Verdict: A triumph of cinematic storytelling.
How, one could ask, might
filmmakers mark the 50th anniversary of the venerable James Bond
films that began with Dr No in
1962 (with Sean Connery as Bond)? As iconic literary and cinematic characters
go, Ian Fleming’s ‘007’ arrives with a generation of history and association,
ensuring that any new James Bond film is going to be rigorously scrutinised –
and what we have with Skyfall
is an undeniable triumph on a vast cinematic storytelling scale.
When MI6 bungles an
attempt to retrieve a stolen computer hard drive that contains the identities
of undercover agents around the world, the head of MI6 – ‘M’ (Judi Dench) – is
held personally to account. But when a sinister Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem)
launches a cyberterrorist attack on the organisation’s headquarters, M finds
herself fighting not only for her own life, but the survival of everyone
associated with the intelligence organisation she commands.
