Skyfall (2012), is the most popular outing for Daniel Craig as James Bond (directed by Sam Mendes). Mendes is a highly theatrical director whose concerns with character development often manifest themselves in two-dimensional archetypes, at least in his films American Beauty (1999) and Road To Perdition (2002). Though the cinematography in Skyfall by Roger Deakins is unmistakably beautiful (as the cinematography often is in Mendes’ films) the plot and action captured in these visuals offers nothing that isn’t already available in the Connery, Moore, Dalton or Brosnan Bond films. What is most troubling is that Skyfall attempts to present the Ian Fleming created character as realistic and true to the novels. Yet, with Javier Bardem’s turn as the villain Silver and the referential scenes that are concerned with the campy Bond films that only just concluded under Pierce Brosnan’s tenure in the lead, the film seems overly concerned with its own franchise, as if Skyfall would have preferred to have been a Bond film starring Roger Moore. Though Skyfall presents its self-awareness as a form of homage, the device only works to draw attention to the fact that Skyfall is only a step removed from Thunderball (1965) or Moonraker (1979). That is to say that despite what its marketing would have you believe, Skyfallis a Bond film just like all 22 others that preceded it.
