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Film review - Skyfall

As the 23rd James Bond film hits our screens today, our film critic Carl Jones meets the current stars, recaps the old ones and gives his five-star verdict on Skyfall.

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He's the man with the golden anniversary . . . and after what feels like a never-ending blitzkrieg of publicity, James Bond is finally back.

Unless you've been hiding away in a hollowed-out volcano, stroking your sinister white cat for the past few months, you can't have escaped the furore building up to the release of this 23rd official 007 movie, which comes 50 years after Sean Connery first unleashed Ian Fleming's secret agent on the silver screen with Doctor No.

After the powerful, enthralling but rather too serious series reboot, Casino Royale, and the chaotic, disjointed and disappointing Quantum of Solace, it's pleasing to report Skyfall is a triumph on almost every level.

In Javier Bardem, it has one of the best baddies in decades, walking a deliciously delicate tightrope between camp comedy and chilling menace. In Oscar-winning American Beauty director Sam Mendes, it has a conductor who clearly 'gets' why Bond has been so successful for the past five decades, mixing invention with due reverence.

And in Daniel Craig, it has a Bond for the 21st century who, slowly but surely, is injecting more of the classic 007 traits into his granite tough persona. He looks, for the first time, like he truly believes he owns the role.

Even Q's back on the scene, in the shape of nerdy, scene-stealing computer hacker Ben Whishaw who tells a sceptical 007 he can wreak more havoc with his laptop, at home in his pyjamas, than any double-0 agent can ever hope to achieve out in the field.

My mission, on behalf of The Ticket earlier this week, was to hook up with the cast and crew at London's plush Dorchester Hotel, where the Bond juggernaut had taken over an entire floor to meet and greet the media.

Barbara Broccoli, following in father Cubby's footsteps as keeper of the 007 empire, reveals: "With this film, we wanted to honour the past, and still give it a contemporary feel."

In that case, she must feel the director has delivered her the crown jewels. The screenwriters have jettisoned the evil Quantum organisation from Craig's first two movies to create a stand-alone spy adventure which prods at Bond's mental demons and family history.

Like all the best entries in the series, it opens with a rollicking pre-credits sequence as Bond pursues a stolen computer drive containing the identities of MI6 agents immersed behind enemy lines, through the bazaars of Istanbul, and onto the rooftop of a freight train. He's trying to get M out of the doghouse with the Prime Minister, because she's the one who lost it.

We get an early shape of things to come when Craig – impressively doing his own stunts – leaps from a runaway digger on to the moving train, pausing for a perfectly judged split second after landing to adjust the cuffs on his smart Tom Ford suit.

It's the sort of quintessential Bond moment which has been sadly missing from his previous appearances.

Bond's pursuit of the stolen information takes him from the Turkish capital to Shanghai, Macau, and ultimately back to London where the MI6 headquarters is under threat from an unhinged madman with a personal grudge.

Action gives way to atmosphere as the movie nears its conclusion; the minimalist, moody, reverential feel to the final half hour, set in the Scottish highlands, is likely to divide opinion.

The cinematography is breathtaking throughout, though, taking us on a multi-coloured travelogue and even managing to make the often grey London look mighty fine. Mendes revealed how the 007 calling card opened doors which other movies simply can't, granting the crew access to Whitehall for one of the film's most memorable action scenes. The support cast, including a wonderfully wily Albert Finney and Ralph Fiennes as a Government official called Mallory with uncertain allegiances, has never been better.

Fiennes says: "On the surface, Mallory, has a charm, an old-world courtesy, but underneath there's a steel there. He is absolutely able to stand up to M and go head-to-head with her."

And the Bond girls? The gleefully friendly Naomie Harris enjoys some deliciously flirtatious byplay with 007 when she joins him in the field to offer sassy support – she strikes up great chemistry with Craig, despite revealing she securing the role without doing a screen test with her leading man – and Berenice Marlohe smoulders in a brief but pivotal role as the pent-up oriental playgirl Severine. There's a definite feeling that several of her scenes ended on the cutting room floor.

But there's only one Bond girl who really matters in Skyfall, and that's Judi Dench. The kernel of the whole story is the surrogate mother-son relationship between M and orphaned 007, and Craig and Dench translate their off-screen friendship into a powerful partnership.

And don't rule out Bardem becoming the first Oscar-nominated 007 baddie. He really is that good as blonde-haired Silva, a Frankenstein's monster of a man whose character has echoes of Anthony Hopkins' chilling Hannibal Lecter, and Jack Nicholson's comedic Joker. Bardem describes his character as "an angel of death – a very clean shaven person who happens to be rotten on the inside".

Although the Spanish Oscar-winner dabbles with some of the action, it's nothing compared with what he saw 44-year-old Craig endure. "My action, compared to Daniel's was nothing. He does the action scenes so easily. From the outside, watching him, I was thinking 'If I were you, I wouldn't be doing that!' I mean, I did a little bit, but nothing in comparison."

The four-year break between films appears to have benefited the Bond family, giving them chance to craft an intelligent, thought-provoking story which exposes some of the agent's raw family secrets first written by Fleming in the 1950s.

Craig admits he was delighted with the script – in stark contrast with Quantum of Solace –and says he was also pleased to have been able to re-introduce more of the droll, trademark 007 humour.

"The first two movies had one story to tell. I always wanted to bring the comedy back in. I love Mike Myers but he screwed it for us on a lot of the gags — he took the best ones," he said.

"I maintained as long as we got good writing, the jokes would come though, and they do in this movie, adding a lightness of touch to break tension.

"The great things about these movies are that there are rules you have got to stick to. There are emotional parts in this movie, but he's Bond and he never really breaks, even if he gets thrown about. If you stick to those rules you can play about. To be Bond, he's a soldier, he tries to hide his emotions and trying to push those boundaries is interesting."

Craig has certainly never been better in the role. By throwing himself so bravely into the stunt scenes, he allows the cameras to get up closer to the action so they can see the bright glint in his eye.

He also flashes plenty of toned flesh for his female admirers keen for more iconic moments like the Casino Royale swimming trunks scene. "I seemed to be bare-chested most of the way through this film," he jokes.

For a die-hard fan, Skyfall is a Bond film with everything. The wry, self-deprecating humour, the iconic and slightly pompous 007 traits, the womanising, the playful banter, the beautiful backdrops, the Aston Martin . . . the vodka martini . . . the inventive action . . . even a pair of giant man-eating lizards!"

Like Sean Connery's iconic Goldfinger and Roger Moore's underwater car adventure The Spy Who Loved Me, Craig's third 007 adventure is definitely his best. He confirms he has signed up for another two, by which time he'll be pushing the big five-o himself.

So, James Bond will return. But when? Producer Michael J Wilson (who has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in Skyfall) certainly doesn't want another four-year break. He says: "If we are rapid, it could be in two years."

If this is a taste of things to come, bring it on . . .

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