(I’ve tried to avoid spoilers in what follows, but read on at your own risk.)<\/strong><\/p>\n Judi Dench is formidable in the role of spymaster M. In many ways, she is at the centre of the narrative – much of the action is based around an attempt to kill her, and her decisions as she strikes back at her enemies (while also having to fight off her political critics).<\/p>\n Daniel Craig has made the role of James Bond his own, though with echoes of Sean Connery’s approach to the character in the early Bond movies of the 1960s. His version of James Bond is not entirely admirable, but he’s a bloke who gets stuff\u00a0done. As portrayed by Craig, he has a menacing physicality – there’s a kind of low-slung, dangerous, potentially explosive, all-round competence here, putting him in psychological control of every situation. Even when things are at their worst, he gazes on danger with an amused alertness, rather than fear. Think of a modern version of Homer’s cunning, deep-chested, often unscrupulous hero, Odysseus.<\/p>\n But the villains are also impressive. The cold-blooded professional\u00a0assassin, Patrice, seems a good opponent\u00a0for Bond through the early scenes of the film, matching him in physicality and competence, gunshot for gunshot and blow for blow, and almost mirroring him in appearance. This leaves\u00a0us\u00a0often confused during the chaotic\u00a0scrambles of\u00a0their combat scenes (and, indeed,\u00a0much is overtly made of this).<\/p>\n But later we meet the even more formidable Raoul Silva, acted by Javier Bardem. There’s a touch of decadence, a touch of (apparent) softness about Silva… but as events unfold he proves to be easily Bond’s match, often outwitting him, while\u00a0also appearing unkillable. Indeed, one of the many things that Bond and Silva have in common, beyond their extraordinary\u00a0levels of all-round competence, is that\u00a0both are\u00a0living beyond what should have been their deaths.\u00a0Both have survived experiences when they have seemed for all purposes finished, but they have recovered, however scarred or mutilated, and now they continue on, resurrected, implacable,\u00a0apparently indestructible, and\u00a0entirely without mercy for\u00a0their enemies. Bond often seems as psychopathic as his antagonists, even if his special ruthlessness, and particularly his coldness about death and danger, operate\u00a0in a good cause.<\/p>\n Skyfall<\/em> has been enormously successful, earning over a billion dollars on first release, becoming one of the biggest earning movies of all time, and, indeed, the highest grossing ever in the UK. In my opinion, it’s merited. With its twists and turns, and its plots within plots, with stunning acting and extraordinary visuals (Shanghai looks like a cyberpunk city of the future!), this is a pop culture masterpiece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since someone asked (in the previous thread) about my Sunday Supervillainy series, you can most easily catch up with it by searching my old site for this blog, using the word “supervillainy”… or just click on this link. It’s marvellous how those posts have added up. Meanwhile, I finally got around to seeing Skyfall, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,24],"tags":[35,26,33,36,34,32,31,25],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-diversions","tag-daniel-craig","tag-good-and-evil","tag-james-bond","tag-javier-bardem","tag-judi-dench","tag-skyfall","tag-sunday-supervillainy","tag-villains"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/files\/2013\/01\/Skyfall_poster.jpg\")
<\/a>Meanwhile, I finally got around to seeing Skyfall<\/em><\/a>, which I loved. I was much more entertained than I thought I’d be, and this was largely down to the superb performances by Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, and others.<\/p>\n