Trailer Trashin’: Skyfall Brings James Bond Back in a Big Way

Now that the Memorial Day holiday weekend has passed – where The Avengers was finally knocked out of the box office top spot – and the month of May is almost over, the summer 2012 movie season is only going to get more interesting, and the new trailers will just keep coming. On the Trailer Trashin’ docket this week is the first teaser for the long-awaited twenty-third installment of the James Bond franchise: Skyfall.

Premise: James Bond (Daniel Craig) has his loyalty to M (Judi Dench) tested when secrets from her past come back to haunt her. When MI6 comes under attack, 007 must hunt down and eliminate the threat, no matter how high the cost to himself.

My take: I freaking love the James Bond movies, and I have enjoyed nearly all of them to varying degrees. For Bond fans like me, the last few years have been fairly tense, as MGM’s ongoing financial troubles kept delaying the production of the follow-up to Quantum of Solace (2008). Would the film fall apart? Would Daniel Craig walk away? But Eon Productions, MGM, and Columbia Pictures have gotten their act together, and Skyfall, the film formerly known as Bond 23, is set to arrive in theaters this November. In the meantime, the first teaser trailer has arrived, and it looks awesome.

One thing that has impressed me about almost all the Bond films is that they have some really impressive casts, and Skyfall looks to be continuing that tradition. Daniel Craig is back for his third outing as Agent 007, and he looks as intense and badass as ever. Surprisingly, we only get a brief glimpse of Javier Bardem – best known as Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men (2007) – as main villain Raoul Silva, but that glimpse is a very cool shot of him calmly walking away from a burning house, silhouetted by the flames. Judi Dench is back once again as M, and we can expect her to once again bring her usual gravitas to the role. Only briefly seen in this teaser is Ralph Fiennes – Lord Voldemort himself – as Mallory, a government official who outranks M. I’ve seen Fiennes play so many villainous roles that it’ll be interesting to see him play a character who sounds like he’s one of the good guys, albeit one who I expect will have a somewhat antagonistic relationship with our heroes. We also get only a quick look at the film’s two Bond girls: French actress Bérénice Marlohe as femme fatale Sévérine is seen looking through a giant bay window at the Shanghai skyline, while Naomie Harris – from 28 Days Later (2002), the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean films, and Ninja Assassin (2009) – as field agent Eve makes her brief appearance giving Bond a very erotic shave. Briefly seen toward the end of the teaser surrounded by neon lights and aiming a custom rifle is Swedish actor Ola Rapace as Patrice, a French mercenary who I can only hope will join the likes of Oddjob, Jaws, and Baron Samedi in the pantheon of great Bond villain henchmen. The person not appearing here that I most want to see is Ben Whishaw as Q, which will be the character’s first appearance in the rebooted Bond films.

I think the thing that surprised and impressed me the most about this teaser is how restrained it is. It keeps the stuff from the action scenes to a few quick shots and then a brief montage at the end. From the opening with Bond and the MI6 interrogator doing the word-association test, to the shot of M standing by the eight coffins draped in Union Jack flags, it looks like the film might be taking the Bond franchise back to some more serious territory. This teaser is very much focused on selling a mood and a tone, and I think it does a great job. Since one of the most common criticisms of Quantum of Solace was that it focused too much on action and not enough on story, it looks like the filmmakers learned from their mistakes and want to show they’re doing something different.

Another thing I want to call attention to is the beautiful work being done by cinematographer Roger Deakins. Deakins is a nine-time Oscar nominee best known for his numerous collaborations with the Coen brothers, and he previously worked with Sam Mendes on Jarhead (2005) and Revolutionary Road (2008). Even in this short teaser, it’s clear that Deakins has done a great job in creating a distinct visual style for each of the major locations featured – London, Shanghai, Macau, and Scotland. And I have to once again bring up the shot of Javier Bardem’s character Silva walking away from the burning house and silhouetted by the flames. That is just an awesome shot, the kind I would want to have framed on my wall if I could. And from the brief glimpses we get, it looks like the overused shaky-cam that plagued much of the action in Quantum of Solace is nowhere to be seen.

I honestly don’t feel the need to complain about anything here. This is pretty much a textbook example of what a teaser trailer should be. It shows enough to get me interested but nothing more. It leaves me chomping at the bit to see the finished film. With a great cast, beautiful cinematography, and a dark, moody tone, I hope Skyfall will be a Bond film that lives up to the greatness of Casino Royale (2006). Take heart, fellow 007 fans. Our four years of waiting are almost over, and it looks like we’ve got a potentially awesome movie coming our way. It’s good to have you back, Mr. Bond.

ANTICIPATION: My mission is to be there to see this on opening weekend.

Release Date: November 9th, 2012

Starring: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Albert Finney, Naomie Harris, Rory Kinnear, Bérénice Marlohe, Helen McCrory, Ola Rapace, and Ben Whishaw
Director: Sam Mendes
Writers: John Logan, Neal Purvis, and Robert Wade

P.S. Before I let all of you go, I need to vent about something. Who are the boneheads at Paramount who decided it was a smart move to take G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which was scheduled to come out on June 29^th – in other words, less than five weeks from now – and push its release date back NINE MONTHS to March 29^th, 2013? If they wanted to post-convert it to 3D to boost the foreign box office receipts and/or move it out of the crowded summer 2012 movie season, shouldn’t they have decided that back in, say, January? You know, before they aired a TV spot during the Super Bowl, before they put out a bunch of posters, and before they released an awesome trailer which I wrote a column about (shameless plug). Seriously Paramount, there’s no way you do this without it looking like you don’t have confidence in your product. And 3D doesn’t do anything for me – I don’t reflexively hate it like some people, but I still have yet to see a case where a feature film being in 3D really improved my experience. I’m still going to see G.I. Joe: Retaliation, of course, but for the time being, I’m going to temper my expectations.