Part 2 - The Kansas City Shuffle: Comparing Skyfall and Slevin

Some might say that pointing out absurdity in James Bond films is like installing fire extinguishers in Hell. Bond movies notoriously favour style over substance or consistency. They are world renowned for their grandstanding spectacle, evil villains and gadgets. Many accept these ludicrous features as part of the fun. Surely only the po-faced and pedants would point out the blatant misogyny of the title character or the impossibility of locating a sinister lair in an active volcano?

However, the latest reboot of the series, starring Daniel Craig as Bond, has attempted to bury some of this flamboyant heritage. We are presented with more moral grey areas and complexities of motivation. MI6 is not the shining white knight of the 1960s but a sinister organisation prepared to sacrifice its own men for the greater good and to confound any attempted political restraint.

Gone too are the gadgets of yester-films. Q (refreshingly played straight by Ben Whishaw) exemplifies this by handing Craig a simple pistol and radio before he ventures out into the field. These changes all points to a series that wants to be taken more seriously. In my opinion the writers did a good job of achieving this in Casino Royale but suffered a serious regression when they made Quantum of Solace.

Therefore I feel free to point out some of the plot holes that bugged me in Skyfall. It was certainly a memorable spectacle. At times it felt like it was going to develop into a great movie. The shoot out at the Scottish manor was especially engaging. The low-tech use of booby traps and sawn off shotguns reminded me of similar scenes in other movies that I have really enjoyed. The drama of M, Bond and Kincade fighting off the well-armed intruders mirrored the emotion of the cabin scene in XIII, the shoot out at the end of L.A. Confidential and Jedburgh's tragic last stand in Edge of Darkness.

Too often though the plot was hastened along by ridiculous but implausible devices. Especially jarring was MI6's tracking of Patrice through the shrapnel in Bond's shoulder. Patrice was established as a stealthy assassin with no nationality or records that could identify him. I could square this with his public bloodbath on the Istanbul streets in the opening scenes. Bond has always been about dramatic chases rather than stealthy and undramatic executions.

However, it is difficult to believe that an international killer would make the mistake of favouring a type of ammunition that was only used by three individuals in the world. As the shrapnel recovered from Bond's chest shows he might as well have dropped a calling card at the scene of the crime. As far as I can see the main purpose of depleted uranium bullets is for piercing armour anyway. Unless Patrice regularly assassinated tanks and armoured vehicles he would have been infinitely better off with a less trackable (and radiation-emitting) type of ammo.

This was absurdity done badly. The sole intent was to drive the plot along at all costs, even if this meant demolishing any pretence of logical consistency or immersion. It did nothing to develop characters or promote interest. Instead it was a simple 'deus ex machina' to propel Bond towards the next shoot out and romantic entanglement.

Along with the thinly veiled political agenda, weak characterisation of the homoerotic villain and other poor design decisions this was enough to put me off a film that was in other ways rather promising. With two more Daniel Craig movies to come we can only hope that the series will reattain the poise and precision of Casino Royale instead of making the same mistakes again.