Film Review | Skyfall

On the event of his 50th anniversary in the world of film, world-famous MI6 spy (a hilarious contradiction, surely?), James Bond (Daniel Craig) is shot dead.

The incident occurs as a result of a tactical miscalculation by 007's superior M (Judi Dench) - Bond is wrangling with an evil henchman on a train fast approaching a tunnel, and a fellow MI6 sniper (Naomie Harris) is ordered to "take the bloody shot" despite both Bond and the henchman being moving targets... M's reasoning being that it's better to take a risk than lose a criminal lead.

It's not a spoiler to say that the worst possible outcome occurs (it's in the trailer) and Bond is declared to be officially dead by the British intelligence agency.

Of course, we know that in actual fact, the super-spy has only gone into hiding (on a remote island, where he enjoys the company of game local beauties and drinks himself into a stupor).

But an unsettling piece of news from home - reaching the increasingly drunken and increasingly stubbled Bond on a TV set in a beach bar - nudges him out of his enforced retirement.

MI6 headquarters have been hacked into and blown up, and M is being targeted - receiving cryptic-and-creepy messages on her computer compelling her to 'think on her sins'. Bond is clandestinely drafted back into MI6 and sent to Shanghai to pinpoint the aggressor - who is also undermining the agency by uncovering the identity of operatives embedded in danger spots across the globe.

But though he may be operating in the shadows and from distant, exotic locales, the terrorist Silva (Javier Bardem) has an agenda that's closer to home than anything Bond has encountered so far.

Directed by American Beauty's Sam Mendes, Skyfall successfully rescues the franchise from the lull it dipped into after the mishandled Quantum of Solace (2008), and delivers everything you'd expect from a Bond outing in a tonally coherent package that also makes sense as a plot-and-character-driven piece.

It's the best action film of the year so far - trailed very closely by Dredd - and at 143 minutes, it glides by nicely, punctuated by knowingly OTT action sequences and some beautiful tableaux courtesy of frequent Mendes collaborator Roger Deakins (who also served as cinematographer for many a Coen Brothers film - including the Bardem-starring No Country for Old Men).

The key to a successful Bond film is in getting the balance between innovation and tradition just right. Like any long-running narrative - enduring superhero comics would make a good comparison - the brand needs to remain recognisable, though twists and tweaks are necessary to suit the times and to keep audiences interested.

Luckily, the series no longer seems to be desperate to play catch-up with the Jason Bourne franchise (a neurosis that led Quantum of Solace to implode on itself) and Mendes is allowed to mix in some traditional Bond-comforts.

Crucially, though, this is still very much another iteration of 'the new Bond' - with the grimacing Craig portraying a more earnest take on the character who's closer to Ian Fleming's original prose creation than any of his cinematic predecessors.

With a film free from camp fun, it's fortunate to have a dramatically-robust director like Mendes at the helm - so that you actually care about the superheroes, supervillains and be-suited public officials that populate this blockbuster. You know it's all a fantasy, but when you have a well-executed mother-son style relationship between Bond and M, a classy new entry in the form of Ralph Fiennes's MI6 bigwig Gareth Mallory and an equally promising - if only for its generation-gap gags - new Q (the spindly, nerd-chic-exuding Ben Whishaw), it lends a human touch to the proceedings that's most welcome.

The most potent ingredient in this gumbo of espionage thrills is, however, Bardem's Silva.

Of course, his Oscar-winning turn as the cold-blooded killer Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men (2008) makes it hardly surprising that he does a more than adequate job here.

But from his single-take opening monologue, it becomes clear that Silva will remain a Bond antagonist for the ages. A cocktail of homoerotic seduction, righteous indignation and a scarily resilient revenge plan, Silva's presence manages to inject some actual menace and pain - which gives way to a couple of poignant twists in the (literally) explosive final showdown.

The late Heath Ledger would have been proud.