This year marks the 50th anniversary of James Bond’s first on-screen adventure, “Dr. No,” and in that time, the British spy has quaffed a cirrhosis-worthy level of martinis (you know how they’re made), bedded dozens of beauties (few of whom he ever called back) and delivered enough zingers to make Don Rickles proud.
But a half-century is a long time for any character to survive, much less thrive, on-screen. With Bond’s 23rd adventure, “Skyfall,” hitting screens Friday, his code word is reinvention.
Without change, 007’s biggest risk is not a giant laser cannon planted on the moon, but obsolescence. It’s a danger that “Skyfall” director Sam Mendes wanted to avoid.
“It was to me very clear that the discussion at the center of the movie was, ‘What is the point of a secret service created during the Cold War now that the world has changed?’ ” he asks. “And therefore, what is the point of Bond? And therefore, what is the point of Bond movies?”
It’s a legitimate question, especially in a world where the Bourne franchise and TV series “Homeland” have become the high-profile espionage entertainment options du jour.
Six years ago with “Casino Royale,” Bond was completely made over into a more serious hero operating in a grimmer post-9/11 world, with Daniel Craig filling the tailored Tom Ford suit. Now, that template is being refreshed in a few major ways.
“This movie is completely different from the previous two,” says newcomer Bérénice Marlohe, a Parisian actress who plays Bond girl Sévérine. “It respects the key ingredients you find in Bond movies: a sense of humor, action, gadgets. But at the same time, it’s like a completely unique movie.”
For most of his on-screen existence, Bond has remained unflappable, aloof and wonderfully static. He doesn’t grow and change. Little is known about his backstory. Mendes, who comes from theater and who is best-known for directing character-driven films such as “American Beauty,” was determined to give Bond an arc.
“Skyfall” finds Bond racing to stop a villain (Javier Bardem) determined to take down British security service MI6 and its leader, M (Judi Dench). The Vatican newspaper dubbed the film “license to cry” because it reveals a more emotionally vulnerable Bond who grapples with his troubled childhood and his place in the present. “Skyfall” is the name of his childhood home in Scotland.
“There was a point with Bond around [1979’s] ‘Moonraker’ where it lost its thriller roots and went into more of an action-adventure, almost travelogue-type feeling, which was just immense, gorgeous locations beautifully shot, a baddie and Bond,” Mendes says. “Bond became the Sellotape that tied it all together. It was like, ‘How can we get Bond from Rio to Venice? Then, from Venice to a cable car?’ Because these were the big sequences they have to make work. From that moment, he had almost no journey at all. He was just the reason to get to all these places.”
“Nobody told me we couldn’t make an action film with a good story,” Craig says. “What I’m so proud about this movie is that the writing is really good and the lightness of touch is back. Hopefully, we’ve combined that with a very emotional story.”
Another change, and one of the first ideas Mendes had when he was hired on Craig’s recommendation, was to reintroduce Bond’s supporting cast. In “Casino Royale” and 2008’s “Quantum of Solace,” the agent mostly worked solo.
“Looking at the last few movies, MI6 had almost disappeared,” Mendes says. “That had always been a bedrock of the old movies. These constants with M and Q and Moneypenny had almost gone. Even M we never saw in a real place. It was always in this nondescript office.”
M fans will be happy to learn that the spymaster gets to leave the office and even shoot a gun in this installment. There’s also a new Q, MI6’s quartermaster played until 1999 by the late Desmond Llewelyn. Ben Whishaw, 32, takes over, now not only supplying Bond with gadgets, but serving as resident computer expert.
Craig says Bond needs a backup team. “To have Bond on a computer at a screen is f – – king boring,” he says. “I think technology on the whole is boring. But what I like about this is that we brought Q in, who’s a computer whiz. It means Bond doesn’t have to be dealing with technology.”
Also returning to the fold is Moneypenny, though not as the desk-bound secretary with whom Bond flirted in the early movies.
“In the books, Moneypenny was a naval Wren, a female naval service person,” says Barbara Broccoli, producer and daughter of the late Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, who launched the Bond film franchise. “But you never saw her in action. It made sense that we’d make her a more active agent.”
The idea was Craig’s, who originally pitched Mendes on having Bond rescue a very capable fellow agent, revealed to be Moneypenny. The exact mechanics of the idea were scrapped, but the spirit stuck.
The new supporting cast is intended to appear in future movies. So will, no doubt, Craig, who’s reportedly signed up for two more go-rounds. Broccoli says she’ll do everything to keep her star for as long as possible.
Craig is 44, and another leap “Skyfall” takes is to address Bond’s age, what the actor calls “allowing those cracks so you can see into the character a little.” If you’ve seen the trailer, you know that in “Skyfall” Bond gets shot and fakes his own death in order to recover.
“Obviously, Daniel’s young enough to play several more Bond films, but [the character] is missing a step in a sense he’s been wounded, and he has a long way to come back,” says producer Michael G. Wilson, stepson of Cubby Broccoli and keeper of the Bond franchise with Barbara. “It’s part of the story, and I don’t think we should shy away from it.”
“Daniel puts himself through an incredible amount,” Mendes says. “Not only to appear aging and wounded, but to be told that by all the other characters. That’s tough. To be 44 and to play the role with such honesty in a genre that’s constantly trying to pull you towards the expected, delivering the line that everyone wants you to deliver. He’s managed to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar.”
Speaking of strange, check out Bardem’s villain, Silva. The baddie, with his bleached hair, silk-patterned shirts and over-the-top bravado comes across as a blend of Truman Capote and Hannibal Lecter.
“I wanted a certain kind of villain,” Mendes says. “Even early on, I had a feeling for the flamboyant, lip-smacking relish of this particular kind of villain that dates back more to the early Connery pictures.”
One scene that’s already creating controversy is one in which Bond appears to admit to having a license to thrill both sexes. In it, Silva captures Bond and comes onto him, caressing his chest. Bond cheekily responds, “What makes you think this is my first time?”
“What are you going to do?” Craig says, with a laugh. “I don’t see the world in sexual divisions.”
Craig doesn’t believe Silva bats for the other team. “Someone suggested that Silva may be gay,” he says. “And I’m like, I think he’ll f – – k anything.”
Bardem has been more coy on the character’s sexuality, but suggests Silva’s goal in the scene was about “putting the other person in a very uncomfortable situation where even James Bond doesn’t know how to get out of it.”
While “Skyfall” aims to modernize many aspects of the Bond story, because this is the 50th anniversay it also includes a few nods to previous films. A certain sports car with an ejector seat might make an appearance, as might a recognizable music theme, mostly absent from the last two movies. Wilson says the filmmakers worked hard to make sure any references were organic: “This is not about making an homage to the past.”
Mendes says this is the James Bond movie he wanted to make, regardless of the anniversary. That said, had he been hired for “Casino Royale,” his plans wouldn’t have included Craig, whom he’d worked with on “Road to Perdition.”
“I didn’t think he was right for Bond,” Mendes admits. “Daniel felt to me like a coiled spring, a man who runs on rage and is jumpy and energized and in the moment. He didn’t seem like Bond at all. Of course, that’s why it works.”
There’s one other major change in “Skyfall” that will change any future Bond films, but to reveal it would be criminal. If James Bond has taught us anything in 50 years, it’s about the importance of keeping secrets.