Skyfall: 007 Successful Transformations of Bond Lore

2. The Villainous Motive

Silva works with calculating ingenuity within the parameters of his character €” sure, he's a genius, but at the end of the day he's a man with a grudge. It's typical of a Bond villain. So many of them come completed, with their own narcissistic aims and ends, but, at the end of the day, they want to remake the world in their own vision in their own grandiose and destructive fashion. They're dependably, predictably static characters. The twist on the convention 'Skyfall,' much like 1995's 'Goldeneye' featured a disgruntled former double-0 resurrecting and wreaking havoc. And one could argue that the characters have too similar a back story. Both blame MI-6 for their own woes, both have seemingly unlimited resources, and both have tentative alliances with shady, militaristic factions (though, Silva is more of an admitted freelancer). The differences here, however, are far too substantial to ignore. First, there's what we see on screen. I love Sean Bean, he's one of my favorite character actors featured in Bond outside of maybe Robbie Coltrane or Jonathan Rhys Davies. But he's no Bardem. More importantly, on a character level, Bardem's Silva possesses a much more deep-seated, self-centered motive. In 'Goldeneye' Bean's Trevelyan wanted to burn Queen and country to the ground, but had an ulterior motive: money. He was a glorified bank robber, that used his parents' death at the hands of the British government as a crutch. He wanted what was owed to him in the form of a few billion pounds. In 'Skyfall' Silva doesn't want money. Silva, quite simply, wants only to bring down MI-6 and its matriarch, M. It's a pet project. He doesn't want money. He can create money out of whole cloth with a few keystrokes, or he can sell secrets to Iranians or some other seedy endeavor. His endgame was to leave MI-6 in shambles and place M's head upon a pike. I know, it sounds pretty one-dimensional, but even Silva surprises as the film progresses. Throughout the film, Silva partially achieves his goal. MI-6 is reeling, wracking it's collective brain in an attempt to stem the internal administrative bleeding, and their rendered largely ineffective. So, scratch that off the checklist. But it's when Silva confronts M €” when he stares dumbfoundedly and can't pull the trigger, when he hesitates €” that he surprises. There's never been that level of depth in a Bond film. Their typically a bloodthirsty lot, comedically so, in many cases. Case in point: Christopher Walken's Max Zorin plows through about thirty people with an Uzi and a seemingly clip. (Side note: I couldn't help but compare Bardem to Walken throughout the film. Luckily, Bardem's acting chops more than made up for the astoundingly questionable dye job). Sure, Silva wants to destroy those responsible for abandoning him, disowning him, and nearly destroying him. But, like any good sociopath, he can't help but get caught up in the inner-workings of himself and his own emotions, as conflicted as they are. There's never certainty to his motive. However, he's got good reason to be a little miffed €” MI-6 sold him out and left him to rot. Yet, he survived, albeit it completely scarred both mentally and physically.