Adele's Skyfall

Unless you are living under a rock somewhere then it won't have escaped your notice that there's a new James Bond film out next week.

As a passionate Bond fan the few weeks before the release of a new film is always a bit of an ordeal. Part of me really wants to read every word written, watch every second of trailer and listen to every radio interview. The rest of me wants to switch off from it all, ignore the hype then have my first experience as the film. Normally I reach a compromise by watching the official trailers, reading the reviews in the papers I read anyway and listening to the theme tune (which is nigh on impossible to escape anyway).

So it came to pass a couple of days ago that I heard the new Skyfall tune in it's entirety. I had originally tuned into the show to listen to it being presented by a couple of comedian I like, it just so happened that this was one of the tunes that was to be played.

I have to say, I'm not impressed. The Bond music (apart from the original Monty Norman tune) is not an area of the franchise that I'm prone to get passionate about. Normally I see it as an irritating interlude before the film can be gotten into properly or an opportunity to get a beer. If I'm watching a Bond on DVD most of the time I will skip it all together. However I acknowledge that the tunes are an extremely important part of the film and generate a lot of revenue in their own right.

So what's the problem with this particular offering? In my opinion it's turgid, boring, lacking in "oomph" and generally uninspiring. It's a shame really, in a way it obeys a lot of the classic rules of Bond themes. It's big, it's bold, it's unhurried almost languid in pace and the overall "sound" (I'm sure there's a musical term but I'm buggered if I know it) is very Bondesque. However it lacks a certain something that elevates it. It is evidently aiming to compete against the Dame Shirley Bassey type theme tunes but doesn't quite measure up. It's a bit thin, scrawny almost for want of a better term. As a final coup de grace, the backing singers that come in at strategic points give it a certain musical theatre quality which would be best kept on the West End stage as it's a bit 'Bond does Broadway'.

Ok so that was fairly damning criticism and I will admit I'm not particularly easy to impress. I will give lots of credit for trying to return to the Bassey type themes (given Connery is my favourite Bond that's hardly a surprise I suppose) rather than the recent trend for pop songs and I will almost certainly become more fond of it in time. In the mean time, bring on the film.

JR