Skyfall (2012)

Bond is back and better than... er... well... better than On Her Majesty's Secret Service, or Octopussy, but definitely not better than ever, in fact while I can't say Skyfall is the worst Bond film ever, it's easily one of the most disappointing considering how the Daniel Craig reboot has been going fairly well so far.  I can't decide whether I actually watched a Bond film or a long drawn out attempt at imitating one, personally I (unlike Bond) would have hit the eject button, on this whole film.

Skyfall sees MI6 in a state of disarray, as Bond is seemingly out of commission and M is the center target of a revenge plot set to bring down her and the British Secret Service by a former agent whom she turned over to the Chinese many years ago (Javier Bardem).  The fate of country rests in the hands of Bond, struggling to regain his edge, and a leader whose on the brink of forced retirement.

As a big Bond fan (Bond Special Edition Reviews) I was looking forward to the franchise's return after four years of limbo, when the future of the series wasn't clear, due to studio issues.  The previews looked awesome, the cast promising, but in the end Skyfall seemed to be more interested in ticking boxes and rehashing aspects of the old films than actually combining those elements into a cohesive entertaining film.  Looking at all the praise for Skyfall leaves me utterly confused, how in the world can this be considered one of the best Bond films ever?  Have these people seen a film in the franchise prior to Daniel Craig's entry?  For a film that seems to be all about "moving forward" Skyfall spends an awful lot of time bringing up greater aspects from Bond films of the last 50 years instead of making any of it's own.

To the film's credit it starts off with a bang, as with most Bond films the pre-credit action sequence is usually meant to get the audience pumped up for the film and it succeeds in that regard, followed by theme song by Adele, which is easily the best of the last three themes.  From there Skyfall begins to take a slow decent into boredom, occasionally showing a glimmer of hope but ultimately returning to plod along at a snails pace with a story that is both uninteresting and definitely not warranting such a long run-time.  At times they have to remind you you're actually watching a Bond film by bringing up some classic past moment in the franchise, queue the introduction of Q and his one liner that they no longer produce exploding pens, or dusting off the old Aston Martin and giving those built in machine guns a spin.  While these were cute little winks at the Sean Connery years, that's something one usually does in the first film of a reboot series, not three films in.

Next we see main characters taking a backseat to M... while Judi Dench is a fine actress M has never been a very interesting character, so to essentially center the entire film around her, and limit other major character's screen-time was a move I think really added to the dragging down of the film.  Characters like Sévérine (Bérénice Marlohe), and even the main villain Silva (Javier Bardem) ended up being sorely underused, compared to their counterparts in other Bond entries.  

Skyfall also spends way too much time trying to cast Bond as too old for the job, what's the point of rebooting a franchise and then two films later you start harking on about how old the main character is?  In the scheme of the franchise it doesn't matter, ultimately Craig will be replaced by some other, younger actor and the series will go on, age was never made an issue with the prior Bond's who were noticeably older in their later outings, so it seems ridiculous to make an issue of it now with a character whose been around 50 years and will undoubtedly be around 50 more.

Overall, Skyfall fell pretty flat for me. Reducing Bond to "aging" spy, attempting to build an entire story-line around M, reducing the main Bond girl's role to a couple of scenes, and rehashing a lot of past films in a way that it seemed Skyfall had nothing to offer on it's own.  Skyfall has it's moments but for the most part it felt like filler to me, an excuse to bridge a gap between the reboot of the series and the original films which didn't need to be done.  While the prior outing, Quantum of Solace, may not have been the best Bond effort, at least it was short, sweet, never dull and fit the overall Bond mold well.  Lot's of people seem to be comparing Skyfall to the lofty heights of Casino Royale, fact is Skyfall pales in comparison, lacking the originality, well constructed story, and pace, in other words it's simply another long winded action film attempting to emulate Bond.  In the end, it's Daniel Craig's You Only Live Twice, so I guess every Bond gets handed a few stinkers.

6/10