Over-hyped and overrated

Rating: 5/10 (9 November 2012)

Horribly disappointing, especially after all the hype. It started well, but the second half was just awful... weak, uninteresting and unambitious plot. The antagonist 'wins' in the end, but his goal was so inconsequential that it doesn't even matter, nothing much is changed. His grand plan, his endgame... was to kill M. ONE person, that's all. He succeeds, and life goes on without any major repercussions. There were also some huge plot holes, with plans from both Bond and Silva not making much sense, and a huge loose end that was the focus of the first half of the movie left untied.
I suppose Skyfall was good for what it was, but sadly what it was was a mere side story focusing more on M than Bond, who is simply along for the ride for the most part. The scale I was expecting, that the title Skyfall suggests, that you might expect after the last two films, just isn't there. It's well-made, with some great cinematography, music and performances, but the story just let the whole thing down completely.
It felt like a re-reboot in a way, as if the series is moving away from the new timeline established in Casino Royale. In that film, Bond was a young agent who had only just gained '00 agent' status... here, he is portrayed as much older and wearier, suggesting a long time has passed since the events of Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace. There doesn't appear to be anything to connect Skyfall with the first two films of new continuity, instead it opts for the self-contained and disjointed style of the old timeline. The introductions of Q and Moneypenny, as well as the multiple allusions to the older films, gave a feeling that the series may be headed back towards the classic Bond style, perhaps having been scared away from pushing on with the new era by the failure of Quantum Of Solace, which is a huge disappointment given what this could have been.
Overall, Skyfall is perhaps slightly better than Quantum Of Solace, but absolutely terrible in comparison to the wildly superior Casino Royale.