A brisk, broad, stuffed, slightly clever, sometimes stupid, post-Dark Knight psychological action thriller.

Rating: 9/10 (7 February 2020)

Its brutal editing blasts through scenes, each one fun in a new and different way. There are some lovely, series-high dialogue scenes and some series-high creativity and set-pieces.
I'm troubled by some things; Thomas Newman does a good job but I miss David Arnold as his music was unnoticeable and scene-perfect, and Naomie Harris is insufferably bad; miscast likely in a blockbuster due to how excellent she usually is, but conversely, an en vogue Javiar Bardem chews the heck out of the scenery.
Lots of stupid stuff happens, plenty of holes and contrivances, but it's a heck of a lot of fun, a sort of reboot/rehash, retro-throwback and modernising update all at the same time, not as elegantly classic as Casino, and may age worse due to being influenced by the big films of the time, but it reinvented the franchise once again in Craig's tenure and the accomplishments of the film (action, cinematography, costume design, character arcs, introduction of series staples such as Q, etc.) far outweigh the flaws (like some of the jokes really not landing, and some tenuous leaps of faith and boring subplots).
Skyfall tries hard, sometimes too hard, but at the end of the day you notice, after seeing it countless times, moments like the sound of the glass cutter pitching up and down to match the music in the jellyfish scene, and you remember that it really is a film of quality.
I really think Daniel Craig, recognising that Bond spends a large percentage of his films in action, plays each iteration of Bond in the action sequences according to the kind of Bond he is supposed to be in the film. Casino saw him a smirking smug rookie, Quantum a dead-hearted laser focused grief stricken man and in Skyfall he's a grumpy, tired, ageing man whose mystique is slowly being destroyed. One imagines to an extent Craig sympathises with this Bond most. Not unlike Spectre where Bond is a burnt out, bored, uninspired husk.
The fit for work montage culminating in the word association is the first great sequence of the movie. I won't wax lyrical too much about this technical masterpiece of blockbuster filmmaking, suffice to say that for all it's flaws, the film builds its ancient franchise mythology sensitively and adds new breath to the franchise already pretty high off of Casino Royale. Bond had a beard, Ben Wishaw is a cracking addition and the focus on closing M's arc is a clever left field one.
Javier Bardem is predictably joker-like and he ties well in to the central drama between Bond and M. But the real stars of the film are the locales and sets, gorgeously photographed by master Deakins and the action, the art house action, built and shot by someone trying to create the best sequences available.
It's long and stuffed and cheesy in places. But so was Casino. It excels in mood and manages to produce a balanced, broad, arty action blockbuster with flourishes of tender moments, tight dialogue and all the bravado and fistpumping beats an audience could desire.