Skyfail

Rating: 6/10 (19 November 2012)

I'm still baffled how the director of American Beauty, Road to Perdition and Jarhead, and the writers of Casio Royale (and most other recent Bond films) could have come up with something so clunky and as full of holes as a Looney Tunes portion of Swiss cheese.
The pre-titles sequence contained the first danger signs of wonky dialogue (and some poor CG), but I could forgive it because, well, you know, this is Bond, and the franchise had been in danger of taking itself a little too seriously. Then my patience was stretched to its limit by absolutely NOTHING happening for the next hour. Seriously, until Javier Bardem shows up, the story just flies itself off to Shanghai FOR NO APPARENT REASON just for the sake of going to another country. Would it really have been so bad for most of the film to have taken place in Britain for a change? At least it would have been original. Anyway, never mind Bond's apparently miraculous survival of the pre-title sequence, we are then expected to swallow the far less believable notion that the reason he doesn't immediately call in after said miraculous recovery is because he's being... petulant. That's it. That's his motivation for playing dead. He's SULKING. Give me strength. Ethan Hunt wouldn't have done that. He would have called-in the second he could draw breath.
So yes, thankfully things improve immensely when Bardem arrives and gives some weight to the paper-thin plot. It's a pure revenge story, but that's OK. Too many action films have been disappearing up their own arses recently, so it's nice to have a straightforward plot for a change (even one that took an unnecessary diversion to another country purely for a sake of a single fight scene and an obligatory shag in the shower). Things get more interesting when Bardem starts to cause chaos and chomps on the scenery, but then the whole new-technology-versus-old- school-spying sub-plot rears it's head again and attempts to force itself down your throat at every conceivable opportunity. It's as if Casino Royale and Quantum of Silliness never happened. And then we're supposed to be shocked when Ralph Fiennes suddenly turns out not to be the arsehole everyone else thinks he his despite showing very little of his alleged arse-holiness on screen (and instead, making you wonder, why wasn't he ever Bond?).
The rest of the story then plays out as a by-the-numbers Bond film, with every twist and turn visible a mile off. They are still enjoyable twist and turns, but the fact that the film thinks it's surprising you and being clever is just insulting. I liked the reveal of the old car along with it's old-school gadgetry intact, but during the trip to Scotland I started to ponder how it was possible that a 40-something agent in 2012 could have been the owner of a car in the 1960's, when we've already witnessed his genesis as a secret agent two films prior, and all sense of reason and believability packs it's bags and jumps off the nearest train. You suspend your disbelief, but I'll keep a shred of mine, thank you very much.
Then the film turns into Home Alone.
Then, Judi Dense decides that, despite there being a demonstrably intelligent evil mastermind on her tail, escaping across open countryside in the dead of night, with a very bright torch, is the best way to avoid death. And then she 'hides' in a chapel. WITH THE LIGHTS ON.
And then finally, if we haven't had enough old-fashioned values shoved down our throats, the promising young female agent decides to take to heart Bond's discouraging remarks about her ability as an agent, with his 'there-there-dear' remarks, and becomes the new boss-man's secretary. And so we end where Bond began, in a poorly-written, two- dimensional world where women are either sex-objects or secretaries who go slack in the pants at the mere sight of a man in a Tuxedo ordering a weak cocktail.
It might sound like I hated the film, but I actually enjoyed most of it, at the time. However, the more I think about it, the more I hate it. I'm astounded that chief among the criticism aimed at Prometheus was its lacklustre dialogue and obvious plot-holes, and yet Skyfall manages to avoid the same denigration from its far too generous critics.