"I expect the franchise to die, Mr Bond!"

Rating: 4/10 (15 January 2015)

As many have observed, there is something seriously wrong with modern criticism if this rather ordinary outing is hailed as a masterpiece. I've lost count of the amount of films given huge praise which turn out to be mediocre at best or often very awful.
It seems the critics now respond to empty spectacle and superficial gimmicks rather than tiresome things like characterisation or a plot that makes sense. So it is with Skyfall, a succession of action sequences with just enough story line to string them along. The opening action sequence, although not the equal of anything in Casino Royale, is the best. Then the film falls more sharply than Bond does from the train. And you can tell that the writers do not over trouble themselves with such things as making sense, since they make not even a cursory attempt to explain Bond's miraculous survival.
Javier Bardem, who was so mesmerisingly menacing in No Country for Old Men, is here merely unintentionally funny. Sporting an awful blond wig and giving a high camp performance, he channels John Inman so much that you almost expect him to say "I'm free!" Not exactly a frightening villain, then, but worse, his gay overtures towards Bond are immediately forgotten, a sure sign of a bad script.
A convoluted and unbelievable plot, most of which is lifted from other better sources, and with numerous plot holes, fails to convince. And the bombastic special effects, including Bond dodging a careening underground train (curiously empty for daytime and apparently driverless- the unions should have words) and an assault on Bond's childhood home (a sort of overblown version of Home Alone, by way of Death Wish 3), although designed to distract us from the weak story are not good enough to impress for more than 5 minutes.
One of the most disturbing aspects is Bond's sheer incompetence. He stands by and watches an assassin execute his target before intervening (why? Is this new Home Office guidelines?), he fails to save his latest Bond girl even though he knows re-enforcements are only seconds away (her death is merely because the film has no more use for her- and his quip after her unsavoury demise "a waste of good scotch" is very poor taste), he even fails to save M at the end, thus rendering the whole film rather pointless. No doubt these unnecessary deaths are inserted for 'gritty realism'.
The ending, set in a Scottish chapel, is very weak indeed, with M's death, (succumbing to a bullet from an anonymous lackey earlier) in particular, being anti-climactic. I sincerely wish that M had pulled the trigger on the double suicide that Bardem suddenly wanted (why? he showed no such suicidal tendencies before) only with the proviso that Bond's head was in Bardem's place. That might put this tired franchise (and us) out of its misery.