A Return to Great Storytelling

Rating: 9/10 (10 November 2015)

This third installment of the Daniel Craig contribution to the James Bond franchise makes for a great movie experience. Its immediate predecessor, "Quantum of Solace" was a bit week in the storytelling department. That's not the case with "Skyfall". Here we have a great movie with an engaging script and good pacing. The characterization works well, with Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes making major contributions to the film. A new Q is introduced as well, and Javier Bardem makes for a spectacular Bond villain.
My lone criticism of this movie is that there was less of the dramatic action sequences that serve as the standard formula for a 007 movie. "Casino Royale" hit the perfect balance of action vs. storytelling, while "Quantum" was heavy on the scenic action scenes without much regard for the script. "Skyfall" gets the storytelling done in a superb fashion, and the film certainly does have action scenes--but there's no boat chase or ski slope drama the likes of which comes to mind as the standard formula for a Bond movie. The exception to this is the opening train scene, which is well done and clever, but it was just slightly disappointing not to see more of that style of scene in the movie.
I will note that the first time I watched this movie, I saw it with two children and they found it hard to keep up, which was a disappointment for me since I loved my first Timothy Dalton 007 movie as a kid. It's that lack of action scenes that may make this harder to enjoy for a young audience.
That being the case, I've given this film 9/10 stars. It's close to perfect, but just a tad bit off of the mark set by "Casino Royale".