Almost great

Rating: 7/10 (7 December 2012)

Skyfall is one of the better action movies out there.
I suppose I could end my review there, but that would not be enough of a reason for me to be here. I would like to issue an open complaint in a form of a question: why do even good action movies insist on introducing a few lines of stupid dialogue and preposterous plot points? Surely someone has to read the script once it is done and approve it, and then approve the movie itself once that is done. What is the problem of the man or woman producer who watches how when something occurs in the movie one of the character has an annoying tendency to describe the event out-loud and the producer, upon seeing this, does not go: "no wait, that has to come out coz that just sounds f&*$ing retarted. It looks fake and stretched."? Somehow, no memory of such action-movie annoyances rises when recalling the good old James Bond featuring Roger Moore, so when did it start creeping in? Skyfall does not have too many of such moments but enough to be distracting.
It is good to see an action movie not involve the story of a nuclear bomb threat, but Skyfall's story is not exactly original either. We have yet another vengeful operative wreaking havoc upon the agency and Mr. Bond is up against both the villain and father time, both of whom have been moving on leaving Mr. Bond behind at a disadvantage.
The whole thing moves like a James Bond flick and makes sense as a whole, but if you did try to actually think Skyfall through scene by scene, the flow looks a bit bumpy and common sense questions can be raised quickly - obviously something that must never be done when watching an action movie.
There is not much to say of the acting, other than that Javier Bardem was brought on board as the villain and Javier to Skyfall is what Anthony Hopkins was to the Silence Of The Lambs, i.e. a good villain like that makes half the movie.
The action scenes are greatly choreographed and filmed, having a modern touch without relying too much on computer effects.