Not a typical Bond movie...but a great movie nonetheless!

Rating: 10/10 (16 November 2012)

I went for the movie with some very high expectations - engendered partly by the fact that Quantum of Solace had left me miserable - and am happy to report that Skyfall more than fulfilled my expectations.
Die-hard James Bond fans might be disappointed, since this movie represents a drastic departure from the genre - Bond here is more sensitive, more given to self-deprecating humor, less prone to emphasizing his manliness, and most importantly, has a past. A past that he shares with M, and that catches up with both of them.
The movie starts with a spectacularly magnificent action sequence across the rooftops of a Turkish bazaar (India's loss, Turkey's gain), and culminates in Bond seemingly being shot and plummeting to his death. Of course, since he is Bond, he is not dead, and returns when the ghost of an ex-agent comes back to haunt MI6 and M.
The ex-agent Silva is played to great effect by Javier Bardem, uglified,for lack of a better word, with bleach-blond hair. Silva has a few bones to pick with M who he believes has betrayed him, and he has a diabolical plan to bring her and MI6 down.
While the movie differs from its predecessors also in not being an all-out action flick, mention must be made of the inventive fight sequence in a Shanghai high-rise - shot in darkness, lit by flashes of garish neon - the fight is seen mostly in silhouette, and is very realistically choreographed.
Both Bond and Silva get our sympathy - the first by his portrayal of an aging man, haunted by his past, desperately trying to prove himself in a young man's world, and the second by the trauma he has undergone for the sake of a cause he wrongly believed in. M played by Judi Dench, is the true Bond girl, forget all those bimbos you have seen over the years. She is funny, she is feisty, she is manipulative, and she will do anything to gain her own ends. Her defence at the enquiry is a masterclass in acting.
The movie ultimately belongs, as it should, to Daniel Craig, probably the finest actor to ever play Bond. He truly embodies everything that James Bond should be - a man in every sense of the word. Perhaps nothing embodies the evolution of Bond as well as Craig does - he has moved from a wise-cracking lothario to a man who is keenly aware of his failings, physical as well as psychological, and triumphs in spite of them.