Dull and worthless

Rating: 4/10 (22 November 2012)

This is supposed to be the 50th anniversary of the James Bond franchise, and what a waste of time it was. The story was dull and the villain average. The plot was a reasonable idea, but the execution was poor.
Traditionally, James Bond films have had fantastical plots: Moonraker had an evil genius stealing satellites (and a giant thug with gold teeth), Golden Eye had some kind of space laser (as I recall), Casino Royale pinned the fate of the free world on a poker game, Quantum of Solace had a slimy guy stealing water. Skyfall (whilst having a cool name which incidentally had functionally zero relevance to the story) by comparison had an unknown MI6 agent from the past bent on revenge against M.
**SPOILERS** Bardem's (apparently) gay lunacy was not compelling in the least.
Bond gets shot. You see that in the trailers. Then he comes back, all within the space of about 10 minutes. It was a worthless speedbump, since it added completely nothing to the story. Apparently he loses some of this skills, but again, that made ZERO difference to the film. What could have been a major plot point with interesting ramifications became a mere side incident. Talk about wasting time.
Maybe Judi Dench was bored with her role, so they wrote this film just to kill off her character. That's the only justification I can think of for such a lame film.
The direction was average. The acting was okay. Uninspired car chases, boring plot, some dull high-tech gadgetry, Adele's insipid theme song and that's 2.5 hours wasted. A truly dull script that turns into a truly dull film.
A noticeable low point in Danial Craig's up-til-now stellar showing as the latest James Bond.