Skyfall? Skyfail

Rating: 5/10 (29 October 2012)

I made the mistake of believing some of the hype surrounding this film and I was seriously disappointed. I enjoyed QoS more and that wasn't great.
The basic story and the mission has been done many times before, Mission Impossible for example, and most of them do a better job. There are many flaws in the film of the sort that are usually overlooked if the film is any good. How they find the first bad guy for example. They improbably find his identity and then intelligence just happen to say he's going to be in X in a few days time. No explanation, just that intelligence says so.
Another issue is the hiding behind computer hackery to achieve certain things in the film. The new Q is a joke and if he is a fixture for the next films will spoil them too.
The villain is initially humorous but considering how feared he was made out to be it gets a bit silly. Others have compared him to the Joker from the Batman films and I can see the resemblance. His convoluted plot to try and achieve his end goal was pointless, with all the contacts and allies he clearly had he could have done it in a few about 2 scenes. Bond himself is contradictory at times. One minute appearing frail and vulnerable, then he's cold and ruthless and then caring. Having said all that the opening sequence is very good and is very Bond. In fact it is at the point of meeting the villain that the film takes a turn for the worse and never recovers.
It's all a little tiresome and the final action scene was poor and failed to make up for what went before. If you like your Bond, this is not really a Bond film. If you are not fussed for Bond then this is just a poor action/thriller film, stick with the likes of Mission Impossible.
One last point, I was staggered to read that the film cost £200M, there must have been some large salaries.