Great but not what I expected from Sam Mendes

Rating: 6/10 (23 November 2012)

First of all, I have to say that I expected a lot from this movie since the director was Sam Mendes, an academy awarded director. I thought Skyfall would be better than even Casino Royale but it's unfortunately not.
The best things about this movie are the cinematography by St. Deakins and the intro music by Adele. Art direction, costume design, visual effects, lighting were also great. Casting was amazing as well. I really loved Ben Whishaw playing young Q, Ralph Fiennes as Mallory and Bond girls Berenice Marlohe, Naomie Harris. Javier Bardem was good too but I wouldn't consider him to be the best Bond villain. Best Bond villain is Le Chiffre.
This film has nothing to do with the legacy of Bond. Casino Royale was very Bond-like. Because James Bond in novels is a coldblooded murderer, womanizer and alcoholic. He is a caricature. In Skyfall Mendes tried to make it more realistic and ruined that part. He misses the target, suffers from wounds etc. He is shown pathetic. He even can't pass the field agent test! The villain is also too similar to Joker. As for M, I couldn't imagine a worse ending. Mendes ruined the whole movie just for the sake of creating a drama. I didn't even feel moved by it. Vesper's death in Casino Royale was much more believable. As stated by Mendes, that scene was deliberately done to get Oscar nomination for Bardem. The scene is too theatrical and has nothing to do with reality.
There are also some parts of the movie which are done for the sake of action and offensively stupid. Why does Bond take M to a cabin in the woods and absolutely with NO WEAPON? MI6's system is hacked at the beginning of the movie and they relocate after the explosion. And they are hacked AGAIN! And because the computer GENIUS connects Silva's computer to their server. Then Silva goes to kill M with two thugs. There is less than 10 cops protecting government officials, intelligence officers. That's spectacularly stupid.
Basically everything is great in this film. Cinematography, editing, art direction, production design, VFX & SFX, , casting, acting, costume design, stunts. But script is so awful that it ruins almost everything.