More Bourne than Bond

Rating: 7/10 (22 November 2012)

Skyfall blurs the distinction between Bond and Bourne (and in fact any other gritty action film within recent years). Craig is not the cool, calm and sophisticated Bond we're used to he's more of a thug in a tux. This Bond isn't always in control and doesn't make everything look effortless, he is prone to mistakes and doesn't always make the best decision. Bond has been humanised, I'm still trying to decide if this is good, or not. This doesn't make Skyfall a bad film it just means it becomes more of the same, especially if future Bond films follow this same format.
Depending on your expectations Skyfall is fairly enjoyable. There are some good set pieces and a few nice nods for all seasoned Bond fans. The story had some good ideas, making the British Secret Service the target, meaning things are more personal.
Creating characters within an action film is a fine balance as it can slow the pace, most characters were dull, although Q came across very well for his few minutes of screen time. So did our bad guy, in fact he played a different enough bad guy from No Country For Old Men (great film) not to get typecast. Would have liked to see more of Bardem, but we did feel his pain, suffering, betrayal and reasons for his motivation.
The different Bond character does take some getting used to. That aside the film never gave us anything truly groundbreaking. The rooftop motorcycle chase is the next step on from the rooftop foot-chase we've seen before (Taken, Bourne, The International). The 'stand-off' we've also seen before. This is not the most memorable Bond film, although putting the lack of originality aside it had a nice even pace and was on the whole enjoyable.
*** Spoilers *** Rants *** Spoilers *** Rants *** Spoilers *** Rants *** No gadgets, Bond is all about gadgets. In fact the film made the point of saying there were no gadgets. The same thing happened in Dark Knight Rises, it was inexcusable in Batman and even more so in Bond. Yes we do want an exploding pen! Again this is another step away from Bond towards the standard action flick.
So at the start pre-Moneypenny shoots Bond. Once she had the clear shot why didn't she then shoot the bad guy? At least complete her mission. Sure she was in shock, but aren't they trained for this? I'm sat there thinking 'shoot him', then trying to find a reason why she didn't. Did I miss something? When investigating the bad guys computer don't plug it into the main MI6 network which has complete access to EVERYTHING. Yes this is one for the geeks, but surely common sense would prevail? Why is it that the characters in these high-powered highly-sensitive jobs are written to be so stupid? Or even when they are meant to be really clever, even taking a pill to make them awesomely intelligent (like Limitless - so, so bad) they turn out to make dumb decisions. Please give me a script where the intelligent guys are actually intelligent (Sherlock - BBC series). Anyway I digress...
So what happened to the drive? The whole point at the start was the retrieve the drive, so where is it? I was waiting for it to turn up at any second, again did I miss this? If travelling up to a derelict house in the middle of the Highlands to do battle, take some guns, explosives and general weaponry with you - even if you don't need it. The car does have a boot. Why wouldn't you? Why didn't Bond save the guy that got assassinated? Also, if the guy was sat in a room full of people wanting him dead why didn't they just kill him? Why send a guy into the building opposite to cut a hole in the glass to sniper him? It seemed to be a very elaborate plot point for Bond to find a casino chip which lead to Bond finding the bad guys hideout where the bad guy wanted to be captured. I guess the overly convoluted plot actually makes this a real Bond film after all!