It was not the worst James Bond movie ever, but...

Rating: 2/10 (13 December 2015)

There are three ways I evaluate movies: expectations, entertainment value, and the critical perspective. With the big event pictures, the media campaign is in such hype-drive that it is easy to be disappointed. If I rate Skyfall based on my expectations and as a long time fan, I would give it a 1. But it had a few entertaining scenes (very few), so from that perspective it probably should get a 4. The big problem is when a movie does something incredibly bad at the very beginning or the character does something that goes against everything we know about him. When a director breaks the audience's belief system, we are no longer film fans, we become film critics, picking on every plot hole, unrealistic stunts, and tech gimmicks that 20 years behind the time. Because of the 10-15 gaping holes in the movie, the movie critic part of me gave it a 1. So the average of the three parts is a 2.
SPOILERS: The director destroyed the credibility of the movie within the first five minutes of the film. The entire mythos of MI6 and 00 training gets thrown away in order to jolt the audience with a contrived plot twist and to set the bad guy's plot into motion. The idea of a trained 00 agent not completing a task because they are emotionally distraught destroyed my suspension of reality.
Another 10 minutes in, James Bond stands by and allows a possibly innocent man get murdered. Again, it was a shocking twist, but it was so incredibly stupid, evil and out of character that my belief in James Bond's character was killed. There was nothing left to do but walk out, but I paid for my ticket and stayed tip the bitter end.
From here the film would try to pull itself up only to fall with the next contrived, clichéd, or expected moment. There was something for everyone to hate in this film.
For techies, there is a ridiculous hacking scene that was stupid it was like the screenwriter had been in a coma since 1988.
For acting aficionados, there is a creepy Bond-villain scene that goes from amateur psychoanalysis to a bizarre homo-eroticism and ends as some weird quasi-oedipal revelation.
For long-time fans, Bond doesn't find clues to unravel the mystery, so much as stumble from one potentially fatal mistake to the next. The combination of strength and quick thinking that Daniel Craig showed so well in Casino Royale is no where to be found this time out.
For casual fans, this is an okay movie, but without a doubt the worst of the Daniel Craig films.
For real Bond fans, if you can get through the first 15 minutes without throwing your remote control through the TV (I'm writing this so late, my hope is that no is in a position to buy a ticket for this bomb), maybe you'll be entertained.
The reason I decided to write a review at all is because I noticed that Skyfall had a 7.8 IMDb rating, and wanted to advise people to watch Transformers 4 instead - at least the characters are more realistic in that one.