3/5
Skyfall, the 23rd Bond film since its creation 50 years ago, is certainly the most beautiful Bond film I've ever seen. And it's a prototypical Bond movie in many ways--filled with dry wit, exotic locales, and evil villains--but it's set in the new "hero as human" era of superhero movies that started with The Dark Knight. I'm certainly not an expert in the franchise, but my experience has always been of James Bond as a suave, debonair, practically invincible spy. Ever since the refresh with Casino Royale, we've seen him tortured and shot and just about beaten to death. This new bastardization of Bond is of an action hero who relies on brute force instead of gadgets, luck instead of planning. The 007 franchise has turned into a predictable summer blockbuster with a little star power and name recognition thrown in, but it's lost what made it special.
On top of all that, the movie itself is pretty mediocre, even with Sam Mendes at the helm. I will give it credit for having phenomenal cinematography (thanks to the incomparable Roger Deakins) and set pieces. But Mendes did not do enough to make it special again. Q and his gadgets came back, but in the most piddling, imbecilic way possible. The pacing suffered from an extra 30 minutes of explosions tacked on at the end. The plot is absolutely laughable. Granted, the plots have always been laughable, but that was part of their charm. Now they're preposterous in a realistic world instead of a dream world, which makes the inconsistencies and plot holes all the more embarrassing.
This is a plea to the producers: Stop this nonsense. Bond is not an action series; it's a spy series. Stop turning it into every other movie and bring it back to its roots. Update it without destroying it. Bond is more than what we're seeing here.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1074638/