SkyFail

Even though never did I warm up to the choice of Daniel Graig as the next Bond (I still think Clive Owen would had been a better fit - and he would probably have the good judgement to steer clear of...botox!), I had to admit that Casino Royale was an excellent Bond film. With all the explosive and seductive sequences and all its gadgets (and product placement) one would expect. It was great, solid entertainment.

Then came Quantum of Solace and it turned out to be little more than a patchwork of all the leftovers from Casino. As a coda, it had its uses. As a new film, it would not be missed. Little did I know how the future held an even greater disappointment.

I was truly hyped to watch Skyfall. All the critics praised it and all the buzz was how Mendes managed to revive and, at the same time, humanize Bond. He did not. He did not even try.

The film suffers from a number of shortcomings. The script is weaker than milk and water trying to pass as English tea. Javier does a decent job portraying an albino(?) villain, if not a bit caricaturish. It is the script that make him look incompetent though.

Would you hire a world renown surgeon to clip your nails? How about a champion fisherman to catch fish you already have in a barrel? Well, this supervillain hires a top assassin to snipe at a man who is already surrounded by his men.

If, in the post 9/11 world, you somehow managed to get your hands on a military helicopter, would you not remember to equip it with a couple of rockets not to have to rely on its puny machine gun?

And would you endanger your freedom and even your survival in order to kill the person you hate - if you could kill them (and watch them suffer) half a world away by pressing a button? Well, he does exactly that. More than once.

Even then, MI6 is portrayed as even more incompetent. For such a rabid foe was amassing fortune, recruiting henchmen and organizing for years - without MI6 ever wising up to him. And would you ditch your company car because "they are all bugged" - only to try to get away undetected with yet another fully equipped ...company car?

Nevertheless, these are not why the latest Bond film fails. Even if realism was the direction recently taken, when was any Bond film able to hold up to such scrutiny? No, the film fails because it is not fun to watch. Most of the action in the film takes place before the opening credits. After that, it is all looks and silences and word association. And, contrary to other Bond films, I could not care less about anything going on on the screen.

This semblance of a story unfolds in a staccato sequence of locations, each resembling an episode shot at a different set. There is neither continuity nor coherence. At the beginning, someone steals an MI6 NOC list in Turkey (I will not even ask what was such a list doing outside the vault and into the field!) and halfway through the movie everyone forgets about it(!) Who cares about all these deep agents, lets save the snotty aristocrat, right? Sadly, if you have seen the trailer, you have seen all there is to see of this film.

I am afraid they destroyed more than the classic DB5 with this one.