Movie Review: Skyfall (2012)

"Skyfall" is the latest in the James Bond series.  Bond (Daniel Craig) is back and investigating a cyber-attack on M16.  The bad guy this time is a former M16 operative named Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), who is obsessed with humiliating, discrediting, and punishing M (Judi Dench) for her betrayal of him.  The film brings in two classic Bond film characters: Q (Ben Whishaw) and Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris).

I'm a bit mixed on this film.  I continue to like Craig in the role of Bond and loved Dench.  Her character got a lot of screen-time and development in this film.  As a fan of the Bond franchise I liked the classic characters, Q and Moneypenny, being brought into the script as well as some of the background nuggets offered about Bond's childhood.  I still wish there was some continuity between all of the Bond films, as taken as a series it's difficult to put them on a real timeline and reconcile a lot of "facts" and plots, but I'm begrudgingly accepting that this is just not possible.  Overall this is a nice action/suspense film with a nice theme running through it of asking what is the value of old ways and old spies (note: Bond is supposedly "old" in this film).  Don't miss Adele's theme song during the opening credits.

What I really didn't like was Bardem's character, Silva.  When taken in comparison to some of the great Bond villains of the past, Silva is just not up to par.  This is a shame especially since Bardem is such a good actor - we've seen how thrilling he can be as a bad guy (remember "No Country for Old Men").  Silva comes across as scheming but a bit whiny and the homosexual angle to the character just seemed silly.  I feel like this character should have been written much better.  With better writing I think Bardem would have delivered a villain holding his own with classic bad guys like Dr. No and Goldfinger.

This film should have been better if Bardem had been given something to really chew on: B