Re-Review: Why James Bond was ultimately pointless in Skyfall

We were going to include this review of Skyfall under our Decades After title, but there is only one problem with that, Skyfall has only been around for 4 years. So this is our Re-Review. Technically it is our first review on this picture since AFG wasn't around when this movie came out, but after re-seeing the film we feel it is necessary to point out that James Bond was completely UNNECESSARY in this movie! Why, you ask? Well, we'll tell you.

First lets compare Skyfall to our favorite Bond flick, which happens to be Daniel Craig's first outing as 007, Casino Royale. After the Jason Bourne films, The James Bond franchise was in serious need of a make over. We needed something new to take us out of the campy, cliched, wise cracking Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, Rodger Moore era. The world had changed after 9/11, and most people were cynical, and angry. Casino Royale gave us a moody James Bond. A political spy thriller in the same way The Bourne Identity was. The villain, LeChiffre was an International Terrorist Banker, one who would play the stock market with his clients money. James Bound felt like he had entered the real world, and there was no over the top grand scheme by the bad guy to steal a nuke, or to rob Fort Knox. LeChiffre wasn't a clairvoyant like most of the villains these days, who can somehow predict the EXACT actions of others despite the fact that there is no way they could know. In Casino Royale, if LeChiffre did something, Bond would counteract, and the bad guy would truly be caught off guard, but then he would respond in a way that would catch 007 off guard, and I'm not referring to their poker match, although those were the best moments in the movie. It all felt very believable, and in that movie Bonds actions had a ripple effect throughout going all the way down to the second film Quantum of Solace.

Now, to the part you have all been waiting for, why James Bond was pointless in Skyfall. Well, what was the overall plan of Raoul Silva? It was to expose MI6 and to kill M played by Judi Dench. Which is what he did, and nothing James Bond did had any effect to the overall outcome. First, Silva steals a file, and exposes all of MI6's undercover agents resulting in their murder. He succeeded. Then, even though Bond delayed Silva in killing M on few occasions, one of his henchmen still ends up shooting her, and when Silva is about to kill her he tells her to set both of them free, and points the gun at his head and hers, begging M to pull the trigger. Bond sneaks up behind him and stabs him in the back, but that didn't even matter because he was ready to die anyway. So what was the point of Skyfall? Every action of the villain was full of plot holes. Like if his plan was to be captured by Bond, why did he have his henchmen try to kill him in the casino the night before? His henchmen didn't know? Well that's sloppy of Silva in not filling them on on his plans, and there are several other major plot holes, but we won't get into that right now. Bond is the main focus, and we can't help in noticing that nothing 007 did in the film caused the slightest effect to the overall plot. Bond his hurt from the very beginning, goes into hiding to wallow in self pity for a year, he comes back, tries to get back into shape, kills a few guys along the way, but in the end, Silva won, and the movie starts to revert back to the big corny dialogue the older films were known for. With action that was there to appeal more to action craving nuts than adding any weight to the story.

We were disappointed with Skyfall when it first came out, and even though Bond is only human and not a superhero, we still wish our hero could have effected the plot at least a little. Daniel Craig has been expressing over the last few years that he is done with the franchise, and it sure does seem like it. He is looking more and more bored as every film passes, and don't even get us started on Spectre! What a mess of a film that was. What are your thoughts on Skyfall? Most people consider the best Bond film. Let us know in the comments below.