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When it comes to the Bond franchise, there’s always that one critically acclaimed movie that’s constantly ranked among the best in the series, and yet, you just can’t see what’s supposed to be so great about it. For some fans that movie is Goldfinger, for others, it’s Casino Royale, but for me, it’s Skyfall.

Ever since the early seventies, EON Productions would sometimes chase trends to make their movies more appealing, and the first time they did this was with Live and Let Die. Released in 1973, the film merged the “Bond formula” with the then-popular blaxploitation genre.

Later in the decade when Star Wars got everybody fired up about space-themed movies, EON delivered Moonraker. The Bond formula was modified once again in the mid-2000s when the Bourne film series was very popular, and EON Productions made Casino Royale in a similar style.

Then, towards the end of the decade, The Dark Knight set the world on fire and it was time for Bond to chase trends once again. The problem I have here is that I consider The Dark Knight to be one of the most overrated movies ever made and the same goes for the director, Christopher Nolan.

Also, in all the previous examples, while EON would take some inspiration to make a Bond movie that’s somewhat thematically or stylistically similar to the movie they try to emulate, the finished product would always have a sufficient dose of originality. The problem with Skyfall is that it’s way too similar to The Dark Knight when it comes to the plot and the villain, and as a result, the issues I have with Skyfall are almost identical to the issues I had with The Dark Knight.

Related article: The Dark Knight Sucks!| The Most Overrated Batman Movie Ever Made!

The first half of the movie was actually pretty decent with one major exception—the introduction of Ben Whishaw as Q. Whishaw does an amazing job reminding us what a great Q Desmond Llewelyn was.

One of the highlights in every movie for me was when Q would introduce some new out-of-this-world technology only to not be taken seriously by Bond, resulting in him getting more and more frustrated. His “I think he’s attempting re-entry, sir” line in Moonraker is probably the funniest moment in the whole series.

Whishaw, by comparison, has the personality of a dead pigeon. He spends the whole movie with that one stupid facial expression, saying everything in a monotone voice, and having zero chemistry with Daniel Craig. He’s not funny or entertaining in any way, and he doesn’t introduce any new awesome technology.

So the question is: why does Skyfall have a Q in the first place? My issue is not Whishaw’s character being in the movie, but calling his character “Q”. We don’t need a Q to deliver a simple gun and radio to Bond. Hell, Bond even jokes about the lack of inventiveness in the Q-branch later in the movie.

But, the major problems for me started in the second half of the film. Two scenes in particular boiled my blood.

After Silva gets himself caught and sees M for the first time in years, he manages to escape by opening the door to his cell and somehow miraculously gets rid of the guards. Although an explanation is given on how Silva managed to open the door, we are left completely in the dark on how he killed the guards without anyone in the building hearing anything.

Throughout the series, whenever Bond, or some other character, manages to escape from a difficult situation, the director would always show how the character pulls it off. But, for this particular scene, it appears that director Sam Mendes couldn’t come up with any semi-believable explanation of how Silva could kill the guards and get away undetected, so he just took a page out of Christopher Nolan’s book—a book called “F@ck It! Why even bother?!”—and hoped we wouldn’t notice.

Right after this, while Silva is being chased by Bond through the London Underground, he blows up a hole in the subway system, causing a train to fall on Bond, thus enabling his escape. It is evident that Silva planted that bomb sometime before meeting Bond, so how could he have possibly known that Bond would stand at that exact spot, at the exact time when a train would be passing by? Again, director Mendes doesn’t even try here. I could swear the Nolan Brothers must have ghostwritten the script for Skyfall.

Related article: Christopher Nolan: Overrated or a Genius?

I’ve already mentioned that one of the main issues I have with this movie is that, plotwise, Skyfall is a little too similar to The Dark Knight, and here’s what I mean by this:

  • Batman finally meets the Joker and, after a brief encounter, captures him and throws him in jail;
  • After spending little time in captivity, the Joker makes a dramatic escape;
  • Batman and company find out a little too late that getting captured was part of the Joker’s plan all along.

Now, let’s compare this with:

  • Bond finally meets Silva and, after a brief encounter, captures him and throws him in jail;
  • After spending little time in captivity, Silva makes a dramatic escape;
  • Bond and company find out a little too late that getting captured was part of Silva’s plan all along.

The Home Alone-inspired ending was nothing special either. It’s not the worst, but we’ve certainly seen better final battles in the series.

Also, some of the dialogue was a bit off. For example, after shooting a ton of bullets and throwing a dozen grenades at Bond, M, and Kincade, Silva finally meets M in the church and sees that she is wounded. Then, he says to her:

You’re hurt! You’re hurt! What have they done to you?!

Raoul Silva referring to his own men who were just following his orders

Seriously, this guy is like a dog that will go to seek help after it bites your leg off.

Also, I found the final scene, where we are all supposed to be surprised that Bond’s female colleague was Eve Moneypenny all along, and that Ralph Fiennes’ character is actually the new M, a little forced and tryhard.

To conclude, the greatest flaw with Skyfall is that it tries way too hard to be The Dark Knight of Bond movies, and The Dark Knight is one of the most overrated movies, to begin with. Director Sam Mendes tries desperately to be the next Christopher Nolan, and Silva tries way too much to be The Joker of Bond villains.

But, maybe I was a little too harsh when I said that Skyfall sucks. I’m going to backtrack here a little bit, and acknowledge that, despite its many flaws, the movie also has its strengths. The acting is top-notch, the action scenes are done very well, and it’s definitely an improvement over the forgettable Quantum of Solace.

However, it’s not one of the best in the series either. All in all, it’s a decent addition to the Bond franchise, and if I’m being charitable, I can even rank it as the twelfth or eleventh greatest Bond movie of all time. But, it definitely doesn’t belong anywhere near the top five in the series, as it’s constantly ranked.