Look, Skyfall is a good movie. Hugely fun, charismatic, attitude and stylish. The best Craig Bond movie and the closest to what 21st century Bond should have been.
But in the writing there are several huge, gaping fucking problems that when you see them, they can’t be unseen. And let’s not even bother with the old tenet that the last act is Home Alone. We know that. The crux of the matter is that writers Wade and Purvis are cack handed shit shovellers who seem to write off the top of their heads, and directors then film the first draft.
Main problem with the plot. Villain Silva is supposed to be the worlds most bad-ass hacker. He wants to kill M. He could easily find where she lives and shoot her on her own doorstep. The movie starts by blowing up her office when she’s not in. Well done, dick head. THIS MOVIE DOES NOT NEED TO HAPPEN. The fact that Silva has concocted a murder plan more elaborate than that of a Columbo killer evades your attention first time around, but when the realisation lands, all the comings and goings in London become moronic. Silva boasts to Bond about all the smart things he can do, then does none of that shit at all.
Earlier, Bond is on Silva’s island and forced to shoot at Severine with his dodgy shoulder. She dies. Bond does a cool line about radio and the cavalry arrives. Erm… Why not have done that earlier and a woman wouldn’t now be dead, you complete bastard. Those helicopters must have been around the corner having a tea break.
And more that doesn’t make sense… Bond is trying to protect M so he takes her to Skyfall to lay his trap. Why take an old as fuck woman into what you are planning to be a wall to wall carnage of death? Leave her at a tea room in Lancaster bright spark. She dies. Shocker. As entertaining as it is, this movie is about a useless assassin and a useless bodyguard.
Wade and Purvis philosophy of Craig’s Bond starts to unravel to. In Casino Royale they went to huge, self congratulatory pains to say that this Bond stands apart from the others, ring fenced. Jolly good. But then here in Skyfall they fan-wank themselves into a frenzy by having the car from Goldfinger and a quip about the ejector button. That’s not his fucking car then is it? It’s some other cunts car. You made your shittily assembled bed, now lie in it.
A tiring trope too at the time: the villain plans to get captured as a crucial part of the scheme. Here Silva is reliant on Q (and Bond) cracking the London Underground puzzle. What if Q had fucked off on holiday?
Imagine how good this movie would be Wade and Purvis were as smart as they think they are.
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