Review of 'SKYFALL'

SKYFALL

James Bond is chasing a villain who has gotten a list of British secret agents infiltrated into terrorist groups. Bond ends up fighting the villain on the top of a speeding train on a bridge when--oops--one of Bond's allies tries to shoot the criminal but hits Bond instead. Down goes Bond into the river and below - motionless.

Come on. You know he's not going to die and certainly not in the first few minutes. A feminine looking hand grabs his, and later he's in bed with her

Though injured, he returns to duty and goes after the people with the list of operatives. Meanwhile, M is under bureaucratic assault for supposed mismanagement of M6 and for not being up to date. But the villain is also targeting M.

Forget about the world being blown up as in prior Bond films. In this movie, a more important matter is at stake--the survival of the British Secret Service.

Lots of excitement, right? The problem is most of it isn't exciting. Bond, like Batman in DarkKnight Rises, is a wounded hero. He shouldn't even be in the field which makes the whole scenario implausible even for a 007 movie. The villain is too clever, timing his attacks against Bond with implausible precision. Lots of movies show the good guys hitting the bad guys with every shot--stupid, but fun; Skyfall has a scene where the bad guys are the perfect shots and the good guys always miss. That's just plain stupid.

Daniel Craig is good as Bond.  He's more serious than Sean Connery or Rodger Moore and seems to have less fun, but that in itself doesn't detract from the story. The problem is the number of agonizing, prolonged and at times silly sequences. One example is when a henchman is aiming a machine gun at Bond, but Bond turns and knocks the weapon away from him before the man can pull the trigger. Uh uh.

After the climax comes a tying up of loose ends, such as getting another Moneypenny into the series, which make you wonder when the damn film will finish already.

And you never do find out who is the woman who rescued (and bedded, though maybe that's considered self evident) Bond, how she happened to be there, and why.

Still, it is Bond, and when the orchestra plays that familiar theme and 007 jumps into action (sometimes literally), my pulse speeds up. Those moments, all too few, make the film worth a +++ - it will sometimes get your pulse up to a jog.