Skyfall( Film) Review

Bond and Eve chase the attacker who killed and wounded MI6 agents’, starting a wild and destructive chase ranges from a jeep chase to a motorcycle chase on the rooftops, and finally a brawl on top of a speeding train involving Bond and a French hired mercenary named Patrice.

 a spectacular action sequence with a roof-top motorcycle chase over
 the roof of the Grand Bazaar 

During the pursuit, Bond gets shot in the shoulder by Patrice, but he shrugs off the injury like its minor flesh wound.

Bond jumps down into the train, as it's being pulled open by the digger arm, lands
down on train aisle and correcting his cuff. Cool stuff, 007 is as suave and charming as ever 

Eve follows the train on a stretch of road as far as she possible can go. When the train crossing the majestic High Varda Bridge fast approaching the tunnel, Eve realise she will soon lose sight of Bond's opponent. Bond and Patrice are now engrossed in fist-fights on the top of a fast moving train.

Varda Bridge - (The 172 m (564 ft) long and 98 m (322 ft) high structure consists of eleven ashlars arch) situated at Hacıkırı (Kıralan) village in southern Turkey. Designed and built by Imperial German engineers to connect Berlin with Basra, then part of the Ottoman Empire, to enable direct supply of oil to German industry.

Eve tells M (Judi Dench) that she might not be able to take Patrice down because she doesn’t have a clean shot at him as Bond blocking her view. M had to make the decision soon and decided to orders the hesitantly Eve to "take the bloody shot" at Patrice but misjudged her moving target, instead she accidentally shoots Bond– allowing Patrice to escape.

007 being shot sent him flying free fall into the river and plunged hundreds of feet into a river, the strong current drag him over the edge of waterfall. Momentarily Eve is in shock, must have thought
herself, Ooops, What have I done?

Butterfingers Eve

Find where 007 in the picture

M sits in her office that night and struggles to say what to write on an obituary for Bond. He is posted as "missing, presumed killed".
“Not so fast my friend! To assume he's dead, after all he's James Bond!

The End of Commander James Bond? No, like other superhero
 you can never write him off

How did James Bond survive his fall from the bridge? What a lazy piece of story writing. Next thing we're seeing him enjoying his fake death/retirement on booze and girls.

If that shot didn't kill him, the impact of the falls should break his neck, back and pelvis upon impact or he would have probably drowned since his fall into waterfall and must have lost a lot of blood.

What we expected to see in this show is he was washed up somewhere on a river bank then a beautiful maiden nurse him back to health.
He must have feeling tired from all this spy stuff after everyone presumed his death, he might as well let it be. An unexpected terrorist attacks on MI6 HQ let him to decide to change his mind.

MI6 comes under attack, M watches in horror

Is it unrealistic? Well, people have survived falling off the Golden Gate Bridge. Mar 10, 2011 – Miraculously, the boy survived the fall of about 220-feet.

Maybe there is a handbook on what to do when fall from a bridge like it was basically to cross your legs, point your toes, cross your arms, plug your nose and hope not to die.

 M (Judi Dench) starts to come under fire to retire while meeting with Intelligence and Security Committee Chairman, Gareth Mallory (Ralph Finnes) which later replaced her after her death.

On hearing the TV news of the attack, Bond returns to London. When M turns on the light in her residential room, Bond was there waiting for her holding a bottle alcohol and a glass. She was quite surprised but calmly like an anxious mother scolded Bond, Where the hell have you been?

Bond replied sarcastically, 'Enjoying death. 007 reporting for duty.' He then raised his voice, still holding a grudge against M and he said, 'What was it you said? Take the bloody shot.' He was disappointed with her action of lack of faith in his ability to finish his job.

M: Well, what do you expect, a bloody apology? You know the rules of the game; you've been playing it long enough. We both have.


Bond need to pass through several rigorous tests as a standard procedure for agent inactive before returning to the field work, his marks have not been very encouraging.
He needs to resuscitate himself by step out of his cocoon. Holidays are over and it's time to get back to work, 007!

Wine and Girls contributing to his poor marksmanship?

While Bond being reassessed, the shrapnel wound was removed from his shoulder himself and gave the samples to Tanner. He was able to trace the bullet fragments which would reveal the identity of assassin. His search leads him to Shanghai where the assassin is given a new mission to assassinate.

 Bond enters the interrogation room to take his psychological test to determine whether he is in mentally fit to get back to work.

Psychologist: I'm going to say a word, and I want you to say the first word that comes into your head. For example, if I say, 'day', you say...
James Bond: Wasted.
Psychologist: Agent.
James Bond: Provocateur.
Psychologist: Woman?
James Bond: Provocatrix.
Psychologist: M.
James Bond: Bitch.
[M sighs from the other side of the interrogation room]

When the result came out, Bond flunk the test as a result of too much wine and lack of exercise affects his fitness. There was a scene where you'll find Bond was puffing and panting heavy from running, as if out of breath. Another scene is where the usually deadly marksman Bond misses his target shooting.

M ignores the outcome of the results, lied to James and puts him on active duty in spite of all the consequence.

Five of the agents' names are released onto the Internet

Bond arrives at a National Gallery in London museum and there he finds new Q (Ben Whishaw) admiring a painting. His first impression of him is that he's a young nerdy guy, hardly an intelligence one that would provide Bond toy gadgets.

 Q introducing himself to James Bond for the first time

Q: 007. I'm your new Quartermaster.
James Bond: You must be joking...
Q: Why? Because I'm not wearing a lab coat?
James Bond: Because you still have spots.
Q: My complexion is hardly relevant.
James Bond: Your incompetence is.
Q: Age is no guarantee of efficiency.
James Bond: And youth is no guarantee of innovation.

Q hands a ticket to Shanghai, documents, a passport and his gadgets to James Bond but to his surprises when told what weapons provided, he must have been thinking is MI6 turns scrooge or
getting on reduce budget from the Ministry of Defence?

Cheap skate, I'll say.  He was equipped with only hand palm recognition Walther PPK which only Bond could fire and a homing rescue beacon- how low can Bond go? 007 superspy need to send 'SOS' distress calling for help.

Bond mocks the mission kit by commenting, it’s hardly Christmas and Q quips, 'what were you expecting, an exploding pen?'

The so called 'Smart Gun' from Hollywood movie may become a reality one day. Bond gun could only fire by his palm recognition and Dredd's weapon is a handgun called the "Lawgiver" that has been DNA-coded so that no one else can use it, with an extra security the gun will backfire, immobilizing the unauthorized user-Awesome!

Bond awaits the French mercenary arrival at the airport and tagged him closely from a distance.

The assassin arrives at a tall skyscraper and kills the guards on duty, boarding an elevator to go up. Like a gymnast, Bond sprung and grab hold onto a long bar on the bottom of the elevator. As his arm were tired, he lost his grip on one of his hand, barely managed to hold on till the elevator stop ascending. He pry open a nearby elevator with his bare hands to sneak inside.

Bond found Patrice and witness the assassin assigned to kill a Chinese elderly man across the building.
Patrick jerk back his sniper rifle and try to fire at Bond, misses him. Patrice’s gunshot shattered away the glass window.
The two men fist fight rematch. Patrice fall but Bond catches his nemesis by the wrist just before he falls to his death, his grip slip through Bond fingers before Bond can find out who paid him to do the killing.

He looks up and finds Severine staring at him from across the buildings. While searching Patrice’s sniper kit Bond finds a casino chip which would serve as Patrice’s token of payment for the assassination.

Talk about making an entrance in style

Bond arrived at a casino by boat, goes to claim the chip and given a briefcase with 4 million Euros. Severine warn him about he is the target of her hostile aggressive bodyguards which aren’t there to protect her; instead their purpose is to keep her at bay from escaping. She let Bond knows where to find her should he managed to leave this place in one piece or whether he never leave this place at all- she will cast off in an hour.

Bond beats his attackers(with a little help from Eve) but loses his weapon, the hand palm recognition Walther PPK in the Komodo dragon den. Now you know why Q reminds Bond to bring back his equipment intact which usually he fails to do. Next time Q will only provide Bond with a combat knife for sure, later he meet up with Sévérine on a boat headed to Silva's island.

They're approaching an island, but are taken prisoner by the crew and delivered to Sévérine's employer, Raoul Silva. Before his capture, 007 activated his homing rescue beacon to transmit his location.

Silva worked under M before as an agent just like Bond. There's bad blood between Silva and M, he blamed her for his capture, subjected him to torture and imprisonment by the Chinese authorities.
He tried to influence Bond to join him by telling Bond that M lied to him.

M: You'll have to be debriefed, and declared fit for active service

Bond being approved for active duty after the result came out, the truth was he failed the test and only due to the intervention of M, he was then allowed to put on active service.

Silva told Bond the actual report... Subject is not approved for field duty and immediate suspension from service advised.

He start to talk about the story of the last rat standing, on how best to get rid of a rat infestation in the island...blah..blah...alas get the rats to eat each other until there are only two left.
And here we have our two rats...Obviously referring to him and Bond.

Knowing he failed to change 007 minds to turncoat, he led him outside in an open area. There he finds Sévérine, Silva placed a small wine glass on her head and forced Bond at gunpoint to hit the object as punishment.

Must have getting the idea from the olden days somewhere, William Tell was ordered to shoot an apple off his son head with a crossbow for punishment, that could redeem his life.

Aim High Not Low, You Idiot!

Bond hit the target but misses. Now it's my turn... Silva kills Sévérine cruelly; Bond subdued his opponent henchmen shot them down one by one, leaving him and Silva alone in the courtyard.
Silva asks what Bond intends to do alone and Bond says he isn’t alone –surprise! Bond background, Here Comes the Helicopter Calvary! Bond captures Silva to extradite him to the UK.

Silva reminds me very much of Joker... I wonder why? Till I found out the director Sam Mendes is a fan of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. So Now You Know.

In the MI6 HQ, Q made an attempt to decrypt Silva's laptop but being tricked, instead the computer fool the MI6 computer by releasing his computer virus, releasing Silva and enabling him to escape by the London Underground tunnel.

Quickly realised by Bond, he ran towards Silva prison glass cell. Bond found him missing and goes after him, barely escape when Silva try to kill him by blows a tunnel causing the subway train to crash and burn in the underground tunnel. Silva escapes ground zero and mingles in the crowd of subterranean London dwellers.

A subway train crashes in an underground tunnel,Questions-How did Silva know to place an explosive in the subway and plan the arrival of the train just to kill Bond? He can kill him so easily at his island, why go through all the trouble?
Answer- Don't try to talk sense to a madfool; he will  always do things the hard way.

With his disguise of a policeman, he sneak in a public enquiry on M handling of the stolen hard drive and attacks M. Bond arrives in time to join Mallory and Eve to ward off Silva's attack, M is lead away by her aide in a safe place. Bond waits inside M car and drive off with M in the back seat when she just got into her car, leaving her aide behind.

As Bond aware M car is equip with GPS Vehicle Tracking System, he abandoned her car in exchange for his own Aston Martin DB5 and and takes her to his empty and remote childhood home in Scotland, Skyfall Lodge.

He instructs Q to deliberately leave an electronic trail for Silva to follow, a decision surprisingly supported by Mallory.

Bond and M arrived at Skyfall, the large country mansion in which the Bond Family used to stay here. He is welcomed by Kincade (Albert Finney), the gamekeeper of the Skyfall estate, who was wielding a shotgun. Kincade identify James appearance and congratulates him for still being alive.


Bond asked if they still have a Weapons Armoury store but he's dismay at the sales of all the weapons to a collector by the estate. What are left are Kincade’s shotgun and the rifle that belonged to James’ father, Andrew.

The trio are only lightly armed, a far cry from the usual high tech weaponry and gadgets galore
in every typical series of James Bond films. Bond required to use brain over brawn and improvised booby-traps.

The final showdown battle at Skyfall begins with the first wave of attack by Silva henchmen but was successful averted. Bond, M and Kincade fight off the assault, in the course of the battle, M was wounded. Bond lead M and Kincade off through a tunnel at the back of a priest hole to a chapel on the grounds, tunnel emerge at some distance from the house.

Second wave of attack, Silva shows up announcing his arrival in a helicopter, blasting out of the speakers song of John Lee Hooker's classic song, Boom Boom.

Bond is losing ground fast to the heavy artillery guns fired from the helicopter; he detonates gas cylinders with old stick of dynamite and blows up the castle. The resulting of the explosion causes the helicopter to crash, killing scores of Silva's men except for Silva, he survives.

Bond's nemesis, Silva, a former MI6 agent turned vengeful, share some similarities
to Batman's nemesis, the Joker

Kincade make an effort to tend to the wounded M. Unfortunately, Silva aware of Kincade  presence when spotted the light beam from Kincade's torchlight and set to follow his trail, arrives at a frozen lake ahead of Bond.

Silva orders his last two men to eliminate Bond. 007 move out from the tunnel and kills one with a good swift kick to the face but as he pursuit of Silva, the other man appear out of nowhere and holds him at gunpoint over a frozen lake. Both fall through the ice, where Bond kills last follower. Trapped under a layer of ice, he has to react fast. Quick thinking led him to grabs a flare from the dead follower and use it to melts the frozen sheet of ice above.

Bond fights for survival in freezing water

Does it actually work?

Kincade goes into a room to look for a medical kit or something to treat M, he did not notice Silva was following them. When he returns mumbling, "I couldn't find any.." he is rudely interrupted with the appearance of Silva who point his gun at him. After taking a close look of M's wound the wacko Silva forces his gun into M's hand and begs her to kill them both.

Bond arrives just in time and hurls his father's old combat knife into Silva's back, proclaiming himself as the last rat standing, in reference to Silva's earlier story telling.
Moments later, M succumbs to her earlier wound and dies in Bond's arm.

Sniff, sniff, waaaaaaah… this ending is so touching, you can feel the masculine,macho and humourless Bond crying over M's dead body.

One of the saddest moment in Bond History

Bond stood on roof of the MI6 building as Eve shows up and presents with a ceramic bulldog that used to sit on M's desk. A ceramic bulldog implausible can survives the explosion in M's MI6 office.

M wills the bulldog to Bond, maybe her personal lucky charm was her great 'Mom' love for him in a way. Eve thinks perhaps that was her way of telling Bond to take up a desk job. Bond thinks otherwise.

Bond can't imagine life without M

Where can I get one?

Eve states she is not cut out for field work, and that she will remain only in a desk job as secretary to M. Bond jokes on that he feels a little safer knowing Eve is behind a desk job now.
He says, “I don't think we've been formally introduced…”, he doesn’t know her last name.  “I'm Eve,” she flirts with Bond and smiles, “Eve Moneypenny.”

As the door opens, Tanner(MI6's Chief of Staff) tells Bond that “He’s ready for you now.”


Bond walks into the new MI6 office building where he finds Mallory sits going through paper work with his arm still in a sling.

Mallory asks if Bond is up to the task and Bond affirms that he is. Mallory, who assumes the title of M
slides a file across the desk to Bond and at the end we have the new chief of MI6 saying "We have work to do"

The end

At the end of Skyfall there's a statement showing.. "50 years. James Bond will return". What does it means? Skyfall coincide with the 50th anniversary of the James Bond movie and JB will return is to state that there will be another movie..but that's to be expected.

It was announced that Daniel Craig had signed on for two future Bond films and not five as previously reported. That will bring his total films as 007 to five films. Still 2 short of  Roger Moore's record of seven. Craig might have lesser films but....



Daniel Craig gives his best-ever Bond performance, he earns his mark of becoming the best James Bond there ever was, ... I think I have finally accepted Craig as the new 007, on a sad note Skyfall was the last film of the series for Judi Dench who played M, it will be another hard to inherited the role- a difficult task to fill Judi's shoes.