Skyfall

The newest Bond film is good, not great, but has hints of good things to come.

The opening scene is breathtaking; crisp, dangerous, fast, furious and all edgy-BONDness.  Craig in his third outing as the world’s coolest spy seems to have found his balance in making the role his own (read the review here), but it's not enough to make it the best Bond film of all time. 

On the upside, the new Bond has been stripped down to reveal more rawness.  This began with the first Bond film  starring Daniel Craig, Casino Royale, and he has refined it with this new episode.  Gone are all the gadgets that defined Bond in the Roger Moore-Pierce Brosnan eras.  Instead, Craig's Bond has to rely on grit and determination. 

In this latest bond adventure we see the introduction of some characters that we expect will be around for a while. Naomie Harris re-introduces the Eve Moneypenny, who flirted with bond for all those years beginning with Sean right through to recent times.  And the chemistry between she and Craig is encouraging.  Ralph Fiennes as Gareth Mallory is introduced as the new head of MI-6 , and the new Q is a young upstart who tells Bond in their first meeting that he can cause more damage in his pajamas than the outdated field agents like bond.    

Yet with a good film in Skyfall, and some new characters with promise, for Total Film, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Entertainment Weekly to all give Skyfall heralded review and a 5 star rating seems a bit more far-fetched than the Skyfall script.    

There was a time when we'd look to reviewers to critique a film and let us -- the moviegoers -- know what to really expect. Nowadays it seems that any big-budget film can get a select group of critics to talk it up thinking that moviegoers are stupid enough not to know the difference. 

Don't get me wrong, I liked Skyfall for certain elements, and it was a good film. But it has a high bar to get over considering all the terrific Bond movies that came before it.  So raving that this is a 5 star film is absurd; its a good film, mostly from the acting and action scenes, not a great a film: the script leaves a lot to be desired.  

Are the days when we can expect honest and unbiased reviews from the professional critics gone?  Or have they all just gone blind and mad?