Skyfall: James Bond fails utterly (a la Sherlock) and gets a promotion

Submitted by Channing Kapin

I read your latest review of Sherlock and was amused by your anti-Bond rant.  Because in the latest Bond movie, Skyfall, which got a ton of critical praise Bond fails utterly and repeatedly and leads the baddies in a wild goose chase to the Scottish Highlands.  

After the de rigeur 20 minute, completely pointless pre-title chase scene Bond fails to catch the spy who stole the data disk holding all of the identities of all the spies in MI5.  Granted, it's not entirely his fault as his partner accidentally shoots him when he was just about to win the fist fight on top of a moving train (of course.)  Bond falls 5000 feet into a river where he's understandably presumed dead.  Instead of using his new found cover of Dead Guy to search for the stolen data disk, Bond walks into MI5 and announces his desire to go back to work.  The doctors declare him unfit for service, but M lets him go on the mission anyway, because she actively hates Bond in this movie and wants to see him die.

Anyway to skip the bulk of the stupid movie I'll just list the key Bond failures.

Bond passively watches as an assassin shoots someone (never mentioned again) and then gets in a fistfight and accidentally drops the assassin off a building instead of keeping him alive to get any information out of him.

Bond seduces the girl and mostly is responsible for her dying.  His plan to sneak into the Villain's lair is to walk into the villain's lair (this doesn't work.)  

The villain's stupid plan is to get captured and put on trial in London so he can assassinate M.  Bond helps the villain effortlessly enact his plan which causes untold casualties and property damage as his bombs detonate in rush hour subway trains.

Bond decides the only way to protect M is to take her to Scotland, where he wants the villain to follow him and wouldn't you know it M is killed.  Bond fails yet again and is rewarded with a promotion at the end of the movie because, as you mention he shoots the villain.

The movie sure looked pretty though.