MGM/Columbia Pictures
143 min., dir. by Sam Mendes, with Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, and Judi Dench

There’s no franchise as long-lasting and well-loved as that of the James Bond series. Nesting into his third film as the titular MI6 agent with a license to kill, Daniel Craig continues to ring in the praise as the best Bond, finding common ground between the sex appeal and the killer instinct. Perfect in the role or not, the Bond formula is worn so thin by this point that it’s hard not to be sick of it, even through the tough exterior, an engaging villain, and stunning cinematography.

A number of years have passed since the previous Bond excursion, and 007 kicks off the new adventure in search of a man who has stolen a hard drive containing a crucial document that would out the world’s undercover agents embedded in terrorist cells. Unsuccessful in obtaining this list, Bond’s life heads down a road of “retirement.” When he learns of an attack on his MI6 compatriots that convinces him to return to duty, the new owner of the damaging list begins to release the identity of certain agents online, and takes aim at killing one of the few personal contacts Bond still has. With such a large scandal being created by these unfortunate turn of events, this last contact, M, is being pushed out of power and it’s up to Bond to save her life, her job, and the lives of all the undercover agents before it’s too late.

I’m not an expert in any means when it comes to real world intelligence in regards to government agencies and their secret service ways, but even for a work of blockbuster entertainment fiction, the MI6 painted by the Bond films seems like the most inept agency of all time. While they may be the victors of the war, they are always comically blind and behind on any actual intelligence. They’re caught by surprise at every turn and seem only to benefit from last ditch efforts that are only available to them due to pure luck. The entire affair is slightly offending. Characters that are painted as devastatingly brilliant, the aces of their profession, are so easily duped. The audience is meant to stay focused on the naked women and breakneck combat, as all the actual logistics of a plot are a secondary concern — but they leak faster than a broken sieve.

Sex and violence, that’s what you see a James Bond film for anyway, right? Skyfall has its share of action to please the eye. The opening chase is admittedly a heart-pounding thrill ride of suave power through insurmountable situations, but most everything else encased in Skyfall is pretty damn boring. It takes the film an hour to even get Javier Bardem onscreen, and he certainly does spice everything up, but as quickly as he appears, he’s gone again. His introduction is a large chunk of unrelenting, giddy madness that leaves most of the second half and the finale with a villain who hardly even speaks. He doesn’t have to move his lips to convey his treacherous misgivings, but it certainly adds a layer of enjoyment when he does.

As with Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, Bardem’s Raoul Silva concocts the most convoluted plan you can think of. His aim is to publicly humiliate M, before he does her in. It’s a pretty simple premise that he could complete in a few simple keystrokes and a quick visit to her flat. Instead, he enacts a ridiculously complicated plan that was years in the making with so many variables that are literally impossible to predict. Of course, everything goes his way for the most part. Lucky him. Funnily enough, it’s Nolan’s film with the protagonist that wears a large bat costume that seems more realistic at times than this, or any Bond film.

Tediously long and fairly uneventful, Skyfall is just another chapter in a long line of films that never really attempt to do anything new. The people behind Bond films are stuck on the notion that fans would gather en masse with torches if they left out martinis, casinos, and an Aston Martin, as opposed to pushing the series into new territories and branching out for once. Craig is still a great Bond, and Bardem is yet another tasty film baddie, but overall, Skyfall deploys its parachute so high up that it takes forever to land, and when it does, it hardly leaves a mark.

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Matthew Schuchman is the founder and film critic of Movie Reviews From Gene Shalit’s Moustache and also the contributing film writer for IPaintMyMind.