Sam Mendes succeeds against the odds in delivering a classic Bond film, almost effortlessly blending old and new takes on the character in a spellbinding and increasingly uncomfortable character drama. The acting is the strongest of any in the franchise, the script quite possibly the strongest, and whilst some have complained at a shortage of action, Skyfall gets right into its protagonists' heads. I have some low level quibbles - not with Bardem's Silva per se but certainly with the use of his implied sexual orientation, and the ambiguity of the post-reboot timeline is now downright confusing (was it actually undone?). But this is a thoroughly smart film, a complete departure from previous approaches, which now thankfully completely ignores the brief challenge from Bourne. The villain's motivations actually make sense, 007 is thoroughly humanised for the first time, and whilst there's an overwhelming sense of dread permeating the film, it's also enormous fun; the dialogue (particularly with the excellent Ben Whishaw's Q) fairly crackles. Mendes has proven you don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater in order to make an all-time-great and quintessentially Bond film, just a great script and world class direction.