My view on Skyfall was that it was very well directed by Mendes. I think he is great. The allusions to previous Bond movies (the DB5, leather door at M's office, etc.) were very well done. Only 3 things in the movie really disappointed me.
1) Daniel Craig- To each his own, but to me, he just doesn't have "it." It's hard to explain, but he is just too intense for Bond. He also doesn't look the part. He is not suave or debonair, too much of a bruiser. He always has such a fiery, intense look in his eyes. He's not laid back enough. All in all- he is too unrefined.
2) M- Using Judi Dench as M has always felt to me to be a very weak accession to feminists. Great actress, bad fit as M. In this movie specifically, she comes across and indecisive and weak. The old M, Bernard Lee, never showed any of these characteristics. GE is the only movie in which I appreciated Judi Dench in her role as M. I loved the tension between her and Brosnan in their first interaction. Glad she is gone.
As an aside, I love the new M. Can't wait to see him in the future.
3) Javier Bardem- Unbelievable performance in No Country for Old Men. Lackluster performance in Skyfall. Just another bad fit. I can't really explain it in any other way than he did not fit the character they were trying to develop. His entrance to the film and the following dialogue was emblematic of him being a poor fit. It just seemed a bit awkward and unconvincing. Not to mention they already did the traitorous ex-agent angle with 006 in GE (in my opinion, very well done).
I consider it a shame the film had the aforementioned shortcomings. Apart from those things, I thought it was fantastic. Brosnan is probably my 4th favorite Bond, but if you could take the Pierce of 15 years ago and put him in this movie, it would have been worlds better.
An interesting view of Skyfall - a great movie except for the three elements at the heart of it?
Craig's Bond - he doesn't look "tall, dark and handsome" in SF, but all through his era he's produced a Bond at once layered, hard edged and not afraid to break convention. If you are looking for the cliched "shaken, not stirred, Mr Tuxedo" Bond, he isn't it, but he's much more interesting as a result, imho.
Judi Dench's M - I don't think her appointment was a sop to feminism - simply an excellent actor being cast in an iconic role. Her M never struck me as being weak at any stage in the Brosnan and Craig eras. Her attitude to her agents was "treat 'em mean and keep 'em keen", creating the conditions for;
Javier Bardem's "Silva"/Rodriguez - Other than feeling betrayed and turning traitor, Silva and GE's 006 are not the same. Trevelyan had, one assumes, a long term "at the back of his mind" plan for revenge on the UK, much like Sir Hugo Drax in the novel Moonraker. He wanted revenge for his family and his people. Silva is much more complex. He was a loyal agent until M used him as a pawn during the Hong Kong negotiations. He stayed loyal while he was being tortured until the penny dropped and he realised who had betrayed him. He even did the "decent thing" once he knew what had happened, and tried to kill himself. Maybe that attempt was what pushed him over the edge -it's hinted at - and turned him into the deranged character of the film. That and the other thing broadly hinted at - an unsettling fixation with M as a love/hate "mother figure". Trevelyan was just villainous, although with some justification. Silva was insane, a man with a death wish, and M had a hand in sending him that way. I didn't find Bardem's villain poor and unconvincing at all - but at the same time he wasn't the clichéd bad guy seeking to blackmail or dominate the world. That said, I wouldn't mind a revert to type in Craig's next movie. And I too am looking forward to Ralph Fiennes' take on M.