My complaints come first from Silva’s plan. His ultimate goal is revenge against M. So first he sets up an assassination that Bond can stop, but with enough evidence that Bond can follow to the point he seduces a woman (who is savvy, and is Silva’s woman, so she should know better) and then Bond gets taken to a remote island (without being killed along the way). Then Silva captures Bond, having people shooting at him but somehow not killing him. The Silva allows himself to be captured (but not killed) and taken in chains to where he wants to go. Then his plan entails Q attaching Silva’s computers to the main system, where the hidden spyware knocks out MI-6 systems and allows Silva to escape, killing incompetent guards and stealing their weapons (but not be shot by any competent guards working that day) just far enough ahead of Bond so that he can taunt him, and then drop a subway train on his head, but not let Bond shoot him. He then has a perfectly timed plan with a bunch of henchmen in police uniforms provide him with the tools needed to get inside the building where Q is testifying before her superiors, where Silva can then shoot her.
The plan relies on everyone else doing exactly one and only one thing at every step. If Bond had been not quite as clever at escaping on the island, or had shot Silva, or if some henchman had shot him, or if Q had not done THE most incredibly stupid thing and hooked an unknown computer directly into the network, then the plan would not have worked. It isn’t like a plan where there is room for adjustment as it progresses, “if Bond does A, I do B-C, but if Bond doesn’t do A, I do J-K.” What is the alternate plan? If Q doesn’t hook the computer to the network, opening the cell doors, Silva’s plan is…what? Rot in jail?
Silva would have been better served by skipping over the whole “get captured” thing and do his assault on the hearing room directly.
So then, after Bond successfully foils the killing, he realizes that Silva has access to all MI-6 data, so he takes M “off grid” in the old, unbugged Aston Martin, and drives up to his old home, an isolated Scottish estate, while having Q leave just enough breadcrumbs so that Silva can follow (but not too close), where Bond’s plan is…kill them with shotguns? (yes, the weapons he expected were gone, but he never had enough to fight off an armed assault team anyway. With or without a helicopter.)
I thought the whole plan would be that Bond leaves a trail for Silva to follow, but it is a trap, and instead of Bond and M isolated at the estate, a fully armed MI-6 team would close the trap and capture/kill all the baddies. THAT would have made sense.
And then, finally, after surviving an assault that would have wiped out a trained military platoon, M and the gamekeeper run off into the night to hide from a (somehow still alive) Silva. But do they use stealth? Nope, they use the brightest flashlight commercially available to give away their position to anyone following them, and then M is left unguarded in the middle of the room just asking to get shot. To which Silva obliges her.
The core of the film makes no sense. Why would anyone do it that way?
Plus, Bond is a pouty baby for the first half of the film. He really is out of shape (pathetically so) yet doesn’t admit it, even to himself. And why? Because Moneypenny shot him? He could hear the chatter on his earpiece. He knew M was telling her to take the shot. He should have ducked (and truly, Moneypenny should have just shot them both).
The movie is not without its good points. But for sheer illogical plot, it’s near the top of the list, with Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, You Only Live Twice or even Moonraker (in the latter, Drax’s plan was to kill every last man, woman and child on the planet, so that’s kind of a special case).
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