10 Best Movies Where The Protagonist Learns Nothing

7. Skyfall

Though the Daniel Craig James Bond movies have attempted to make 007 less of a caricature and more of an actual person, it's fair to say that this still has fairly narrow limitations.

Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace gave fans a more tortured and haunted Bond, but follow-up Skyfall saw the spy hunker down into a more typical routine.

Yes, the film begins with him badly wounded and drinking himself into a stupor on a beach, but most of the questions about 007's usefulness in the modern age end up feeling like hollow lip service.

Bond himself learns precious little from both his interactions with fellow former agent Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) and the eventual death of M (Judi Dench).

At the end, there's no implication he's learned to better appreciate human life or acknowledge his own expendable nature, and everything he's experienced just reinforces his decision to be cold and detached, almost exactly as he was at the beginning of the film.

Obviously the nature of the Bond franchise dictates that the character can't ever change too much or learn anything too drastic, but the blatant return to the precise status quo does make all the hand-wringing about Bond's relevance seem a bit facile.