10 Film Heroes Who Totally Failed In Their Quest

9. James Bond - Skyfall

The Quest

Ensure global security, bring terror threats to justice and uphold the integrity of MI6.

What Happens?

Daniel Craig's third outing as 007 sees Bond suffering a near-death injury and entering early retirement as a result.

But when a terror attack targets MI6, Bond emerges from the shadows to face off against a ruthlessly cunning former MI6 agent, Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem).

Why Did He Fail?

The Craig Bond films have admittedly made an art out of presenting 007 as rough around the edges and even straight-up sloppy, a fact that's never truer than in this movie.

The film literally begins with Bond leaving a fellow MI6 agent for dead while he pursues a dangerous mercenary, Patrice (Ola Rapace), only to end up accidentally shot by Moneypenny (Naomie Harris).

When Bond eventually resurfaces, he can't pass MI6's physical or psychological evaluations, but M (Judi Dench) approves him for duty regardless.

He then tails Patrice to Shanghai and lets him kill a target, before accidentally killing Patrice himself without learning any useful information.

Next, 007 meets a fearful sex trafficking victim, Sévérine (Bérénice Marlohe), creepily initiates sex with her and fails to prevent her death at Silva's hands.

Even when Silva is captured, Bond lets him escape - also due to Q (Ben Whishaw) stupidly plugging Silva's laptop directly into the MI6 mainframe - allowing him to kill several more people.

And in the film's finale, Bond lets his family home get blown to smithereens and kills Silva rather than bringing him to justice, but not before allowing M to receive a mortal wound from him.

The spy fails at pretty much every heroic action you'd expect him to complete in Skyfall, and really his only true success is his survival - living to be called upon as a blunt government instrument for another day.