7. Tone
Though we've hammered home the point that Skyfall is in many ways a Bond film by way of Christopher Nolan, it is also a very pragmatic, self-aware film, sure what its audience - owing to nascent film trends - wants. For while Skyfall is far grittier than just about any Bond film that preceded it, it also lifts some of the more robust series tropes, depicted here with a sure wink and a nod. Camp villain? Check. Cheeky humour? Yup. A few slightly daft gadgets? Sure. Mendes has been sure to pepper his film with enough of the old to keep older audiences - who might be less-taken with the violent intensity of post-Die Another Day films - involved, while updating the formula such that those tired of the overt camp and silliness will have plenty to fawn over. Take one of the Shanghai scenes: it's gorgeous and gritty to look at, but when a fight scene breaks out in a bar, a Komodo Dragon emerges from a pit, giving the fight scene an added sense of danger but also hearkening back to the more outrageous set-ups of old Bond. Also, the film has one laughably gratuitous sex-scene that feels like a nod to how little effort Bond needed to make to get his end away back in the day.