Skyfall the service. Javier Bardem was cast as the film's principal villain, Raoul Silva, a cyberterrorist who is seeking revenge against those he holds responsible for betraying him. Bardem described Silva as "more than a villain", while Craig stated that Bond has a "very important relationship" to Silva. In casting the role, director Sam Mendes admitted that he lobbied hard for Bardem to accept the part. Mendes saw the potential for the character to be recognised as one of the most memorable characters in the series and wanted to create "something [the audience] may consider to have been absent from the
Skyfall that it was a film that had "some weight and complexity to it". "Variety" Peter DeBruge suggested that the film's greatest strength lay in its willingness to put as much focus on characterisation as it did action set-pieces, allowing the two to co-exist rather than compete for the audience's attention, while Manohla Dargis, reviewing for "The New York Times", considered "Skyfall" to be "a superior follow-up to "Casino Royale"" which is "opulent rather than outlandish and insistently, progressively low-key". Kim Newman, reviewing the film for "Empire", concluded, ""Skyfall" is pretty much all you could want from a 21st Century Bond: