SubJeff on 3/11/2012 at 08:33
You're not reading too much into it.
Good God.
Scots Taffer on 3/11/2012 at 09:24
Relegated to retarded international release dates, but I'm still keen.
Oh and the theme was good, I thought - does it mesh well with the intro?
All I need to know is that it's better than QoS...
Al_B on 3/11/2012 at 10:17
Absolutely, yes and although I hate to build false expectations I'm confident you'll enjoy it more than QoS. (I hated QoS though as a huge mess of a film dashing from one action scene to another. Skyfall is much closer to Casino Royal in this regard allowing space to breath in between scenes which for me is a huge improvement)
SubJeff on 3/11/2012 at 10:17
Yes it does mesh with the intro and yes this is far superior to QoS, but not Casino Royale. But then CR has too many elements that were just right, for me.
I didn't listen to the theme before the film, like I said on FB, and I'm still glad I do it this way. I don't really like Adele, but it worked really well.
henke on 3/11/2012 at 17:59
The intro may well have been the best one ever. And the badguy perhaps the most interesting Bond villain ever. I gotta disagree with SubEff about the villain's deformity. It was a good way of showing the pain he had gone through, and why he might have a bone to pick with M. This movie was a lot more intimate and more about the personal relationships between the main characters than earlier Bond films. It's rare that a series stepping away from it's established formula works out this well.
If I had to criticise any part of it I'd say that the new Q and Monnypenny weren't very interesting. And the whole ending dragged on a bit too much. Probably didn't help that the whole "preparing for war" scene reminded me of Home Alone either. And the villain's death was a bit uncerimonious.
Scots Taffer on 24/11/2012 at 10:10
Yeah, there was a theme of resurrection - it's the resurrection of a studio's inability to commit to a new interpretation of Bond and the resurrection of a bunch of tired old Bond tropes.
We've had 2 Bond movies now where they've established a level of continuity within the universe - there were no cars with guns, Bond has to kill people with his hands as often as big shoot-outs, he didn't always win, there was a reasonable lack of groan-inducing double entendres, no Q, no Moneypenny, a ruthless, morally compromised Bond, a Bond who fell in love then got burned and went on a personal vendetta, an organisation called Quantum who were involved in all sorts of shady deals without being as big or silly as Blofeld or SPECTRE, and a Bond who used brute force as often as wit or brains.
The good parts of this flick are very few indeed: Bardem's villain (every scene where he had something to do was interesting), Craig's Bond for the first hour struggling with his mortality, the opener/titles, Skyfall setpiece and the (surface-level) notion that Bond/Silva are fun-house mirror images.
Everything else was pretty shit. Back are all the old elements, references, hammy jokes, etc. Bond is now a British Bruce Wayne thanks to the shitty origin story jammed in there. It now feels like I am watching a remake of old Bonds and not a modern interpretation. The script was very boring listening to everyone trying to sound smart quipping at each other and the ham-fisted attempts at emotional relevance fell flat (oh SOB M - the "bitch" - is dying). The plot lacked all urgency and was utterly retarded - WE NEED TO GET THIS HARD DISK SO BAD WE'LL KILL BOND - 3 months later - they haven't used it yet and now we're worrying about getting called in for a Royal Commission (yawn). The revenge plot kicks in which has been in the planning for YEARS but Silva doesn't somehow plan on there being more than 3 cops in the court room with M despite the fact he can ESCAPE MI6.
Very disappointing. For the record, I loved CR but thought QoS was only middling. This falls below those for me (notwithstanding the positives) because it doesn't really know it wants to be.
froghawk on 26/11/2012 at 23:01
Worse than QoS? O.o
This film had fantastic visuals, and to me that was far and away the best thing about it. Lots of elements taken from the last 3 Nolan films - it drew from those just as much as from Bond's legacy. The plot made it seem like there was a crazy twist around the corner which never came, and some of the legacy homage seemed out of place in an otherwise serious film.
heywood on 28/11/2012 at 08:55
Worse than QoS? I guess it depends on whether you prefer to watch Bond in a bad Bourne knock-off or a bad Batman knock-off. Skyfall has a few well shot scenes that are a cut above anything in QoS, but the plot is Prometheus-stupid at times.
I went on record earlier in the thread to say I prefer the classic Bond over the new Bond introduced in Casino Royale. But throwing some old Bond tropes into Skyfall doesn't resurrect the classic Bond, it just confuses the direction they're going. How about going back to a self-contained, episodic formula but using the CR-style Bond?
And is anyone else starting to get tired of M as a major character?
Nicker on 20/12/2012 at 22:13
Finally caught Skyfall and after getting over the initial rush I have to side with the naysayers, there is more disappointment than satisfaction. I didn't feel ripped off in the theatre, like I did with Prometheus. Skyfall's sins were not that egregious. But I was hungry for story an hour later and there were some indigestible bits of narrative stuck between my teeth like popcorn husks.
I am not talking about the necessary plot holes, like why a train that is shedding freight and rail cars, doesn't simply stop (does nobody pull the emergency cord)? And why Eva, who has the discipline to take a risky shot, pauses to watch Bond fall in ultra slow-mo, instead of emptying her clip into the now exposed villain, thus justifying her agent killing choice? Better she should have fired and missed than to suddenly gone all girly while the bad guy gets away.
And why would the ultra wily Q plug the laptop of a known genius hacker into the MI6 mainframe instead of a quarantined system? And really, the villain anticipated everything Bond and MI6 would do so they would deliver him to London for the coup de grace? Why not just take a friggin' plane and meet your minions the easy way?
There is a lot of disbelief I am willing to suspend on behalf of a movie but characters ignoring their own characters is not a sin I can easily overlook.
Too bad they have already vandalised the Bond / Moneypenny dynamic too. The charm of their relationship was always the sexual tension; will they, would they, have they? Now they are just friends with benefits.
What Scot's said and, while there were some rip roaring moments and I love Craig as Bond, this felt like a season closing double episode of a TV crime show, repositioning the franchise for the next kick at the cat, rather than a story in itself.
Thirith on 22/12/2012 at 09:57
I liked it a lot - formally and thematically ambitious, gorgeously shot, emotionally resonant. I still enjoyed Casino Royale more, but I found this one more interesting, and I expect I'll like it better when I see it a second time.
Can't agree with Subjective Effect about Moneypenny (fancied her more than any other Bond woman I can remember, except Eva Green) and Silva's deformity, which freaked me out a lot and was handled very well, I thought.
The one thing I'm not sure I liked is the coda, but that may be because the audience I saw the film with was noisy, giggly and altogether distracting.
