Saw it and liked it a lot. Much less dark and brooding than the previous two Daniel Craig 007 installments. Great cinematography and use of locations. The scenes in Shanghai and Macau were simply gorgeous, and made me want to hop a jet and travel to both locations as soon as the movie was over. Yes, the plot was kind of thin, but then it's James Bond, never really a series known for gripping dramatic screenplays. The action was more intense and frequent than in the previous two Bond films, which I view as a welcome return to what makes Bond great. I really enjoy Daniel Craig in the role, and he brings an edge to Bond that no other actor previously was capable of. That said, I want epic fight and chase scenes, the occasional cool gizmo and perfectly timed snappy one-liners in my 007 experience, it's what I grew up on. Skyfall delivered, helped along by fantastic performances by Javier Bardem and Judi Dench. I didn't even mind the prevailing theme of "hey look, Bond's getting old", although I'm not sure how that's going to play out if they really expect it to carry through to the next 2 or 3 movies. One thing that did stand out as ridiculous was the Aston-Martin. Here is a classic bond car from the mid-60's, and we're supposed to believe that this James Bond has a fond attachment to it from previous missions (or so we infer from his anger when it is destroyed by the bad guys). Even if Bond were a fresh-faced 25-year-old MI6 agent when he used the car in a mission, that would make him 70+ in this movie! Hardly! That was a very out-of-place moment in the script, even if it was just being played for laughs. For those of you dismayed at the destruction of such a classic (I mean the DB5, not M), fear not, the actual car is safe and sound, and only 3 Voxeljet 3D printer created versions of it were actually harmed in the making of the film. Pretty cool.
Obviously the DB5 was a spy car (as implied with the ejector seat button) - but given that it was kept in an off-grid location, it seems like something Bond might have picked up out of personal preference as opposed to it being decommissioned.
We just saw this and really enjoyed it. I have to agree that it was essentially absurd and made no sense in many places but I really, really don't care. A great film to see in the theater! Daniel Craig delivers! etc
I have a theory that Bond is an amnesiac timelord who has no knowledge of his previous regenerations.
That was one of the things that surprised me about this film, actually: they mention that Silva isn't Silva's real name (it was Diego Rodriguez, or something) and I was positive that they were going to reveal that Bond wasn't Bond's real name either.
Spoilers Below, but we're beyond that point, aren't we? I saw it last night and loved it. It's probably the best bond film since......Goldfinger maybe? From Russia with Love? (The latter is still probably my favorite as it's so not a Bond film in so many ways.) I think any Bond film requires a little suspension of disbelief. To get caught up in the minutiae of plot details is to largely miss the point. If you can accept Bond getting shot twice in the chest and falling several hundred feet off a moving train and surviving, then Silva's mad hacker skillz and ability to plan ahead shouldn't cause you to pause. I view the film as a classic hero journey in the style of Joseph Campbell. The hero effectively dies at the beginning and has to journey through the underworld to be reborn. Silva is a dark mirror version of Bond. In the course of his journey he literally has to travel underground, through fire and ice, all while facing the demons of his past. He even has to watch helplessly as his mother figure dies in his arms. (A nice Freudian moment) Only after he survives this journey can he emerge reborn. The movie loops back in on the franchise and he enters the office very much like the Bond we meet at the beginning of Dr. No. I think the most telling line of the film is when Silva asks Bond whether he has any hobbies and Bond replies: "Resurrection."
Absurd fall from train into water notwithstanding, he was only shot once in the chest. The second bullet from his partner's gun didn't penetrate his body armor like the depleted uranium pistol round (LOL) from that assassin's gun did.
Hmm. Skyfall. I wasn't that impressed while watching it. After thinking about it more, I see what they were going for, but I wasn't satisfied by it. There are several totally wonderful scenes. The cold open chase is awesome. It's kinetic and comprehend-able (unlike any fight in Quantum of Solace), and Bond's entrance to the train car was fantastic. And any movie that opens with the (apparent) death of the main character is starting off well. Then there's the fight that's only lit by neon. One long take. Great. Then there's the conversation with the beautiful woman at the asian bar. Her performance was totally riveting, and she looked both totally beautiful and totally damaged. The best scene by far was the long villain monologue. The long take with him telling the story of the island rats was just awesome. This was partially because you never see long takes in movies any more, period, but also because it was an incredibly effective introduction to the character of the villain. His face and voice and clothes are incredibly interesting, and seeing them slowly come into view is great. But after that...I wasn't that into it. The long London tube sequence, lots of frenzied shooting in the government chamber, some hilariously dumb bullshit about Q leaving a 'breadcrumb trail' of data for the villain to follow. The only thing making any of it very interesting was the motivation of the villain. Trying to kill M, himself, is interesting. The way it all played out was pretty standard. And the end sequence. During the film I didn't get that by going to the old Bond homestead they play against the villain's strengths because it's all pre-digital, and once I did understand that, I respected it a bit more. But it doesn't change the fact that it's just another dumb shootout with some traps made by an old lady and some perfunctory 'remember Old Bond?' car shenanigans. The 'Old Way' of things is never interestingly explored, even though it's presumably the heart of the movie. We never see that Bond's old fashioned way of doing things (which used to involve charm and seduction and trickery, by the way, none of which is in evidence here) is better or even still useful in the new world of digital terrorism. We have some shout outs to the old movies, but no meditations on what it means to be losing your grip in a world that's passing you by. Bond is not shown to possess any skills that still make him relevant in this new world, other than still being able to shoot straight when it really matters. He uses the oldest weapon of all (the Pointy Thing) to deliver the coup de grace, but in the end the movie hasn't got anything interesting to say about old weapons, human or otherwise.
Finally saw it today. It's an action movie, so I got pretty much what I expected in terms of plausibility. That is, I was thoroughly entertained. My main takeaway from the film: God bless Roger Deakins.
Saw this tonight and it super-ruled. Probably the best Bond film... on the way home I commented that I'd have to see Casino Royale again to make the call for sure, and when we got back Casino Royale was conveniently on the TV and I'm now pretty sure that Skyfall is better.
This movie was so awful I didn't even cry at the end. I cry at phone commercials. I was so god damn bored. I heard someone on a podcast somewhere say that they took scenes that should be 8 seconds and made them 8+ minutes long. They were not wrong. P.S. I refuse to believe that a guy that CREATED SPY ENCRYPTION and is the #1 computer guy/security expert goes ahead and plugs in a rogue laptop to his super secure spy network. Who's nephew is he? Cause he should never have been hired/should have been fired immediately!
The computer elements of this movie were absolutely painful. I chose to ignore them during the movie for my mental well-being.
One of the few good things about 'Die Hard 4.0' was that Kevin Smith's character was called 'Wizard', a tacit acknowledgement that that film's computery stuff was essentially hocus pocus. 'Skyfall' treats its computers and hackers in a similar way and I'm cool with that.
See I disagree. They're all "pfft, we don't do exploding pens that's dumb" which seems to be them being all "we are grounding this in FACT doggs!" And then shit like plugging that laptop in happens. Never mind HOW was he tracking Bond on that laptop's map? He wasn't in a car! If you can just track people randomly with no tracking device, what the hell was the whole premise of not being able to find the bad guy earlier? These are just nitpicks in what was otherwise an all around terrible movie, though. That shit needed an editor like crazy. The whole M goes on trial thing didn't need to happen, I got that they were trying to fire her, thank you. I think they were trying to make the point that M makes Very Tough Decisions all the time, but every single god damn decision she made in this movie was pretty much flat out awful, so I couldn't relate to that at all. The villain was just fucking goofy and I never got the sense that he was actually that dangerous to anyone and his plan didn't make a whole lot of sense. If you want to kill M, fucking just blow her up the numerous times you had the chance to. He's releasing the names of those agents for free? Who the fuck does that? Just to make M look bad? Guess what, guy, blowing up her building probably did that. Stealing the list in the first place did that. Go make some god damn money! And there were several "witty" exchanges that made no god damn sense. The only time the movie genuinely tugged at my heart strings was when they destroyed that awesome old historical house. The new owners are gonna be pissed! What the hell was up with everyone being all "I hate this house" and "no wonder you left" cause I would kill to have a house like that, complete with secret passage! Screw you, movie. Screw you. Edited to add: And who was the guy that got shot in the head at the beginning of the movie? Bond totally could've stopped the guy from taking the shot and didn't. Why does no one care about him!? D:
Why did anybody work for the bad guy? He had no plan! These guys were pointlessly loyal! This movie was mostly a collection of scenes of people being unimpressed while watching other people get shot to death. James Bond did a lot of sitting around and waiting for people to die before springing into action.
Saw it, and really enjoyed the title sequence (maybe the best ever, it's like every sixties and seventies paperback spy novel cover distilled into pure awesome), the cinematography and some of the set pieces. The plot made no sense at all, so I stopped trying, the pit of komodic doom was dumb, and computers have been an everyday part of life for more then twenty years now, so why are they still treated as magic in the movies? Q wasn't a technologist, he was literally a wizard. Also, you don't take the A9 if you're going to Glencoe.
Saw it, loved every moment of it. Was never bored at all. Probably one of the top 5 Bond films, in my humble opinion.
Well, no, because Q says that they don't do exploding pens 'any more', which implies that they used to. M also references the ejector seat in the classic Aston Martin, so I don't think this movie is really going for gritty realism (and don't forget that the Aston Martin in 'Casino Royale' had a defibrillator for some bizarre reason). Which is why the nonsensical-in-reality computer stuff didn't bother me a whole lot. Everyone has different thresholds for that stuff though.
Saw it this saturday. I'm not a big James Bond fan, I grew up with the Pierce Brosnan James Bond so yeah. I kind of missed the whole reboot with Casino Royale, and then got talked into going to Quantom of Solace without having seen Casino Royale. That movie made no goddamn sense, I can't remember anything about it. I liked it a lot. I accepted that it was probably going to have a ridiculous plot when I bought a ticket to a James Bond movie. Or at least it didn't really bother me enough to make me not like it. One thing bothered me immensely though (prepare for feminist rant): Let me start of saying that I love love love Judi Dench. And she was absolutely splendid in this movie. But the other women in this movie? I get that if I wanted a threedimensional look on women I shouldn't be going to a James Bond movie but still, that Severine character? It was completely ridiculous! She shows up, looks sexy, Bond sees through her entire personality and behaviour within seconds, sleeps with her, watches her die without blinking. Unless I missed anything. The "he pierces her entire being within seconds" is what bothered me the most (I get that Bond is supposed to be a 'cool guy in the face of death' so I'm letting the not caring about her death thing slide... a little). I mean, I know that part of the James Bond shtick is that he's supposed to be able to see through people instantly, but this was just stupid. And letting this one-dimensional character casually be a victim of sexual abuse is completely fucking stupid. Talk about 'women in refrigerators', this entire female character was just a plot-device to get Bond to Silva. Which could have been solved any other way, but they needed a Bond-girl. Moneypenny on the other hand I really liked, but still has some problems to me. "Some people can't handle the field" is fine, but it still bothered me, and so did the fact that a woman took the shot that fucked up the mission. But it isn't as blatantly dumb as the Severine stuff, and I accept that they wanted it to lead up to her being Moneypenny, it was cleverly done. I also like the fact that the new Moneypenny has field-experience, she's not just a 'secretary'. It's very possible that I'm wrong and that I missed a whole bunch of stuff about this character, but this is what I remember and it annoys me to great ends.
Btw: That whole death scene for Severine, did anyone else think it was... weird somehow? I wouldn't be surprised if it was a set up to make her the next villain who is out for revenge on Bond in the next movie... But also not surprised if they didn't :P.
I don't know either! Bond just let the dude take the shot! So weird. Seriously. This! Why did he wait until Severine had been shot before he made his move? Fucking Mendes. Was there one competent woman in the whole movie? The bitchy MP maybe. I didn't hate this movie, due to my affection for Daniel Craig Bond and the awesome yet ridiculous villian (seriously? He blows a hole in the subway tunnel at the exact moment a train is coming - How would he fucking know Bond was going to be there at that exact time? Even if he knew the train would be coming then. OHHH God.)
Yeah, what the fuck? Its like they had the fucking punchline ("Waste of good scotch.") and then came up with a scene around it. If Bond makes the same move (grabs the guard's gun - which BTW - why do guards always get so close to Bond with their guns? He's just going to grab them dumbasses) 30 seconds earlier, he could have saved her. Or, how about this - he makes his move and she still gets killed? It furthers the Bond is too old, drunk and slow, plotline and helps put heel heat on the bad guy. Instead he doesn't even try to help her. Women have always died around Bond, but I don't think I've ever seen it due to Bond's inaction before. Also, while I'm thinking about it, how is it a big reveal that M covered for Bond when he didn't pass his tests? He knew he was fucking up so he dug the slugs out of his chest to guilt M into passing him. ALSO - where are the knife wounds from when he dug the Slugs out his chest (there are several shirtless scenes)? Better movie than Quantum, and I actually did like it, but wooof.
Nope, the slugs were from the assassin's gun, not from his partner's - her gun's bullet was blocked by his vest. Hence his mention of "just a few broken ribs." The fact the bullet from the assassin was depleted uranium is both why it went through the vest and why it was useful for narrowing down the assassin's identity. He dug the slugs out because he knew he couldn't return to his physical peak with that kind of injury lingering. I'm sure there's some metaphor there.
I actually interpreted M covering for Bond as a selfish move on her part. She knows Bond isn't up for it, yet she falsifies test results to get him in the field, just because she wants him to. There wasn't really anything about M that made my feminist senses tingle, I saw her lack of action scenes at the end more a result of her age rather than her being a woman.
Saw it on Friday, and didn't much care for it. It felt very much like a typical season of 24, where the villain's plot is whatever needs to happen to make something explode and put the hero in danger but makes absolutely no sense if you think about it from start to finish. I never really had the sense that there was a vast scheme that Bond needed to outsmart or defeat somehow. Plus the fact that I have weird taste in Bond movies though -- my favorites are A View to a Kill, Moonraker, and The Living Daylights.
Wasn't there some unresolved stuff about the mysterious evil organization Quantum from the last movie?
To be fair the tube trains do come literally once every two minutes at rush hour. So that's plot hole #473 just about plugged.
Would this be a good movie for someone who has seen a few Bond movies but is not 100% caught up on the lore? I'm not even sure I've seen either of the two previous Craig-era movies yet.
Eh. I'd suggest at least watching Casino Royale and then wikipediaing Quantum if you're pressed for time. You could probably go in blind, but you won't get the same level of relationship depth that people who've seen the previous movies get.
You'll be fine. I don't know that continuity has ever really mattered all that much to Bond movies, but the first Daniel Craig one was a reboot so there's extremely little "lore" to even catch up on. Quantum of Solace does make a few stabs at establishing a continuity (and is worse for it), but Skyfall is pretty much completely self-contained.
I wouldn't recommend seeing it without seeing Casino Royale. I imagine watching Skyfall without the built in affection for the Daniel Craig character would make it a much worse viewing experience. I am pretty much just talking about the emotional tone one would watch Skyfall with, plot-wise it can stand alone.
Everything with Severine was seriously creepy. Bond meets her, instantly identifies her as someone forced into sex slavery as a child who made a deal with a very scary man to escape and now lives in terror of him. So he...sleeps with her, stands by passively while she's killed, shrugs her death off as no thang ("waste of scotch"), and THEN kills all his captors just to show he can moments before the cavalry arrives? WTF. I don't expect feminism from Bond, but screwing an ex-sex slave moments before screwing her over is more skeevy than I expected.
This bugged the shit out of me and colored everything that happened after it. If the director's intention was to make Bond appear weak and indecisive he accomplishes it by showing Bond missing the shot and then standing by while Severine is killed. THE WHOLE POINT IS MADE INVALID 30 SECONDS LATER when Bond cooly takes the guard's gun, frees himself and calls in the troops. I swear it was just a set up for a misogynist joke. Ha ha?
My impression of that scene is that when Bond focused on his own mortality and age- when he doubted himself- he missed his target and killed her. When he trusted his reflexes and reacted, he was the same old Bond. The lesson was that his age was all in his head- he had the same skill level that he enjoyed being being shot. It's a bit jarring, but it was a learning experience for the character, albeit at a high price.
Sure, but why not see Casino Royale? It's very entertaining. Also I liked this latest. Not perfect, but very entertaining as well. I just like Bond and like watching him do things. Bond films have never been completely sensible (or devoid of what has now become very dated sexism/misogyny; do we really still have to introduce a femme fatale and have the bad guy kill her in the second act? It felt forced in this one), although that is not to hand-wave away some glaring plot holes. I was OK with only Bond going after the first bad guy because MI6 was still in a very compromised state IIRC so there were trust issues, although his methods were pretty contrived. I also just took it that every single step was not actually planned by Silva. Most plans have contingency steps built in, so it was more likely that sort of thing stretched to near absurdity. Also his plans worked great when he was still a mystery, then they became more desperate and bold, which seemed in character to me. He was certifiable, I am not surprised he lost all composure and became progressively more erratic and even contradictory by the end. I like to think all the things that happened at Skyfall were a result of Bond no longer thinking like a secret agent. Would James Bond, 007 hide under the dash of his car? I dunno, probably, never mind that. The train was way over the line of plausibility, though. Also people do dumb things like turn on flashlights, shit happens. Even Albert Finney in a Santa beard and no trace of a Scottish accent. Bond losing his nerve at shooting the scotch glass was because he couldn't shoot at long range. He killed all Silva's goons at close range, where he was still lethal. And why would he care about her? That's how he rolls, it just looks ugly because times have changed. If I didn't care for one meta aspect it was that suddenly now Bond is all old and arguably washed-up. Sheesh, he had just started in CR and QoS was chronologically just after that, so now it's the future. I guess that was to add to Bond's relationship with M, but I still wasn't happy with it, I guess because I love the character and I don't need some over-the-hill angst to go along with everything. Also going into Bond's past without really going into it. Fuck it, go for it. Also M's fate. Not strictly necessary IMO, and it just makes the entire film practically pointless. OK that's three things, fuck you Rywill you ruin everything. I did like the changing of the guard as it were, to Fiennes/Moneypenny/the new Q, all of whom were great IMO. Not the biggest fan of how Moneypenny was handled to a certain extent (all but incompetent until the Parliament shootout), but the actress is yummy and I am an old lech so to Hell with it.
Wasn't there something as early as Casino Royale about how odd it was that he was becoming a 00 at that age? Or maybe I am retconning.
