Skyfall: Bond #23

Also, everything Silva did in the whole film was a totally cackhanded and elaborate and excessive way to execute a plan which could have been achieved v. easily with a single bullet at any given moment.

Shanghai fight scene was awes though, but ugh, the pay-off for Eve was ridiculous.

They flag that fairly early though - he waits until M is out of the building before blowing it up, he wants her to suffer first - the "plan" is to kill her at the point where she's seeing her life's work crumbling in front of her (but instead he presumably causes the government to take MI6 much more seriously - good thing he's crazy)

Yeah, I got that, but it's such a shit plan!

I liked the "waste of good scotch" moment, if only because I hated that the rest of it was far too much in the vein of The Dark Bond Returns - now filled with more anxiety, self-doubt, and holding onto a childhood loss. I want Bond to be less stubbly and bleary-eyed, and kind of more of the smug thug of old.
The film felt really flat, tonally, as well. Some nice looking sequences, but so dreary.

Also: teal & orange!

Yeah "miserable alcoholic Bond" is not something that needed excavating tbh

I think I have a tendency to shut down all critical faculties while watching Bond-movies, cause I always love them, pretty much unconditionally. Some good points here, though. But I never see them myself.

Wasn't expecting Oedipal Bond - this was even more ludicrous than usual.

I don't know which movie you guys watched. My first reaction was "so they're back to making traditional Bond movies with gags, laughs and over-the-top villains", only allowing Bond to have a personality of his own unlike Brosnan. There was no real anxiety or dreary darkness here. Having said that it's not as good as CR and not as impressively slick as QoS. Fun, though.

Well, there is the entire subplot regarding "Bond is clearly unfit for service but he and M conspire to cover this up"? It bobs in and out of view amongst the usual superheroics, but it's not like it's not there.

Thought the final 30 minutes or so was a cringeworthy embarrassment. I think this could have been a much better film if edited tightly and reined in on the sentimentality.

I think I have a tendency to shut down all critical faculties while watching Bond-movies, cause I always love them, pretty much unconditionally. Some good points here, though. But I never see them myself.

i sympathise with this point of view a lot tbh

Thought the final 30 minutes or so was a cringeworthy embarrassment. I think this could have been a much better film if edited tightly and reined in on the sentimentality.

― Bob Six, Saturday, November 3, 2012 9:38 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

god it looked so good how can you say that

i also sympathize with that point of view and everything i've complained about in this thread is more just me having fun picking it apart and didn't bother me THAT much... though i felt the proceedings could have been shorter by about 20-30 minutes. but i feel that way about every movie nowadays

Scottish stuff looked great, glad M brought her tartan blanket. Totally called the Home Alone bit when they mentioned they needed to 'get ready'.
I really liked this although so much of it made no sense. For a start there would be no 'list of agents'. Also why the return to 90s 'OMG CYBERHACKING' movies complete with red laughing skulls and 'oh he hacked it' as a way of handwaving everything? Why was Bond wearing gloves in one bit where he's got a special handprint gun?

Don't know where else to put this, but... http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5izjjbrFAkaRmn6Ovl5w-gyciTYSA?docId=CNG.7aeed17960b063a7c07b9fb34dbbefe7.ab1

BEIJING — A British businessman murdered by the wife of top Chinese politician Bo Xilai had informed on the couple for over a year to his country's spy agency, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Neil Heywood shared details based on his unusually close access to the powerful couple, the paper said, citing his friends and current and former British officials.

"He had been knowingly providing information about the Bo family to Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, for more than a year," the report said. ...

Heywood drove a silver Jaguar with the licence plate "007", the Journal said.

I don't know if anyone's been following this - Heywood was no Bond, but the spy links along with the license plate are just more amazing details in what's already a pretty insane story (cyanide poisoning, money laundering, the downfall of a Chinese political star, a corrupt top cop etc.).

Absolutely hated it. Title credits were good and there was a nicely topical line about remote destruction via laptop but everything else, from the muddled plot to the cringe-inducing dialogue was as bad as I have ever seen in a Bond film.

I just gave my two weeks notice to my current job, so I took a long lunch and saw it at a local theater that got it a day early.

It was a solid Bond movie. The opening set piece was really good, and set up some of the recurring themes for the movie. Title sequence, including Adele's theme song, was good and Bond-y. Short car chases were effective, hand to hand stuff maybe a little weaker than CR. The locations were great, and Bardem was a very good Bond bad guy.

I thought the over-arching themes were a little bit strong armed, but nonetheless effective. Captain Obvious point: I took this to be a movie-length defense of the Double 0 branch and it's non-digital means, and a statement that regardless of how computer based and intangible the enemies may get, there are just some problems that need to be taken out with extreme prejudice.

If some parts were too on the nose, so what? It's fucking Bond. It's not Bourne. He's gone through a lot of death and pain, and now he's that wry spy we all know and love.

I dug it. B/B+.

Definitely going to see this this weekend...maybe tomorrow's 1st show before school/work lets out.

Ebert loved it fwiw, 4 stars.

The critics have almost all loved it. The Observer said it might be the best Bond yet.

I'm sure there's an agreement in the media to built it up for the sake of the British film industry. History will eventually bear me out on the terrible last 30 minutes (and the rest of it is only average - at best).

Seeing this Saturday morning

Somebody said to me earlier taht they'd heard Craig had said he wasn't going to do any more Bonds. I really hope that isn't true, been enjoying him as him. Looks really moddish in bits of this, maybe its just the well cut suits.

Did really enjoy this last night, though I really wasn't sure about the return to an equivalent of the original M & Moneypenny. The Fiennes character seems to be an attempt to portray the role pretty similarly to Bernard Lee. Ex-military commander etc, did just occur to me on thinking that that I wondered if some of the character's body language was based on Bernard Lee's. Don't think I've really watched Lee that closely but there seemed to be some really old-school-tie body movement from Fiennes that on further thought might have been his attempt to base himself on various Bernard Lee roles.

Might go and see it again, or just wait for it to continually turn up on tv over the next few years.

sorry, was that too many spoilers. Maybe I should leave that for another week or so.

Was wondering about product placement earlier cos I couldn't really think of taht much. & somebody had asked about it on another list

Volkswagen Beetles - not really seen in full but used as props.

Heineken just about recognisable though Craig's fingers are over the label. So surprising that I'd seen Heineken ads based on their sponsoring of the Bond film or something.

Not sure about other brands of booze, I didn't notice any of the labels being readable. & the martini when it appears doesn't get named just the barmaid extolled for having made a perfect one.

London Underground & the Metropolitan Police, the latter portrayed as a multiracial group, to the extent that the same black cop gets shot twice which was one of the few gaffes I noticed.

Went to midnight showing last night. I don't mind Serious Oedipal Bond, but the movie felt like the answer to "what if Russell T Davies wrote a feature-length episode of Spooks?" Visually striking (Shanghai scenes = A+), but halfway in, I was unengaged enough to be sympathetic to the bureaucrats who wanted M out. Bardem's character was more just an asshole than psychopath. For that matter so was Bond.

Missed Felix Leiter.

Adele song a stormer, but wasn't used thematically anywhere else. Did I miss it?

Yup - when he was riding the gondola to the casino in Macau. It scored over the slow tense ride amongst the lanterns.

Check this out:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/guides/james_bond_countdown/

Although the last 30 minutes had the most amazing dusk-turns-to-night thing going on, I agree with Bob Six, it was horrendously staged, was a stupid plot development and left me feeling bad about the whole movie.

Once Javier shows up the film stopped feeling like a Bond film and felt like a lot of shots of Daniel Craig walking from one place to another

And the "Bond dies!" thing off the top seemed to serve no dramatic purpose whatsoever

There were a lot of great things, though! I loved the music. The dialogue-free sequences in Shanghai and Macau were beautiful.

Well this should have an awesome opening weekend. Tried to go see it tonight, but all 11 screenings were sold out already at 5:45.

Had a work outing and the rest of the afternoon off, thoughts to come. Wish they'd had more creepy disfigured Silva shots. Was the island they were on earlier that Japanese coal mining one that was abandoned, or just made to look like it?

(I half-view films as cinematographic and architecture porn)

bob six otm. this wasn't bad; it was really pretty and the action was coherent again. when it comes to the Emotion Experiments i am ok all the way w bond/m relationship-developing scenes cuz it means more dench (altho i thought a lot of her dialogue in this was p flat), but the "backstory", which unless i missed something they hilariously never actually explain in any detail (his parents died somehow and he had to hide in a cave?) and which even if they did is just a Childhood Trauma anyway, torpedoes the end of the movie. also around exactly the same time it gets really wink-winky w 50th anniversary metajokes and having that hit you at the same time as all the out-of-nowhere sentimentality is this bizarre kind of exhausting like someone's trying to make you cry about people you've never heard of while you're on a theme park ride. (literally could not believe it when the crusty old bond estate gameskeeper showed up to make scotland jokes and was played by albert finney instead of sean connery, which like: after introducing the crusty old bond estate gameskeeper is not the time to show taste and restraint). bardem kinda disappointed me but it was really his lines that let him down: he's not any more smartly written than jonathan pryce in 1996 and his Hacking looks p much exactly the same as alan cumming's in 1992, so he pulls some good faces, plays w a couple intonations, goes for some laddish-bond-audience gay panic, and outsources the rest to his thinly veiled assange hair which i totally loved. the only things i loved more than it were judi dench's fuzzy little power fleece, macau, and daniel craig who i think is connery-level.

i like the song. the opening titles w the pop-up headstones were the goofiest thing.

can we both agree that the bladerunner-esque shanghai sneak-up and fight was awesome though

Yeah, this was incredible. Maybe my favorite Bond setpiece.

It was good to see Ola Rapace in a film this big, even if he had no lines as Patrice.

The more I think about the film, the more it annoys me. The dialogue is so clunky and the plot, from the boat scene onwards, an insult to the intelligence. The reviews and opening weekend will probably ensure that Bond 24 follows the same pattern but the series needs a new director and writing team.

im trying not to think too much about... like... the plot.

xpost
It's on course to be the highest grossing film of all time in the UK and has taken crazy numbers elsewhere before it even opened in the US. Eon will be begging Mendes et al to stay on for the next two.

There is one hilarious scene where Mallory turns up in M's office, sits down in a ministerial manner, trades some barbs with Bond ... and then leaves.

(his parents died somehow and he had to hide in a cave?)
― difficult listening hour, Saturday, November 10, 2012 4:27 AM

I think this was more, his parents died so on hearing the news he, overcome with grief & wanting to be alone, went and hid in the one familiar place he could be alone. Stayed down there for 2 days if I remember what Finney says right.
Didn't the Bond parents die in a crash somewhere? Is that one version of the origin myth?
I know that there is now a series of young James Bond books written by one of the writers of the Fast Show which. I'm not sure if those are considered canonical but they might fill in some early background detail.
There's also a book around called 'James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007' by John pearson but it's debated as to whether it's canonical or apocryphal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond:_The_Authorized_Biography_of_007

I picked up a copy a while back but haven't got around to reading it yet.

that was fucking dope, during that fight in Shanghai where the giant neon jellyfish started rising up the screen i nearly blew up with the thrill rush.

best bit was when Joe Pesci got hit in the face with the tin of paint.

kudos to Finney too, nailed that Scottish accent.

script was mostly shite but even my boy knows you're not watching this shit for the script. wd marry J. Bardem.

as my friend put it, "javier bardem's plan was to get arrested, escape, and then run into a room shooting wildly at M"

i like the bit of the plan where he sends a dozen goons into Skyfall shooting wildly at everybody then tells his second wave of goons to make sure they don't kill M

thought this was pretty good. it's no Casino Royale but it's a respectable bond flick. if nothing else this is possibly the crowning achievement of roger deakins' career, its just an incredible looking movie. it's really overtly influenced by The Dark Knight, which, okay, I don't mind for one bond movie but I hope it doesn't become the default approach for future installments. or if it does just get Nolan to do it.

The film felt really flat, tonally, as well. Some nice looking sequences, but so dreary.

― DavidM, Friday, November 2, 2012 6:09 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

yeah otm. i was just thinking that mendes seems to have no tonal control - no idea what suspense is. the good scotch scene, the way it just glibly ends with cgi copters and the bond theme blaring, i was thinking "that's really how you wanted this scene to play?"

i actually liked the climax best, because i anticipated basically every beat of the movie except for that part, and it looked so amazing. i almost wonder the movie looking so good works against itself - at times the movie feels embalmed, it's not muscular and sweaty and hotblooded like a martin campbell bond film. but i think that's more on mendes who has one of my least favorite directorial styles on the planet, burdening every scene in everything he does with meaning and importance, which is just deadly for a playful genre picture

the title song's been in my head since i left the theater. it's a grower!

it is

copter gunning the house was viscerally horrific, it was like suddenly black hawk down for a second or two

sam mendes' greatest talent is in hiring cinematographers

Shanghai scenes were amazing. Liked this, didn't love it.

Damn you, Casino Royale! Everything else is just second or third rate in comparison.

In other news, new trailer for new Tarantino flick is encouraging.