Skyfall: Bond #23

I don't think Finney was even attempting an accent. Kind of like a reverse Sean Connery

to be honest, skyfall was also missing the requisite henchman death puns.

Guys CS was the best bond movie in eons, it's a lot to live up to

Cuantum of Solace?

Ca Sinoroyale

yeah i thought this was stupid

the running theme of old-school human agents vs 'technology' in an age of faceless terror was dimwitted.

i dont have any clue WHY this was the theme ??? the whole movie seemed so anxious about bonds place in the world w/r/t "hacking" -- all that, do we really need field agents? except that its a totally undeveloped as them -- AND in the bond universe "hacking" has been dealt w/ by field agent bond for two decades now. and all the winky aston-martin shit seemed really out of place, like grafted on from one of the late brosnan bonds.

generally that whole last bit was kind of, like, you cant just ASSUME that were all comic nerds about bond desperate to see his ancestral home and fucking albert finney. if thats going to be INTERESTING you have to sell bonds backstory first, in this movie!

strong field agent moneypenny becoming secretary moneypenny was idiotic. worse still was the bit of "we havent been properly introduced" dialogue. seemed to be part of this weird sense that this was, like, a reboot? like why bother with the whole moneypenny thing at all -- just give m a cute secretary.

okay but yeah it looked dope and dench and craig and finney and bardem were all great. (though bardems whole, flower-shirt gay-panic zorin-hair thing was like. i dont know. another weird nod to past bond that didnt actually FIT into any kind of theme or pattern.) ON THE OTHER HAND the music was horrible -- the shanghai scene looked and felt so fantastic, except for the fucking tribal drum soundtrack. vangelis people!

to see his ancestral home and fucking albert finney

Finney's too out of shape to endure it

Kind of want to use Bardem's character as my new style icon

I certainly want to get a coat like that long leather one but I've wanted one of those for years. Either that or one of the green leather motorcycle despatch rider type.

at least give cred to that great teal/orange underwater frozen lake shot right

Went to see this with mookie last night, had this exact thought.

Also the "Bond correctly deduces that terrified woman is a former child prostitute being raped/used as pawn by supervillain, promptly sneaks into her shower naked, could have offered her a way out but no, she just has sex with yet another violent stranger who will do nothing to help her right before she's beaten up and shot as a game" was so enormously disgusting. Also the gay fear bit, also everything. This was so pretty and had potential and just ended up being stupid and scummy. The Bond that we've been shown as played by Craig deserved better.

Something about her bloody face and her posture against the rock and then how she falls when she's shot, it's so...DOLL-LIKE, it gives the impression of someone having cut the strings on a marionette. It's revolting.

Also the "Bond correctly deduces that terrified woman is a former child prostitute being raped/used as pawn by supervillain, promptly sneaks into her shower naked, could have offered her a way out but no, she just has sex with yet another violent stranger who will do nothing to help her right before she's beaten up and shot as a game" was so enormously disgusting. Also the gay fear bit, also everything. This was so pretty and had potential and just ended up being stupid and scummy. The Bond that we've been shown as played by Craig deserved better.

― grossly incorrect register (in orbit), Sunday, November 25, 2012 3:13 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is otm

there are people who think this is the best bond in decades, which, i dunno, i just dont get that.

I feel like they had the problem of how to make Bardem as scary to the aud as he had been promised to be by the conversation about the woman's fear, but without knowing anything about makin no movies, I think casually murdering the pretty sex doll was a fucking lazy and gross way to do it.

yes laurel otm

I thought that was Orbit

could have used a scene of him being creepy as shit to women without inherently devaluing them, setting him up as an equal-opportunity creep imo

We talked about this a bit upthread, but I read the "gay fear" scene as having been reversed by Bond turning it into another opportunity to brag about his vast sexual history. orbit I take it you disagree?

Seriously, people are calling this the best Bond in years??? No fucking way, this was one of the worst evet

I honestly think those reviews were written before they saw the film simply because of Mendes, Deakins, and Bardem

Aside from CR, last time Bond was awesome was probably the 80s

honestly i think bardem's bad guy was really, really un-scary. he just seemed like a goofy dude with a dumb plan

http://i.imgur.com/kbd1v.jpg

Aside from CR, last time Bond was awesome was probably the 80s

Goldfinger holds up!

er, Goldeneye

yeah pretty much. plus they couldnt decide what kind of villain he was - joker clone, genius cybercriminal, burnt out ex-agent? it shifts from scene to scene.

Goldeneye's a sack of shit. i just watched it on thanksgiving and found that it was way worse than I remembered, like a bad Moore flick. brosnan is totally vacant and dull. famke janssen and the tank chase are the best things it has going for it

can confirm that goldeneye is worse than any given person probably remembers, but it does have those two things + robbie coltrane

bardem was totally wasted in this movie; i can't remember a single line. i remember his hair.

wasted as in unused i mean. would have been better if he'd been wasted.

everybody probably just has really fond memories of the video game

yeah pretty much. plus they couldnt decide what kind of villain he was - joker clone, genius cybercriminal, burnt out ex-agent? it shifts from scene to scene.

this was a problem with the movie generally -- no idea what kind of bond it was, changing every 20-30 minutes

Honestly the only thing I really liked about this was the cinematography and the Komodo dragons

Still the dopest reptile

yeah, if yr gonna make a bourne movie, then do so -- you don't also get to use the quips and the sleeping with everyone and whatever

goldeneye's opening had bond jumping after a falling plane, catching it, and pulling out of a dive, which is the kind of 007 suspension of disbelief i can get behind

btw was everyone calling m 'mum' in previous installments? i don't remember that, and either way it is some pretty heavyhanded shit

i couldnt decide if they were calling her mom or if thats how british people pronounced "ma'am"

my only previous experience with it was blackadder calling queen elizabeth mum

goldeneye's opening had bond jumping after a falling plane, catching it, and pulling out of a dive, which is the kind of 007 suspension of disbelief i can get behind

oh right. i love this. the kind of ultrajoyful stunt where the joy isn't in the stunt itself it's in the "yeah we thought of this and decided to make it look like it could happen" part.

i also like "james is it really necessary to drive quite so fast" / "more often than you might think."

i prefer the bungee jump off the dam tbh

I think we can agree that the mean for a Bondfilm is average; a depressing percentage of'em are garbage.

i think we can indeed agree that the mean is average

there are the known unknowns

whyyougottabesoaverage

I haven't watched this yet because 2 hours 23 minutes + Bardem in blond hair + not wanting to break my streak of not watching a Bond film in the theatre since License to Kill.

The "mum" thing is British, it's weird but I've heard it in lots of things and it always throws me.

i watched license to kill on thanksgiving too, and that one turned out to be way better than I remembered. I guess I never gave Dalton his due

I need to rewatch it. I quite liked revisiting The Living Daylights except that Bond was written without a second humor and Dalton looked decidedly uncomfortable drinking a martini.

he orders a budweiser with lime in License! he doesn't drink it though.

*sense of humor

bond films continue to be educational, they teach you that rich people are beautiful, have beautiful things, spend time in beautiful places, and are all repulsive sociopaths. for example, open-air markets are an excellent backdrop for a romantic afternoon, but equally fun to drive your sports car through at high speeds while spraying bullets in every direction.

dalton's angry Bond in license is sort of the precursor to Craig's this time its personal take, but License is really funny in its own way. Robert Davi gets one of my favorite one-liners ever