Skyfall (spoilers, beware!)

[Truronian]

So what did everyone think?

I didn't enjoy it as much as expected to. It was certainly a step up from QoS IMO, but the central thread of the relationship between Bond and M didn't really capture me. I've split my thoughts into five arbitrary sections.

Action:
Generally good, though there were no stand-out set pieces. Most of the major action sequences were chases, save the finale which I think got a little tiring. The finale was nice, quite unlike anything in the series before.

Story:
It was alright, though the magical hacking was annoying. I think it would have been a bit more interesting to have Bardem have moles within MI6 to set up the need to go off the grid, I just couldn't buy that travelling to Glencoe was the only option open to Bond. It also made Q look remarkably incompetent; maybe that was intentional?

Villain:
Reminded me a lot of Max Zorin, in terms of appearance and personality. Was a bit OTT for the story in my opinion, too muh like Nolan's joker which jarred with the rest of the film. I was expecting him to be revealed as Blofeld or something when they revealed he was working under an alias, not sure what the point of that was.

Music:
Very good... even the theme which I hated when I first heard it.

Bondiness:
The main reason I liked the film. The Aston Martin, the return of Moneypenny and Universal exports, Q and the nods to the source material all made the film for me.

 

[Luckymoose]

Let me guess, James Bond wins?

 

[JohannaK]

Damn you, Truronian, I wanted to wait till it was released in the US to start a thread myself.

But I loved it. It was a great movie and good as a Bond one. The finale was great, but that part overall was methinks of lower quality than the rest of the film. Bardem wonderfully portrayed a mentally (and physically) scarred villain that is possibly the one to come closest to achieving success.

All of the references to prior films, DB5 included, are priceless, and the return of Miss Moneypenny and Q is nice. The epilogue, to call it in some way, was just perfect. This film puts Craig on top by Connery's side.

Also, Truronian, nearly everything would have been a step up from QoS. That thing was awful.

 

[Jos Ballenbak]

It was fantastic, it was like an old Sean Connery Bond. It is all it needs and should be for a Bond movie.

The Bondiness as stated above is what makes this movie so brilliant. For example my favourite scene has to be, when Bond steps into the old DB5 and the ever so popular theme starts. It just goes to show that for a Bond movie to be succesfull, you just need a British, charming, stylish and well acting Bond and the usual suspects of cars, women and cool action scenes. The rest is dispensable.

This movie is without a doubt the Bond to intertwine the best of old and new in a franchise that has lived for 50 years, and will easily live 50 more.

Mendes, Craig, Bardem, Dench, Fiennes, other actors, and everyone who had a part in making this movie, I thank you so much for reinventing my childhood hero.

 

[Princeps]

The influence of Dark Knight was very strong, but I don't mind emulating the best. That's what quality works are for: they're supposed to be emulated imo.

I liked the villain. I didn't see the connection to joker though.

 

[JohannaK]

Well, they both disguise as policemen at a point, they both make a planned-in-advance escape from jail. Those two are similarities that come to mind instantly.

 

[strategy]

Just saw it this weekend. I liked the film overall, but I have to say I was slightly disappointed with the villain. Bond films are about master villains planning spectacular crimes, but this one was just... petty and trite revenge. And the setup was just weird. An out of shape Bond is able to enter M's mansion with ease, and a villain who is supposedly an even better field agent and capable of hacking into MI6 is incapable of doing the same? There is just no logic to it.

Sad that they would misuse Bardem so badly, in a film that otherwise had all the elements that one would expect from a Bond flick.

 

[dutchfire]

Went yesterday. I liked it. The scenic shots in Istanbul, Shanghai, Macau and London were great, you really felt parts of the character of each town. I liked the opening scene. There were quite a lot of good puns and I liked how they touched on some off the old "memes" without just repeating them. (A martini being shaken, not stirred). The villain was a bit weird and unfocussed at some points, I disliked that a bit, but it was no big problem. The finale was good, though not typically James Bond, it reminded me of a western.

 

[JohannaK]

Yeah, the end is the moment where I think the film went a bit downhill.

 

[Jos Ballenbak]

But i dont agree on the whole Dark Knight similiarity. I just dont see it.

 

[JohannaK]

Yeah, the approach is very different, and parallelisms are minimal, but are there.

 

[Thedrin]

I'm not much for Bond. I really enjoyed this film. Far more than the previous Craig films which I thought were as good as each other.

The editing is really really good, keeping the story moving at a fantastic pace.

The Dark Knight influences are very obvious, but that's not a criticism. Actually, I rate Skyfall more highly than The Dark Knight (the weakest of the Nolan Batman trilogy).

I would have been quite happy if the film had finished in London and did think that they were dragging the story out too far (another influence of The Dark Knight) but the Scottish sequence was really good and quite unlike anything I've seen in a Bond film before.

 

[CivCube]

The theme was basically deconstructing Bond and reconstructing him again for the 21st century. A reboot within a reboot, if you will. For the most part, it works. My favorite parts were the skyscraper fistfight and the Home Alone at Skyfall segment.

 

[holy king]

the james bond home alone ending was pretty... interesting.

 

[Jos Ballenbak]

I'm not much for Bond. I really enjoyed this film. Far more than the previous Craig films which I thought were as good as each other.

The editing is really really good, keeping the story moving at a fantastic pace.

The Dark Knight influences are very obvious, but that's not a criticism. Actually, I rate Skyfall more highly than The Dark Knight (the weakest of the Nolan Batman trilogy).

I would have been quite happy if the film had finished in London and did think that they were dragging the story out too far (another influence of The Dark Knight) but the Scottish sequence was really good and quite unlike anything I've seen in a Bond film before.

Could you specify? I think the Batman trilogy by Nolan is awesome, but not everything grittier is automatically Dark Knight influenced.

 

[Truronian]

Bardem's character is very Joker-esque; he's a disfigured sociopath with elaborate schemes that involve him getting himself imprisoned, though his motivation is somewhat different. That's the main parallel as I see things. There are some more minor similarities as well... death of the love interest, windowless industrial lairs, magical hacking to name three.

 

[holy king]

bond missing the woman with the shot glass makes no sense from a storytelling pov.

make him hit the glass and let the joker kill her anyway, or make him hit her head.
dont know why they opted for the least emotional variant.

 

[JohannaK]

Hitting the glass is not an option. We're talking of a Bond out of shape. But Bond CANNOT kill the woman. That's the villain's job. It's simple enough.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

The scene where he meets the villain was brilliantly done, from the long, single-shot scene of him walking across the room telling the rat story, to the erotic weird bit, and even the classic Bond-villain action of letting Bond sit and walk freely with him (and hold a gun?) instead of bound. Silva's behavior in that scene is also classic Bond villain: brilliant, classy, nonchalant and charming, but unquestionably evil. Altogether a fantastic scene that I thought went a good way towards "making" the movie. There were other things, though. The Aston Martin was a great "cameo." The generational play between Bond and Q was brilliant, it kind of reminded me of the relationship between Indiana Jones and his son in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The "gadget scene" was a great twist. I'm not sure I entirely liked the Moneypenny bit, but I won't complain about it.

Also, did anyone notice Bond's reaction to the Komodo Dragons? Very subtle but very funny.

 

[ace99]

The most villainous things about the Bond villain were his atrocious hair, and the creepy homoerotic flirting with Bond. Also Hollywood continues to hilariously depict what computers are capable of and what computer hacking looks like. To them computers are equivalent to magic. Haha lets blow up Mi6 with the power of computers! And Bond suggesting he had, had sex with men before. Alas....and I was looking forward to Bond re-enacting Secretary with Moneypenny "I'm going to punish you for that shot." Nope never happened.

What I liked the most was the promise that the next Bond movie was going to be more retro. Bring back the Aston Martin with machine guns and an eject seat, bring back Q, bring back M and the traditional office, bring back Moneypenny.