Bond 23 - Skyfall

Much of this movie looked great. Now I hope Deakins has enough cash to take on some smaller films!

I'm not a Bond fan at all, but I enjoyed this movie well enough. The end set piece at Skyfall was great, and made up for some of the "meh" moments in the first 3/4 of the film.
 
Have to say I really enjoyed it.

The opening was ho-hum to me but the majority of the film was great. Villain was awesome. Loved the cheesy bond lines toward the end.

Dislike switching the camera (I assume) in the final action scene (Bonds house).

3.75/5
 
I finally saw it. To be honest, I didn't care for it. Cinematography was better than the film. What happened to writing? Many scenes left me shaking my head. What the hell kind of plan was that climax? This was the silliest bond ever. Actually moonraker was, but it at least had heart. This film was souless.
 
Anyone else notice how extremely "videoish" the scene when Q's in the control room laying the "bread crumbs" and the other guy walks in? It looked like it was shot on a handicam compared to the rest of the film.
 
Really? I thought it was ... not.

It's really hard to get over what Ebert called "the idiot plot" -- meaning, if one idiot just doesn't do one idiotic thing, then the whole story ceases to exist.

Case in point -- when Bond and the list-thief were on top of the train, and the female agent had a shot. And M says "take the shot" and the agent says "I might hit Bond"... and M says "take it anyway" and she does, and she hits Bond.

How ridiculously stupid was that? Bond WAS LISTENING. How about "Hey James ... DUCK!" Bond drops down, she shoots the bad guy, they recover the list, and the whole thing is over in the first 10 minutes...
 
Barry, as silly as that opener was, for me there was way more problems with the film. James had zero character arc. Totally flat and uncharismatic. The villain had enough motive but his actions were uncalculated and random. The introduction of the new Q was lame. I wish I had some attachments to the characters, especially M who dies! The shootout at the mansion. What was James thinking? It felt like an episode of Dukes of Hazard there. What happen to some mystery? The cards were on the table from the beginning. I was at least hoping for some good action sequences. Again it failed on that too. Wait a Bond film usually has a Bond girl... that barely happened... This film had zero emotion. I know I'm in the minority on this film.
 
Barry_Green said:
Really? I thought it was ... not.

It's really hard to get over what Ebert called "the idiot plot" -- meaning, if one idiot just doesn't do one idiotic thing, then the whole story ceases to exist.

Case in point -- when Bond and the list-thief were on top of the train, and the female agent had a shot. And M says "take the shot" and the agent says "I might hit Bond"... and M says "take it anyway" and she does, and she hits Bond.

How ridiculously stupid was that? Bond WAS LISTENING. How about "Hey James ... DUCK!" Bond drops down, she shoots the bad guy, they recover the list, and the whole thing is over in the first 10 minutes...
Click to expand...

That was a different story, where that sort of thing 'went right'... bond ducked, world saved, and everyone went out for drinks...

Since I've not seen the film I can't comment on this 'setup'... but in general there's at least one coincidence, random stupidity... I mean... the 'inciting event', wherein if that does not occur... there is no story...

There's also the theory that the villain can stand a number of 'lucky coincidences', to the detriment of the hero/protagonist, and still have the story 'hold'... but usually if the hero/protag has too many 'lucky breaks'... the story moves further and further from willing suspension of disbelief...
 
bgundu said:
Barry, as silly as that opener was, for me there was way more problems with the film. James had zero character arc. Totally flat and uncharismatic. The villain had enough motive but his actions were uncalculated and random. The introduction of the new Q was lame. I wish I had some attachments to the characters, especially M who dies! The shootout at the mansion. What was James thinking? It felt like an episode of Dukes of Hazard there. What happen to some mystery? The cards were on the table from the beginning. I was at least hoping for some good action sequences. Again it failed on that too. Wait a Bond film usually has a Bond girl... that barely happened... This film had zero emotion. I know I'm in the minority on this film.
Click to expand...

I got the 22 (with slot for "Sky Fall"(2012)...) disk Bond set for Christmas, and I've been working my way through them all... some are so distant in time, I've totally forgotten that I've seen them...

In any case... one of the most significant observations I've made so far, getting up to "Octopussy"(1983)... is that Bond has no, none, hardly a wink, of arc. Now of course, the Bond's of yore had a certain sort of 'sophisticated demeanor', which some people really liked...

Enter in the Bond Novels, at least the ones I've read by Flemming (Amazon had a $1.99 'sale' on the Flemming Kindle version novels... so I bought them all...)... The Bond character has not morphed into a 'suave sophisticated' type that was portrayed by most of the Bond films... as of 'From Russia With Love'(pub. 1957). While the Bond novels do depict a Bond who has some feelings, and occasionally thinks of marriage... he, as of FRWL..., doesn't seem to be 'arcing' in any real sense.

As for 'gadgetry'... those film elements seem to be almost absent from the novels I've read... runs around in an 'old' pre-war Bently... for several novels... without any 'Q' mods... etc. carries a Beretta .25 rather than the Walther PPK... although in a couple of the novels I've read he has a Colt 45 in the car...

As for 'stupid' situations... for a 'spy', the novel Bond seems to often do rather stupid things... or is 'surprised' by things... which would seem to be part of the 'spy trade'... for example, he seems to often 'get marked' by the opposition, and only after some severe bungling on their part, does he finally 'notice' that gosh, "I've been tracked for days/miles of my travels"...
 
You are probably correct on all those observations. To be fair I was not using previous films as a yardstick. It was making more of a judgment call as a standalone film.



j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
I got the 22 (with slot for "Sky Fall"(2012)...) disk Bond set for Christmas, and I've been working my way through them all... some are so distant in time, I've totally forgotten that I've seen them...

In any case... one of the most significant observations I've made so far, getting up to "Octopussy"(1983)... is that Bond has no, none, hardly a wink, of arc. Now of course, the Bond's of yore had a certain sort of 'sophisticated demeanor', which some people really liked...

Enter in the Bond Novels, at least the ones I've read by Flemming (Amazon had a $1.99 'sale' on the Flemming Kindle version novels... so I bought them all...)... The Bond character has not morphed into a 'suave sophisticated' type that was portrayed by most of the Bond films... as of 'From Russia With Love'(pub. 1957). While the Bond novels do depict a Bond who has some feelings, and occasionally thinks of marriage... he, as of FRWL..., doesn't seem to be 'arcing' in any real sense.

As for 'gadgetry'... those film elements seem to be almost absent from the novels I've read... runs around in an 'old' pre-war Bently... for several novels... without any 'Q' mods... etc. carries a Beretta .25 rather than the Walther PPK... although in a couple of the novels I've read he has a Colt 45 in the car...

As for 'stupid' situations... for a 'spy', the novel Bond seems to often do rather stupid things... or is 'surprised' by things... which would seem to be part of the 'spy trade'... for example, he seems to often 'get marked' by the opposition, and only after some severe bungling on their part, does he finally 'notice' that gosh, "I've been tracked for days/miles of my travels"...
Click to expand...
 
bgundu said:
Barry, as silly as that opener was, for me there was way more problems with the film. James had zero character arc. Totally flat and uncharismatic. The villain had enough motive but his actions were uncalculated and random. The introduction of the new Q was lame. I wish I had some attachments to the characters, especially M who dies! The shootout at the mansion. What was James thinking? It felt like an episode of Dukes of Hazard there. What happen to some mystery? The cards were on the table from the beginning. I was at least hoping for some good action sequences. Again it failed on that too. Wait a Bond film usually has a Bond girl... that barely happened... This film had zero emotion. I know I'm in the minority on this film.
Click to expand...
Hey, I'm not disagreeing with any of that at all... I was just pointing out how ridiculous and unbelievable it was, right off the bat. Seems like this one needed to be left in the oven to bake a little while longer (i.e., a rewrite or two).
 
I thought it was a good film. I only saw it once and was sort of ho hum about it, but all the discussion makes me want to see it again.
 
Barry_Green said:
Really? I thought it was ... not.

It's really hard to get over what Ebert called "the idiot plot" -- meaning, if one idiot just doesn't do one idiotic thing, then the whole story ceases to exist.

Case in point -- when Bond and the list-thief were on top of the train, and the female agent had a shot. And M says "take the shot" and the agent says "I might hit Bond"... and M says "take it anyway" and she does, and she hits Bond.

How ridiculously stupid was that? Bond WAS LISTENING. How about "Hey James ... DUCK!" Bond drops down, she shoots the bad guy, they recover the list, and the whole thing is over in the first 10 minutes...
Click to expand...

I was left with such a bad taste in my mouth with Pierce on board. (I love Pierce) The films were just absurd. When Craig came on board, the series suddenly became plausible.

I really enjoyed this; and Casino and Quantum. It's finally being taken seriously.
 
Barry_Green said:
Hey, I'm not disagreeing with any of that at all... I was just pointing out how ridiculous and unbelievable it was, right off the bat. Seems like this one needed to be left in the oven to bake a little while longer (i.e., a rewrite or two).
Click to expand...

Fire John Logan is what should have happened. This is a pretty standard mark of all his movies. Star Trek: Nemesis (his other franchise work that I'm aware of) suffers from a lot of the same problems.
 
J.R. Hudson said:
I really enjoyed this; and Casino and Quantum. It's finally being taken seriously.
Click to expand...

Would it really be sacrilege to go back through the canon and remake some of the original stories with Craig in the modern area, like they did with the BBC Sherlock Holmes series? I would totally be okay with that.
 
Barry_Green said:
Really? I thought it was ... not.

It's really hard to get over what Ebert called "the idiot plot" -- meaning, if one idiot just doesn't do one idiotic thing, then the whole story ceases to exist.

Case in point -- when Bond and the list-thief were on top of the train, and the female agent had a shot. And M says "take the shot" and the agent says "I might hit Bond"... and M says "take it anyway" and she does, and she hits Bond.

How ridiculously stupid was that? Bond WAS LISTENING. How about "Hey James ... DUCK!" Bond drops down, she shoots the bad guy, they recover the list, and the whole thing is over in the first 10 minutes...
Click to expand...

In the movie I saw the villain was standing directly behind Bond and was holding him in a headlock (for quite some screen time in fact), from which Bond was unable to remove himself. How would he just drop down when he wasn't able to break the headlock in the first place?
 
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