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See there was more to discuss. :P
:)>-
However, as a pure 'formulaic' action oriented film with compelling characters & excellent pacing / visuals, MI-RN impressed the hell out of me this year.
It did 'formula' Bond in a superb, fresh fashion imho.
Not even close for me. SP has class, it's a Michelin star to RN's Big Mac Meal.
The Bond films, have, and can survive quite a varied different direction in their plots.
The identity of the MI and Bourne franchises is much narrower, i.e. the films can't stray too far away from the original concept.
After Casino Royale, I thought that Bond was heading into the right direction and they were up there with Bourne and MI, but after that the writing got worse and worse. For some reason, this seems to always happen. A new Bond comes in, the first movie is good and then it all goes downhill.
Whatever we think of him, Cruise has been the focused driving force behind all the MI films creatively, and that probably helps.
@RC7 at the end of the day it's all subjective, but to me Skyfall seemed the most boring film in Craig's tenure. I'm not saying it's a bad movie, I really enjoyed it the two times I went to see it at the cinema when it came out, but then I didn't feel the drive to watch it much more like I did with CR for example. With CR every viewing brought new elements to my attention that I haven't noticed before, while Skyfall seemed to have less layers to it, despite the add of new characters.
Cubby for sure had a clearer vision. It´s obvious that B&M have a knack for experimenting, hence all those different directors. Some of the experiments I enjoy a lot, e.g. QoS, others, e.g. the recent two entries, I don´t. I remember Babs saying she wanted more character in the Bond films. I´m not sure how far she succeeded with that, because in the recent three films there was less and less character development of James Bond visible throughout each respective film. And the jumps between QoS and SF, and between SF and SP remain unexplained. On top of that, the films as films became weaker with each recent entry.
I'm really hoping SP passes RN in BO in North America. It's so close right now but yet so far away.
Same here, but for me RN was better made and far more enjoyable as well.
I'm indifferent. If it does, great - but if not, so be it. Whatever happens, they'll end up pretty close on US box office.
It has a little over one week to do so... Quite achievable.
There are some other high profile releases before the end of this month (which will count towards 2015 well into next year), but there's no way JOY, THE HATEFUL EIGHT or THE REVENANT is going to earn $196 Million.
I'm talking about SP.
RN isn't a better made film. It's a deft action movie, but it hits all the beats too neatly. SP doesn't, it's a more unique vision and while the story has and will continue to piss people off, it's much more idiosyncratic with far superior cinematography, direction, mis-en-scene, acting and production design. The only area in which I'd concede to RN is score, but even that is far from brilliant. RN is like a Furious movie, no definable identity, but good fun to watch on a flight somewhere.
I can agree to disagree, after all it is subjective. What I find hard to believe is that anyone could consider RN's cinematography to be superior to SP. Colour Palette, fair enough, but cinematography as a craft, no way in my book.
This is why there are libraries; there are lots of books in the world ;)
It's just not, though. Simple as.
Because there's characters in MI? I'm threading carefully here because the last one I saw was the third one but it always struck me as clever gimmick when it was a t.v. show and a Tom Cruise vehicle when it's a movie franchise. A narcissistic franchise about its main star.
With SP, what really sticks out as being superb in my mind are the non action scenes, such as the first part of the pretitles (up to the CGI helicopter bit which I didn't like) & what we saw in the trailer - namely Bond going to see White in the boat, and the Spectre meet.
The action scenes (copter fight, car chase, Thames chase), while beautifully framed in certain parts, did not engage me. As a postcard exercise, yes, but not in terms of immersing me in the proceedings. The Austrian chase similarly didn't do anything for me and just appeared overcast, gloomy and dull. If they had filmed it on a brighter day, with more snow glistening under the sun's rays (as they've done in the past with Bond alpine scenes), that would have changed things for me, even with the lackluster action direction.
I do count the colour palette & evidence of CGI as a significant part of cinematography though.
As you said, it's all opinion at the end of the day. I found a more even match visually between SF & MI-GP, but the brilliant night scenes in SF gave that film the win for me.
Well, in that case you'd have a point of view on it that I may be unable to shake. That is more true of the earlier ones - since the 4th one they have become more evenly balanced 'team' vehicles.
GP was a pure action fest (and absolutely superb in that respect) with less character development in comparison to SF, but between SP & RN, it's a no contest win for MI for me.
If Bond goes down this route now, they are open to the critique of copying MI?
Plus, for me, the tension, pacing and plot twists beat Spectre hands down.
The underwater scene, the car/bike chase and the reveal of Hunt with the PM were great. (Did anyone notice that Hunt was too busy driving the car to even think about making a phone call?). Overall, with the use of London etc, MI seems to be moving towards Bond and Bond seems to be moving towards MI.
Cruise provides tremendous energy to the project and I wonder how long he can keep it up. It will take great skill to keep the franchise going without him. A younger star with perhaps one crossover movie with the established team providing continuity. I can imagine Ethan sacrificing himself to save the rest of the team, there is real potential for drama/tension/shock with Hunt's exit/demise. If they could avoid spoilers/leaks, it could be something pretty amazing (plus it provides great potential for vengeance) and with the on-going use of masks, there is always room for the odd guest appearance. If I was having to write script for either, I would rather work on MI. Bond has got himself into a bit of a corner at the moment where as MI is still evolving and has great potential. Obviously Bond is the bigger franchise but, creatively, I think the momentum is with MI
No, I think Bond is safe if they take this approach, since they started it all those years ago in TSWLM.
Bond can never really be accused of copying too many people (except Hitchcock), because they are the originator in many cases. They can certainly be accused of poor execution though - at least imho.
I agree, but I really don't think it can survive Cruise. I don't see anyone with the ability to take this forward after him. He is a one of a kind in this role.
Of course, that likely was said about Connery, but still.
As a cameo maybe but we've had plenty enough female agent counterparts in the series already.
I prefer the traditional Fleming Bond girls, the more tortuous characters often caught in the clutches of the villain before Bond enters the situation.
Severine was one great such evocation of the literary Domino and Solitaire.
MI; RN is a penny bubblegum
JB ; SP is a Willy Wonka everlasting gobstopper!