I apologize for any offending comments from the Skyfall fan review thread, but I can no longer post in that thread due to flaming . I feel like we disappointed skyfall viewers need our own thread to discuss our negativity on the film . I may be in the minority here but I know there are others out there who feel the same way as I. Anyways here is my final say on skyfall. Thank you
As I said in Friday’s review, I love both
‘Casino Royale‘ and ‘Quantum of Solace‘,
and really wanted ‘Skyfall’ to follow
through with the new rebooted series,
which modernized and humanized James
Bond, and did away with corny
unrealistic fluff such as dumbass
gadgets and riding down ski slopes on
musical instruments. Unfortunately, I
feel that ‘Skyfall’ takes Bond back into
the nearly brainless mode that most of
the previous 20 films functioned on.
The first sign that something wasn’t
right with ‘Skyfall’ happened during the
overly-long introductory sequence. After
finding a dead agent and his now hard
drive-less laptop, Bond chases a random
henchman for what feels like 20
minutes. Cranes, trains and automobiles
– this action sequence is cool, but way
too long, and lacks continuity in every
way possible. Bond gets shot twice, but
we later only see him with one gunshot
wound. He drives a dirt bike off a city
bridge onto a train that is suddenly in
the middle of wide open plains – no city
in sight. Two minutes later, he’s in the
mountains.
Due to an on-the-spot call that M
makes, Bond is shot and possibly left for
dead, but we sure as shit know that isn’t
the case. The dumb aspect of this scene
is that M is willing to risk killing Bond in
order to get the hard drive back, but had
she not made the call, both Bond and
Henchman #1 would have smashed into
the train tunnel. While they both would
have died, the hard drive would have
been retrieved and I never would have
been made to suffer through ‘Skyfall’.
This is the first of many times where
‘Skyfall’ steals an element from another
very popular movie. Guess what was on
the hard drive that the henchman got
away with? A list containing every MI6
agent, his/her whereabouts,
pseudonyms and infiltrated
organizations. Wait, isn’t that the exact
same plot from Brain De Palma’s
‘Mission: Impossible‘? You bet your ass it
is, and the plot stealing doesn’t stop
there. Ethan Hunt’s NOC list is only the
beginning.
After a few minutes of being led to
believe that Bond is dead, we of course
learn that he isn’t. Bond is content to
stay off the radar in his tropical hiding
place, tossing back shots of tequila with
stupid scorpions on his hands and
boning random local chicks (and possibly
dudes too) – that is, until he sees
something on the news that stirs him
up. With the NOC list out there, agents
are being killed and someone has
infiltrated MI6 headquarters, blowing up
M’s office in the process. Who did it? Of
course, it’s Javier Bardem’s character,
Silva. How did Silva do it? Who knows?
Like many other major plot points in
‘Skyfall’, we’re never given an answer.
Lazy little ‘Skyfall’ works in a brain-dead
manner. Don’t ask the “how” questions
because there aren’t any answers to be
found.
Shortly thereafter, Bond comes back
from the dead and visits M. She takes
him to the new MI6 headquarters, and
the ‘Casino’ and ‘Quantum’ apologies
begin rolling in. Taking us full circle with
the original Bond flicks, we get all the
goofy stuff that old fans want. The MI6
HQ is now underground and resembles
the hideout of old. We meet Q and some
gadgets are teased. Jokes are made
about not using them as much as MI6
did in the past, but then we proceed to
rely on them. Had it not been for the
transmitter, Bond would have died on
Silva’s island. Had it not been for the
Aston Martin machine guns, many more
henchmen would have entered Bond
Manor during the climax. As much as I
didn’t want ‘Skyfall’ to dig into this has-
been, gadget-filled territory, I initially
didn’t mind because it seemed to be a
minimal joke, a throwback. Sadly, it’s
really just one of the “apologies.”
Through unmotivated and coincidental
actions, at the one-hour mark Bond
finally discovers the identity of the
villain behind the attack on MI6. For the
first time in the film, we meet Silva – a
flamboyant former Double-0 agent with
mommy issues and a desire to bring
down MI6.Wait a second, isn’t this the
exact same antagonist type as seen in
‘GoldenEye‘?! Ding-ding-ding! Instead of
stealing a villain from ‘Mission:
Impossible’, ‘Skyfall’ steals one from its
own franchise. Bardem isn’t bad, but his
collective 15 minutes of screen time
don’t come close to portraying the
fleshed-out three dimensional villain he
could be. His flamboyance is just a
notch down from Jim Carrey’s portrayal
of the Riddler. That removing any
potential he had of being a menace and
kills the serious tone.
Another pointless aspect of Silva comes
across as an apology. I’m fine with
minimal nods back to the original films
(like the subterranean headquarters),
which is why I didn’t mind Le Chiffre’s
bleeding eye in ‘Casino Royale’ being a
throwback to the randomly disfigured
villains of old – but Silva’s ridiculous
disfiguration is damned absurd. The
reveal of Silva’s glass jaw caused me to
groan out loud. Making matters worse is
the fact that the filmmakers try to tie
this disfiguration into a coherent part of
the plot. You see, Silva is disfigured
because of a job gone bad. Things went
sour and M made a call that resulted in
his deformity. Because of the opening
sequence where Bond is shot and left
for dead due to M’s decision, Silva
explains that they have a lot in common.
Mind you, Bond’s involvement in this
whole ordeal stems from coincidences
and random acts. Silva never planned to
get Bond in this position. It was all
chance, but that’s not what we’re led to
believe. Bond randomly finds Silva and
we’re supposed to think that Silva set it
all up.
Bond stumbles into Silva’s lame lair and
gets caught, but it turns out that Bond
wanted to get caught. Because of the
gadgets that Bond now has, M and MI6
are able to intervene, rescue Bond and
capture Silva. It was a twist! (Please
note my sarcasm.) But then Silva is
taken back to the brand new secret
underground HQ and it’s revealed that,
like Loki in ‘The Avengers‘, Silva wanted
to be caught and brought back to their
new hideout all along. Double twist!
What follows is a scene that I deem the
most braindead of the whole movie.
Bond chases Silva through subway
tunnels, catches up to Old Glass Jaw in a
large subterranean room and fires a few
shots. Bond can shoot two rungs on the
ladder Silva climbs, but not Silva
himself. And just when he gets the bad
guy in his sights, he freezes and doesn’t
take the shot just so that Silva can drop
an empty train on him. (P.S. I’ve been in
London’s tubes during the day, and no
train is ever empty.) Considering that
Silva had no idea where the new MI6
HQ was located, how lame is it he
somehow knew the exact place that
Bond was going to catch him, and would
have a bomb rigged so that he could
drop a train on Bond? Absolutely absurd.
At this point in the film, halfway
through, the plot is completely
discarded. Do you remember that NOC
list that Bond and MI6 have been
tracking down? Well, the characters sure
don’t. The story that we’ve been
wrapped up in for over an hour is tossed
aside. You might assume that the hard
drive was retrieved when Silva was
captured, but you’d think that this was a
plot point worth resolving. After all, at
least five agents had their identities
revealed and were executed. This is a
major part of story, something greater
than leaving up to presumptions – but
it’s not resolved. Ever. After Silva breaks
into MI6, only to escape (without
achieving a thing), the MI6 mission
shifts from the unresolved NOC list to
protecting M from Silva. Bond and M
don’t look for the hard drive any longer.
Eff every other agent in the field – Mum
is in danger! All energy and efforts go
towards keeping M safe. Bond and M
run from Silva, becoming the prey and
not the usual predators.
The NOC list is ditched just so that the
franchise can be given yet another new
origin. We’re suddenly force fed a
splinter of Bond’s back story. A plot
point is revealed that other reviewers
claim digs deep into Bond’s roots,
origins and motivations. I disagree with
those statements. ‘Casino Royale’
created a three dimensional character.
Through the death of Vesper in the
climax, Bond was given a dark
motivation that we could all connect
with. In ‘Skyfall’, that motivation (what
I’m calling “The Vesper Motivation”) is
completely dismissed for a newer,
shallower one – his parents died. Why is
Bond the cruel, heartless and brutal
beast that he is? It’s not because of
Vesper. It’s because he’s an orphan.
Once again, we’re supposed to make the
connection that Bond is like Silva – he
has parent issues too. Boo-hoo and
bullshit. The final act character
development is worthless, but not as
worthless as the ripped-off anticlimax
that follows.
Do you know how every Bond movie has
a wild adventurous finale? ‘Skyfall’
doesn’t. The movie wraps up with Bond
and M playing ‘Home Alone‘ against the
strangest set of henchmen ever. They
lock themselves in Bond Manor with
Albert Finney (who pops up just for the
film’s climax) and re-enact ‘Straw Dogs’.
Bad guys climb inside the boarded up
house, but fall for boobytrap after
boobytrap, failing to ever take out either
of the geriatric geezers shuffling around
inside. When Bond, M and Finney
complete the first wave, then enters
Silva in a helicopter shooting sequence
that would have been any other villains’
first attack choice. This scene just keeps
going on and on and on. They move the
fight outdoors, and then they move back
indoors, and so forth.
The nearly two-and-a-half hour runtime
of ‘Skyfall’ is unwarranted. Most scenes
are too long, especially the “Peter and
the Chicken” action sequences. It would
all be over much earlier had Bond taken
the shot one of the many times in the
movie that the opportunity was readily
in front of him, but he unexplainably and
consciously decides not to. For example,
why didn’t Bond just shoot Silva in the
face during the scene where Silva tried
to drop a train on him?
My final gripe with flick is M’s fate. Did
anyone not see M’s death coming from
the moment we met Ralph Fiennes’
character? If you didn’t catch it then,
you must have caught it when her real
name was revealed. The movie’s ending
was spoiled two hours before we got to
it.
Comments
Who do you think, you are? Plus its not, that not everybody here hasn't already read your "review"
No, seriously, we will give it a chance. However, if within the span of one page this thing turns into a copy of the other review thread, of course we'll close this down. One review thread should do it. *sigh*
Until then, challenge accepted.
As an aside, perhaps you need to watch the film another time, @DRESSED_TO_KILL. Upon second viewing, sometimes one's perspective of things changes.
Dimi will handle the rest :)
WOW!
Hmm... bad idea. Either you wait half a year or you get one of those poor recordings from someone who sat with his iPhone aimed at the screen. ;-) I say go for it. Pay those nine and a half bucks or whatever, sit down with a girl and spend a great time at the movies. In other words, go for the best quality you can get! :P
Thank you, sir! :-) We're all friends here after all.
I spotted references from "THE DARK KNIGHT"/"THE AVENGERS", and "RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK".
Also, how did an MI6 agent get his hands on a list of NATO undercover agents? Did the movie ever explain this?
If Bond knew that M was the one who ordered Moneypenny to take a shot that the latter stated wasn't a clean one, why did he claim that Moneypenny wasn't cut out to be a field agent? Are we really supposed to be thrilled with Moneypenny giving Bond a shave? If Bond knew that Severine was a former victim of the sex trade, why screw her anyway? That was so tacky. Why didn't Bond get backup to help him protect M at Skyfall? Why on earth was Bond's personal Aston Martin armed with a seat ejector button and guns? How did he arrange that? How did Silva know that M would be facing an inquiry on the very day that Q tried to access his laptop? According to this story, how long was Dench's M head of MI6? What was Moneypenny doing at the Ministry inquiry for M? And why didn't that female MP tell Mallory to keep his mouth shut, after he had interrupted her? Also, the Komodo dragon sequence was stupid.
And why was Craig posing in nearly every other scene - you know, wide stance, hands in pockets. I couldn't tell whether I was watching an action film or a photo shoot for GQ magazine. Both the score and the theme song were unmemorable. In fact, I don't remember either one.
I could blow most of his post into a million pieces. I say why bother? He doesn't care about any view other than his own and those who agree. You can't have honest debates with this fellow so I'm not going to waste my time. When I see people on this Forum show an utter lack of respect for such classics as GF and OHMSS, and laud cheesefests such as MR and DAD over any Craig era film, you just learn and accept that people are people.
This is your idea of reacting to someone who doesn't agree with you? Insult them?
Only joking!
To be fair SirHenryLeeChaChing, and I don't know if you'd followed the other thread, DTK has taken a bit of a kicking on the reviews thread from some rather unpleasant posters. It's no wonder he's feeling a bit touchy right now.
We had another version of this thread a few days ago that was actually quite civilised and believe it or not SF fans were making counter points without dismissing us doubters as cheesemeisters and fans of death-spewing laser plots. Most of the people who don't like SF are actually really disappointed by what they regard as a pretty weak plot and strangely underdeveloped story.
I don't hate SF or think it's the "worst Bond movie ever" but I do feel disappointed.
I could write about things that I actually do like about the movie, but there are other threads for this. So let me just get a couple of things off my chest:
- awful pacing and not enough of those action setpieces we are used to. The only two huge action setpieces in the movie take place right in the beginning and at the end, leaving a huge cap of almost 1hr 45 min, where we see a lot of talking, walking, driving around and starring into computer monitors, only briefly interrupted by a derailed train and a couple of fights which last 30 seconds. I know Mendes is a dramadirector, but really... Bond-movies should be filed under "actionmovies" not "(melo)drama".
I was hoping for SF to be the best action-movie of 2012. It's far from it. Even the remake of Total Recall had much more intriguing and better filmed action piece setups. And last years MI:4 is miles ahead of SF.
- the character James Bond. I don't really understand this "let's make Bond modern" (ie like a lot of other flawed touchy-feely action heroes). After three reboots, this has got to stop! I want Bond back on top of his game winning. Not losing and failing.
- David Arnold. I miss you!
Of course I did, I only wrote my views on there same as everyone else on this exact thread. Again, calling views that dissent those of "illiterate slobs" among the many things he said over there, was uncalled for. That's when I complained to the mods along with most everyone else.
If DTK is interested in my rebuttal to his comments, some of which I can understand and agree with, then I will respond.
No, this is not an insult, this is a fact. That's why he started this up, he didn't want to debate honest counterpoints with those who do like the film and was told to move along.
I can say the same about those who liked the film. I've noticed that those who have expressed dislike of "SKYFALL" have been insulted on this forum. If he wants to post a thread for those who want to discuss why they didn't like the film, just let him. Is that so hard?
IMO Bond films should be spy thrillers NOT action movies. When the series goes the action movie route the results are usually dire e.g TND, DAD, TWINE
But the condition is the cage door is locked and they are not allowed to spoil other threads.
Each to their own, one could call it. Sounds fair enough, but only works, if people stay away from each other then.
Well I can only speak for me personally, but I only insulted DTK because he called the film retarded and said anybody who liked it was an illiterate slob (but fair play to him apologising like that). I didn't have any problem with the reviews of you, zekidk or Getafix because you all just posted your opinions and made some good points.
^^^This. Like I said on another thread, I think people on both sides have gone too far with it and that's a shame because I'd actually like to discuss the film with people who think differently.
You are still missing the point. He threw the first insult with the "dumbed down illiterate
slobs" bit. We didn't start that. Someone who's been watching the films for 44 years like myself isn't going to take kindly to that. Dimi has given this thread the okay and now people like yourselves who can't appreciate the excellent film that SF is can freely state your opinions within the context of the rules. I'll be the first to say that I do not approve of censorship but there has to be some semblance of rule and structure and as such the site owners have decided what is and isn't acceptable and we all have to abide by that. I've been warned myself once upon a time so I don't claim to be some angel. But it's like TLR just more or less said, I like to have intelligent debates as opposed to getting insulted.
Such as Bond doing the whole 'look into my eyes' spiel for Severine saying he'll save her! Er, no he won't. Ambles on board her boat, shags her, what a surprise he gets found out! All well and good for a Roger Moore Golden Gun type film, not for anything else.
For me it went wrong a bit when we saw Craig's Bond deliberately create car mayhem in the pts, it's a bit of Martin Campbell-style havoc on the local civilian population, contrast how considerate Bond is in the London Tube scene! Of course, someone could just turn around and wack him then! Next daft scene is when we see Bond get onto the train. Not by pulling bike up to the bridge and jumping, oh no. By crashing headlong into the bridge at high speed and just hoping he'll land on the top of the train. Okaaaaay....
This is acceptable is it, someone openly saying on an MI6 thread that they are going to support bootleggers and so rip off everyone connected with making the film?
Well, in the other thread he suggested we should all smoke some weed so that we could see the truth as well. I wonder what will be next.
=)) That was great! I think I will do just that when I get the DVD to see if I get the same lack of buzz :)
Those comments tell everyone all they need to know. Not good form.
I think, to be fair @SirHenryLeeChaChing, it may be you who is missing the point. Look at ActonSteve's comment above. Read any of GL's comments in either thread. The abuse is generally flowing one way. Sadly, that's why a number of us had tried previously to start a separate thread for open and genuine discussion. On each occassion those threads were attacked and hijacked by the usual suspects and then closed. Apparently criticism of SF is boring, and yet here you all are, putting the boot into DTK and generally behaving, if you don't mind me saying, as if you personally own the gaff.
And so it comes to this - an intellectual apartheid. Enforced gaiety in one thread and the beatniks, refuseniks and perhaps occassional nutcase in the other.
It's a sorry sight. But as one more tolerant member has already observed, the criticism does tend to be more interesting! Ignore us leppers if you choose, but remember, you are always welcome on this side of the divide.