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Comments
I finally checked out Bourne Identity recently and that was alright but not a patch on CR or QoS IMO. Die Hard is alright but lacks the class of Bond!
Ah well, I know this is a bit off-topic! But those of us who didn't like Skyfall need to keep our options open haha :)
I agree - SF reminded me a lot of TWINE. But for me that's a bad thing! Overlong, boring and pretentious without any real depth OR entertainment value.
Interesting point about IMDB and Rotten Toms. I too noticed that there were a lot of nagative fan reviews on those sites. I was one of the first on here to openly say I didn't like SF and got a right kicking from a few hardcore craigites (fortunately things have normalised since then). I do think the response to SF is more mixed than some people are prepared to admit. There's no arguing with the box office but I've never seen that as the best barometer of whether a film is any good or not. Avatar grossed an insane amount but is garbage. A proper balanced assessment of SF won't be possible for a few years when the dust has all settled.
I also found the name of Skyfall a bit misleading... it made me think of something awesome like a drop from a plane or something or... something of great magnitude along the lines of the GoldenEye satellite! But all we actually got was a drop from a bridge and an old, large house in Scotland. Just seems a bit anticlimactic...
The film explored Bond's past, it's the perfect title! You must find Bond's past anti-climatic? It's never been done before and I sure want more.
All Critics,Top Critics
92
Average Rating: 8.2/10
Reviews Counted: 285
Fresh: 262 | Rotten: 23
audience
88
liked it
Average Rating: 4.2/5
User Ratings: 123,594
IMDB=8.0
Yeah, a lot of hidden haters there. The numbers can tell :))
But - forgot - the bad ones are ALL for real, whereas the good ones are from people, who didn't even see the film LOL
I suggest you follow another franchise now, because Bond 24 will probably deliver more of the same that we had in the excellent Skyfall.
Close your door on the way out.....
:-h
:-O
I just thought it was a bit too simple. I found all of the concepts and ideas comically simplistic and again, it felt like a parody. The Vesper background story seemed infinitely more complex and intelligent than what was explored in Skyfall (I agree with @Oligarch again there). After the intelligence of CR and QoS, I was half expecting Austin Powers to cameo at the end of Skyfall (which would have improved it no end lol).
I dunno. I guess I was very used to the new (CR/QoS) style.
Obviously it's all subjective and it's down to what the individual wants and looks for in a movie.
I'm keen to rewatch it now after all of these opinions have been shared, but last time I saw it I expected it to be totally great and was very disappointed. This time I'll expect it to suck so I wonder what will happen lol
The script dialogue in both CR and QoS were the weakest points, and this is where SF was actually far superior to the other films. I'd go as far as saying SF has the strongest dialogue script in the entire franchise.
As for Austin Powers parody, have you ever seen the Moore and Brosnan films? There is parody for you. SF is far from parody. I'd say it is the most intelligent Bond film in the franchise, with CR running a close second.
Maybe you watched a different film to the rest of us?
There are all manner of plotholes in SF, as someone said you can drive a truck thru them sideways. What is baffling is how the pro lobby jump down your throat if you're a non-believer. I mean, I love GF but is someone doesn't I can see where they're coming from.
I agree with this. CR and QOS were much more closer in tone than SF. CR and QOS had much grittier, violent action scenes, the humour was toned down a lot more, featured a generally more serious and hard edged Craig, didn't feature any gadgets (save for maybe the heart fibulator if you want to call that a gadget), and featured a continuation of principle characters: Felix, Mathis, and Mr. White. I'm not saying SF is far stretch from CR/QOS either though...quite the opposite: nothing like a Moore film as I mentioned above. But SF is the first of the Craig films to pull a little back to center between the super-serious and the light-heartedness. So in that sense SF is unique from the first two
That said, the whole M being sad at Bond's death after all their time together, all the 'you're getting old' stuff, would have made more sense with Brozzer in, say a 5th film.
Sorry but I just don't see it. CR and SF to me are very similar, and QoS is the odd one out. Fair enough if you don't like SF, I have no issues with that, but to state it is very different to CR is bizarre.
If a person didn't like SF as they don't like the new Craig direction, that I understand and respect. But to state SF is not like the other Craig films is strange to say the least.
The humour levels? The gadgets? Did I miss something here? There was the same amount of humour in SF as there was in the last 2 Craig films - ie. kept to a bare minimum. I found parts of SF to be just as dark (if not darker) than both CR and QoS.
As for gadgets? Are we referring to the signature gun, or the old guns found on the 1964 Aston Martin, because to me these do not count as `gadgets' when compared to the rest of the Bond films. Again, gadgets have been kept to a bare minimum.
And no, I'm not the same JSW on AJB, but I'm the same Sweeney on DCINB...... ;)
I see the Craig Bond in QoS very different to the Bond in CR and SF. This Bond jumped around from building to building like Super Mario Bros, and freefalled and landed with just a minor scratch, and showed no signs of physical pain.
Craig's Bond in SF was human again. He was out of breath at times, showed the strains, showed fear like he did in CR. We sadly never saw this in QoS, despite the splatters of blood on his shirt.
The CGI dragons, okay, not as silly as the CGI plane in QoS now I think about it.
I like Craig more in this generally, but you might almost say you see Bond looking out of shape in YOLT so it's the same... I think it's the sheer scale of the movie that seems more on a par with OP than Craig's first two, and also frankly some of the silly plot holes. Jokes about he's in a hurry in the rush hour, I just dropped in the water (near the end, can't remember), the Aston ejector seat gag, and also some not bad gags too (Day? Wasted) make for certainly more humour, though that ain't difficult.
I thought SF had more humour than the last two Craig films put together. Lots more one liners (especially in the casino bit), and there was the old couple on the platform, the bit with M in the DB5, Kincade calling Bond a jumped up little sh*t, etc.
Sign me up as a miserable bugger then, I personally don't share your views on OP. Relieve it of that Barry score and most of the tension is gone, infact Barry goes long way to making those later RM films so Bondian, try and imagine them without.
As for Q being better yes DL is the best all round he's the first the bench mark but his character by that time had been turned into a tired cliche, so no I actually prefer Wishaw's Q in SF as it's more refreshing. It all depends how you cling to the cliches I guess.
As for Bond I'm sorry but I don't watch the films with rose tinted specs on so no I think Craig is a much better Bond personally. I couldn't say they are anywhere close to each other SF is top tier OP is right down the bottom.
As I said take the Barry score away from allot of these substandard entries some of you cling on to for sentimental sake and we'll see how good they look, I've said it before to me Barry is more important to Bond overall than Connery ever was he made those films exciting like no actor or director could ever do, take that music away and see how well those films would fare with low grade Arnold instead.
Nobody will top Desmond as Q and I don't prefer the new computer whizz Q just because he's "fresher"
I loved most of the humour but I thought the entire casino fight was at odds with the rest of the film. Would've been great in a Moore flick but in Skyfall, especially after the Severine bit just before (where she talked about her past as a prossy), it felt a bit jarring.
Bond even pointed to the lizard thing in the same manner Dr.Kananga did when he saw the shark, so i would say that scene was a nod to Roger Moore's era
Barry is undoubtably a part of the great legacy of the Bond films. But it's very black and white to suggest that he is carrying the whole of the film (OP in this case) - and this was one of Barry's more subdued scores. Most importantly, there is a good story to be told first and foremost: a doube O agent is murdered leaving a clue of a faberge egg, which leads to a plot of a Soviet General and an exiled Afghan Prince to bomb a US airbase and destabilize East-West Cold War relations. There are great characters, great acting, and the other elements @thelivingroyale mentioned.
And from another perspective, Barry was absent in TSWLM and FYEO, and those films were great on their own merits: great Bond performance, supporting characters, plot, tension, action, locations, etc. Then there is a the case with AVTAK, where there are over-the-hill pricipal actors, weak Bond girls, bland direction, but still a decent plot with some neat Bond moments (breathing through the air in the tire for example): Barry does a lot for the film, but not enough to save it. Some would argue the same for Golden Gun. Barry is every bit a part of what made the Bond films through '87 exceptional, but he is one of many important personnel: Producer (Cubby), Writer (Richard Maibaum), Set Designers, Directors, cinematographers. So I can take off the "rose-colored lenses" and still see a quality Bond film.
Skyfall... I felt like it couldn't make its mind up. On the one hand, I felt that it was actually darker than Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, which I found quite bright and vibrant despite their (sometimes) violent content. On the other, it tried to inject humour into what I felt was a fundamentally dark and quite depressing movie.
It just made no sense to me. Looking at the harsh black and white of the film's branding, that fits the film very well to me - an uncomfortable mix of attempted quite extreme light and dark with no careful blending or intelligent merging of the two. It was like "dramatic, dark scene -> cheesy joke -> dramatic, dark scene -> cheesy joke".
Just not my style at all.
How many of the Bond films have you seen now, as I'm guessing you haven't seen that many. Also, how many of the Fleming novels have you read?
TLR you are just opinated and woud you apply the same logic to your beloved LTK?
The Q sequences are just as if not more jarring to the overrall plot of the film infact that film far morr uneven than SF, it strikes far more of a better balance.