853 replies to this topic

[MarcAngeDraco]

So many words, so little to say...

Can't even be bothered to read it all.

[Hockey Mask]

Cute but wrong (except the Batman stuff).

[quantumofsolace]

http://nantwich-news...he-odeon-crewe/

[00 Brosnan]

SKYFALL: A modern day Bond with a 60's flavor

The criticisms I've heard so far around the web, "not enough action," "boring," "Craig is not a good Bond." Ladies and gentlemen, these are not Bond fans.

After the brilliant Casino Royale and the very disappointing Quantum of Solace, SkyFall is just what I was hoping for out of Daniel Craig's third outing as Bond. The realistic, modern, and human elements of the Craig era are all there, but a return to the series of old (where fitting) is dynamite. Fantastic pacing, check. Cool car with gadgets, check. Q, check. Moneypenny, check. The list goes on.

Craig brings a dynamic presence and acting range to the role no previous actor has matched. His human element and almost underdog status are felt. Dench is excellent as usual, but I believe this is her finest performance as 007's boss, M. Bardem is a throwback to the villains of old, which is refreshing to see in my opinion. Naomi Harris as Moneypenny was an excellent choice and despite what I've read, her and Craig have great chemistry. You can feel the sexual tension between them.

My only real complaint about the film is that Bernice Marlohe wasn't used as much as I would have liked. Glad they re-shot Craig's gunbarrel sequence as well, the version in QoS was awful.

Edited by 00 Brosnan, 14 November 2012 - 08:54 PM.

[byline]

Anyone who's read the essays at Number 007 knows that the author, Ian Dunross doesn't think highly of Craig Bond or the current era. Here's his take on SKYFALL.

Wow. So many words, so little said.

[glidrose]

Ian Dunross = tosser

What has become of the British education system? All those years of higher learner and that's the best he can do?

As others have said, he didn't review the movie. He just rationalized his own prejudices.

[Revelator]

My only real complaint about the film is that Bernice Marlohe wasn't used as much as I would have liked.

Yes, I think that's a legitimate complaint. The character was introduced with a detailed backstory, and then disposed of shortly afterward--her buildup seemed liked a bit of a waste. I initially couldn't even determine whether she had fainted or had died after the William Tell routine. I know the film was long, but surely we could have seen a bit more of her, and maybe some character resolution.

[danielcc]

I think the problem with Severine is not that she is under-used compared to other/previous bondgirls. Actually I wonder about all those strange comments in some reviews claiming that there are no bondgirls as they used to be. B ullsh it!
Severine's role is exactly that of a second bondgirl, the sacrificial lamp used by Bond to get to his real target. So the problem is not that her appearance is too short to other bondgirls (see Tilly Masterson or Jill Masterson from GF) but the problem is that Berenice Marlohe is so freakingly amazing in her short performance. Honestly, I was struck by her acting.

The one long scene with her and Craig in the Casino is some of the most impressive and intense acting I have ever seen in a Bond movie. I love her role just for that one scene.

Yes, she could have been around longer, but they ultimately put everything they needed in that one pivotal scene which is brillantly written and beautifully executed.

[MkB]

I have seen what’s obviously English countryside standing in for Turkish landscape.

But of course you did! LOL!
I'd like to know when was the last time this guy saw actual English countryside... or actual Turkish countryside!

[Vauxhall]

I'd clearly missed that particular factually wrong statement by skimming too quickly! Gah.

[pgram]

I saw SF on its premiere day in Greece, 2 weeks ago. I may have forgotten a few things since then, but here goes....

My opinion is almost 100% negative. I am a fan of the more serious approach of the Craig era. I still think DAD was awful. But...

Bond films used to be feel-good films, even in their darkest moments. For what it's worth, it had never rained in a Bond film until recently. And the last two films are gloomy as hell. What is the next step, hire Lars von Trier for Bond24?

First things first...

PTS:
I hated the lack of gunbarrel. The no-gunbarrel-at-the-beginning gimmick is too old and tired. Even if it made some sense in CR (which I still doubt), it was nonsense in QoS as it is in SF.
The rest is OK, well shot, but unfortunately completely predictable, since most of it was at the trailer. The PTS ending is no surprise either, if you've paid any attention to the lyrics of the song. Still, it is the only decent action sequence of the film.

TS:
I was all for Adele doing it. She proved me right, her performance is good. The song is mostly boring and depressing, matching the rest of the film. Don't know if that's a success of the song (to match the film so well) or if I should blame it for adding to the overall depressing mood of the film. The actual credits sequence is good, glad to see Kleinmann's back. Not as good as CR, but decent. I think it just needed a couple of more interesting visual ideas.

Main body:
Question 1: Before watching the film, I thought they were going to use the amnesia subplot from TMWTGG, after Bond's fall. They don't. Why doesn't Bond go back to England but stays in Turkey playing with scorpions and drinking Heineken? I suppose the writers' answer is that he's pissed that M ordered Eve to shoot. Nonsense, I says. This is afternoon soap psychology (very common since Purvis and Wade took over).

OK, let's suppose that's OK. What's all this fuss about his age and skills? It's only the second film after the (unnecessary if you ask me) reboot. Why is 007 old? Sure, that's the 50th anniversary, but when are they going to stop self-referencing and just focus on the actual story?

Once again, in a recent Bond film, there is a conflict of what they want to say, and what they actually say. SF's theme is supposed to be the conflict between old and new, classic and modern. Bond is supposed to represent classic, but there's nothing classic (or classy) about him. And there's nothing in Silva that shows he represents the opposite. He's supposed to be a high-tech terrorist, among other things, but there's no backstory that justifies this. Throughout the second half of the film, they try to send signals only he can identify. Why? They didn't even know he existed until recently, and now they know his exact skills? What is Bond's plan? To take M with him in a place where they will be completely unprotected, not take any men with them, not even guns and ammunition, and wait for an army of villains to come and kill them (how he knows it's going to be many men completely escapes me). Why? Because they thought there would be a dramatic element in setting a scene at Bond's family house. It is yet another example of the aforementioned conflict. Of course, it is a stupid plan. Suppose Silve went there (let us forget he flew a military helicopter all over Olympic Britain without any problem) and threw a bomb at the mansion. End of the story. Bond's plan is completely idiotic. To show us this fight between new and old the writers forgot to check if their story made any sense.

Let us also not forget that this is officially the first time in 50 years of cinematic Bond, that he fails the mission. Silva wants to kill M. Silve kills M. The fact that Bond kills him doesn't change that, Silva wanted to die anyway. But, of course, M dies in Bond's arms, it is a dramatic moment. Nonsense, once more, the artistic delusions of the filmmakers made them oversee the obvious: Bond fails the mission. And it is actually all his fault.

And Albert Finnay's, too. Here they are, two old people, walking in the dark, trying to escape the bad guys. What do they do? Switch on a torch, so they can see! How obvious it is Purvis and Wade have never been to the army! That's literally the first thing they tell you in the army. Is there any chance in the world this could have happened in a Fleming book?

Severine's character is lame, too. There has to be a 2nd Bond girl (if we suppose Eve is the 1st one), she has to die, she has to be a femme fatale. Just because. Of course, Bond's plan is idiotic once more. He promises to help her but does absolutely nothing.

The casino scene is OK, despite the Return of the Jedi Rankor influence. There even exists an homage to TMWTGG-film, fanboys rejoice!

What purpose served having the killer in Macau escapes me, too. Other than having an "artistic" shadow fight scene, that is. Style over substance at its most obvious.

Silva's island was a nice set, but what exact purpose did that serve? Other than including him in a villains' with an impressive headquarters list? Completely unjustified, he could do what he was doing from any flat anywhere in the world (unlike, say, Blofeld's hollowed-out volcano that was essential for rocket launching). Still, a nice set.

The court scene was just awful. Boring as hell, and tedious and (again) afternoon soap. M reciting poetry? Spare me the Lafkadio Hearne, Fleming's Bond would have said... It was the first time in my life I see a Bond film for the first time and got sleepy. Honest!

The list of stupid story elements that were there because the filmmakers wanted to make a point, completely forgetting the actual story is endless (Bond on the rooftop at the end, etc). Still, I don't want to make my review too long, but I guess you got an idea.

I liked the use of London. Xavier Bardem was superb in his acting, even though I didn't like his character. All the cast was really good. Cinematography was nice, especially upon arrival in Scottland. Music was OK, but not memorable. Action was mediocre, apart from PTS. Humour was almost non-existent, and even when it did, it was spoiled somehow (e.g. ejector-seat joke, ruined by M's whinning).

I hated the Moneypenny bit (not Naomie, I like her). The cheap tricks with the DB5, the old office etc. Once again, at the end of this film we got the Bond we knew and loved. Supposedly. Like the last time. We will be expecting a gunbarrel at the beginning of the next one. If we care about it, until the next one.

Last, I wanted to mention Berenice Marlohe: I knew she was stunning before I saw the film. What I didn't know was that she would give such a magnificent performance. She was PERFECT. Subtle, intense, mysterious, gorgeous. Pure perfection. If only she was onscreen longer she might make it a bit more tolerable.

Yours sincerely,

Pgram

[pgram]

Just realised I posted on the wrong thread, if the mods could move it to the members reviews thread...

[danielcc]

Wow, what a nice list of pretty pointless remarks. Sorry, but each and everyone thing that you criticize could be said exactly like that about any of the older Bond movies, except for the things you just got wrong :-)

Somehow, you miss the point that this is not only a movie but a Bond movie. If everyone in there would behave 100% logical, there would be no movie.

For example: Why didn`t they just drop a bomb on Blofelds volcano in YOLT instead of sending 100s of Ninjas in there? Oh, why did Blofeld not operate from an industrial hangar? Style over sustance, I guess
Another example: Severine serves exactly the same purpose as dozens of Bond girls before - why should Bond even care about her and her death?? He uses her, as he uses women to get to his target

and so on, and so on...

If you did not like the movie that's fine. But don't blame it for things that actually make up Bond movies or for things that are worse in all other Bond movies

Edited by danielcc, 15 November 2012 - 05:11 PM.

[pgram]

Wow, what a nice list of pretty pointless remarks. Sorry, but each and everyone thing that you criticize could be said exactly like that about any of the older Bond movies, except for the things you just got wrong :-)

Somehow, you miss the point that this is not only a movie but a Bond movie. If everyone in there would behave 100% logical, there would be no movie.

For example: Why didn`t they just drop a bomb on Blofelds volcano in YOLT instead of sending 100s of Ninjas in there? Oh, why did Blofeld not operate from an industrial hangar? Style over sustance, I guess
Another example: Severine serves exactly the same purpose as dozens of Bond girls before - why should Bond even care about her and her death?? He uses her, as he uses women to get to his target

and so on, and so on...

If you did not like the movie that's fine. But don't blame it for things that actually make up Bond movies or for things that are worse in all other Bond movies

I kind of agree with your comments. There are too many things that make no sense in practically all the Bond films, including the "good old ones".

There's a subtle difference, though, in the feel of the films: old ones are light-hearted, even the Connery ones. The nonsensical bits were there just for the fun (the car leaving without Moore in it in TMWTGG, for example), or to move the story along faster. But this one had a serious pretence, therefore, if it wants to be serious, it had better made sure it is. I'm in Japan now, and it's too late to expand too much about it, but the bottomline of my points is that in order to make a story that feels very dramatic and realistic and play on deep psychological themes, they completely neglected important issues about the actual events; important events of the story. We learn most of the writers' intentions through interviews about the film, rather than the film itself.

Not saying there is no story-telling, there is just not good story-telling.

Me thinks. If you liked it, good for you.

[The Shark]

Despite all of the heavy drama, SKYFALL is a surprisingly warm and light hearted film. The humour helps that, as does the casting (Naomie Harris and Ben Wishaw in particular) and Thomas Newman's score.

[JimmyBond]

I recall when my friend first saw the teaser, he turned to me and said "That doesn't look at all funny like you said it would." It's true the trailers don't let in on it, but as you pointed out Shark, this is a really lighthearted film. Granted it has it's more serious moments, but I'd gather that this film is more fun on a purely entertainment level than the previous two Craig films.

[Dustin]

Just realised I posted on the wrong thread, if the mods could move it to the members reviews thread...

Sorry, have no idea how that is done. Why don't you just post it there yourself?

[JimmyBond]

It's already garnering a lot of discussion here, may as well leave it now.

[Revelator]

There's already a thread devoted to CBN Members' reviews, but I'd like to devote a thread to some of the more notable reactions of professional movie critics. Most of these have been good, and they're also quite similar. (The few bad reviews are also similar to each other.)
For an example of a good all-around review that pays attention to the visuals, there's Ray Pride's article from Newcity Film:

Grand Theater: The Stagecraftiness of “Skyfall,” the latest Bond

$287 million and counting: a week before opening in the United States and ten days after opening internationally, “Skyfall” is making one pretty Moneypenny. An admirable virtue of Sam Mendes’ film is that the dialogue in the screenplay by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade and John Logan in Bond’s fiftieth year seldom stoops to that kind of second-rate pun-play, with much of the dialogue winky but not weary, self-conscious but not punny: “Only a bold woman wears a backless dress with a Beretta strapped to her thigh”; and later “I like you better without your Beretta”; the in-jokey “Fifty-year-old Macallan, a favorite of yours, I understand” and the literal (but also figurative) “Storm’s coming.” It’s good money for value, as a Brit might say: moody, broody, and expertly made; as much a good movie as a fine Bond movie.

Logan, a playwright by first trade, wrote screenplays for “Gladiator,” “Hugo,” “Rango,” “Sweeney Todd” and “Any Given Sunday,” among others, but he and Mendes take advantage of their shared theatrical background. Extended tête-à-tête mano-a-manos between British actors of several generations—Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Albert Finney—take advantage of their performance skills. But individual setpieces are weighted with visual elements that draw from a theatrical vocabulary, such as Dench’s besorrowed M overlooking gray London at a picture window slashed with billions of cold tears, match-cut to a wounded Bond cascading over a waterfall like a spent package, as well as a martial arts duel in a disused floor of a Shanghai high-rise lit only by sky-high scrim of neon sculpture. High-art allusions bristle gainfully more of the sort of strokes and coups-de-theatre that would be used to extend the space of the stage, such as the bad guy held in a cage that makes him less Hannibal Lecter and more one of Francis Bacon’s screaming popes. In the National Portrait Gallery, Q (Whishaw) meets Bond in front of J. M. W. Turner’s painting of furious battle at sea, “The Fighting Temeraire,” which prompts a knowing, relevant historical aside, but alongside that is the fantastically simple and haunting 1844 painting “Rain, Steam and Speed.” But a glimpse: the nineteenth century offering a phrase that suits its twentieth-century spy, here, now, in the twenty-first.

While Bond’s passage into middle age is dark, it’s not dour, especially when you consider scenes like a chaste but close passage where he allows fellow agent Eve (Harris) to shave him close with his own straight razor, close, down on her knees: fraught, since the last time Bond sat in such a wicker chair, in “Casino Royale,” his testicles were roundly lashed. The most topical element of the modern-world plotting is the bad guy, Silva, the script modeling Bardem’s louche, white-maned murderer after Wikileaks’ Julian Assange with slanderous glee. Silva’s a Malkovichian Cro-Magnon, a lip-smacking jerk, ripely inhabited. The byplay between the two, exploring what the two may have in common, plays out on one of Hong Kong’s many unlisted islands, a deserted city that’s been shot up and weathered like a Srebrenica-by-the-bay. Taunting Bond as he’s tied to a chair, Silva says, “Your knees must be killing you,” a further iteration of the gesture to just coincidentally both receive royal honors and to perform fellatio.

Fabric is flung and torn, too: Tom Ford’s trim suits are a special effect in themselves, neatly gussying Craig’s blocky form: one coat, especially, a bespoke pea coat, is whimsical, near risible and just right, pluperfect peacockolatry. Roger Deakins shot “Skyfall” with the same digital capture format he used on “In Time,” but he brings the same cool eye for space as in the more formal compositions of the many Coen brothers movies he’s shot, as well as “Jarhead” and “Revolutionary Road” for Mendes. It’s one gorgeous-looking movie. Brand names, a perennial fixture of the series, are prominent yet discreet: Heineken cases in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar and bottles downed at leisure on a tropical isle; VW Beetles crushed by the half-dozen; the latest Coca-Cola bottles on any given desk; a dram of Courvoisier with the label cheated to camera just so; a glimpse of a fictional news network, “CNN” with a character called “Wolf” and “Blitzer.” A raft of scenes boasts a fuckload of liquor. (All because all the players want a smoke and no one can have one.) When Bond returns from an unscheduled evaporation, bearing shrapnel from depleted uranium shells, as if on the battlefield in Iraq, M snips, “Ran out of drink where you were, did they,” no question mark, thank you.

In an era of remote-controlled, legally dubious drone warfare, what good, the question is repeatedly asked of the women and men of MI6, are assets in the field, feet on the ground, flesh in the flesh? Not so much that it costs money, mind you, but there’s the possibility of revelations, investigations and loss of sustaining prestige. There’s no real critique of power in “Skyfall,” but there is the sleek, pulse-quickening romance of managing self-image, influence and power as days grow dark and fewer. (Ray Pride)

For thoughtful general review, on can turn to Salon:

“Skyfall”: Bi-curious Bond?
Daniel Craig's grittier 007 faces contemporary sexuality and imperial angst in the moody, spectacular "Skyfall"
BY ANDREW O'HEHIR

Reinventing the James Bond franchise to fit the sexual and cultural politics of the 21st century is a dicey proposition at best, and it’s safe to say we’ve seen mixed results so far. If Daniel Craig’s 2006 debut as Bond in “Casino Royale” was a smashing success, bringing a new physicality and cinematic verve to the series along with a touch of real-world anomie, the dour and violent “Quantum of Solace” arguably went too far in the latter direction. (I actually thought it was an interesting experiment, if not an entirely successful one, but fans who complained that it didn’t seem much like a Bond movie were correct.) That $225 million misstep nearly succeeded in killing off the series – which left the world of Ian Fleming’s novels behind long, long ago – but now Bond and Craig are back in “Skyfall,” a rich, impressive, overstuffed and rather chilly spectacle that already looks like the biggest hit in franchise history, even before its American release.

I suppose the obvious thing to say about the Bond series is that it’s a stylized and gendered fantasy universe with almost no connection to the real world. But it’s never been quite that simple. Of course Sean Connery’s iconic 007 of the 1960s was an idealized projection of maleness, an object of narcissistic lust for preadolescent males first of all, and only secondarily for women. He combined classic masculine characteristics of strength, virility and stoicism with more feminine standards like style, grooming and verbal wit; in many respects Connery-as-Bond was the grandfather of the metrosexual. There can be no doubt that he shaped the gender identity of an entire generation of boys; “Goldfinger,” “Dr. No” and “Diamonds Are Forever” (which, inexplicably, my friends and I decided was the best of them all) are closely linked in my memory with my first glimpses of my big brother’s Playboy collection, and the semiotics are about the same.

You can probably explain a lot about the contemporary “crisis of masculinity” by tracing the Bond character through the decadent self-parody of the Roger Moore era, the brief and underappreciated Timothy Dalton interregnum and the semi-renaissance under ironic, imperturbable Pierce Brosnan. Let’s leave that for someone else’s doctoral dissertation and fast-forward to Craig, who presents an earthier, more physical 007 than any of his predecessors. Yes, he’s an actor who possesses unusual and ambiguous sexual power (employed to entertaining effect in “Skyfall”), but I’m actually talking about something more or something different. With his blocky physique, short-cropped hair and tightly tailored clothing, Craig feels connected to the stone and soil of Britain in a way no previous Bond has. Sure, Craig’s 007 can swill frou-frou cocktails with exotic beauties in a high-end Macao casino, but he’s arguably more comfortable on a London rooftop or a Scottish moor.

In what’s sure to be among the most discussed gender-studies moments of 2012, James Bond finds himself imprisoned on a devastated Chinese island by a nefarious character called Silva, played by Javier Bardem as the first overtly gay villain in Bond history. Now, the character of Silva is likely to be controversial on his own. I think he’s intended to offer a new twist on the long and unfortunate cinematic history of gay male psychopaths – he’s queeny and devious, but also plenty skilled in the male-coded arts of warfare – but I’m not sure that entirely lets Mendes and the writers off the hook. Anyway, whether out of genuine desire or a desire to undercut 007’s masculinity, Silva slides up close to his bound antagonist and caresses his thighs: “There’s a first time for everything – eh, Mr. Bond?” But Bond meets his captor’s gaze with his customary implacability and asks, “What makes you think it’s my first time?”

No, I’m not suggesting that director Sam Mendes or his writing team (John Logan, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade) intend to raise serious questions about James Bond’s sexual orientation or possible level of bi-curiosity. It’s a gag, but a gag with a purpose: The ultimate secret-agent man’s man is familiar with the concept of homosexuality, and doesn’t view it as a matter for snickering or an outright impossibility. Of such baby steps is a new society forged! More seriously, that moment captures the complicated dance the makers of “Skyfall” are trying to pull off: Situating James Bond in a more modern and slightly more realistic (or “realistic”) context, while holding onto his fantasy allure and remaining loyal to the ritualistic and episodic storytelling style that’s integral to this series.

In “Skyfall” as in “Casino Royale,” Craig’s Bond is meant to seem more vulnerable, more prone to human failings, than the character has ever been before. We see him unshaven (with gray in his stubble!), seriously wounded and/or seriously drunk, out of shape and unable to pass a basic target-shooting test. There’s an obvious contradiction here, since 100 percent of the potential audience knows that Bond is in practical terms an immortal character, that he has as much chance of not surviving or not triumphing as Odysseus does of not reaching home at the end of the poem that’s named after him. Yet Odysseus is made to suffer en route to his destination and so is Bond, who faces a number of major losses in between the show-stopping action scenes (which are some of the best in series history).

As hardcore fans already know, Bond’s past is linked to the landowning gentry of Scotland, and his family’s brooding ancestral manse actually becomes the climactic setting for “Skyfall” (featuring a nice cameo from Albert Finney as the crusty gamekeeper). Whether Mendes is really trying to add grit and dimension to Bond’s story or just cramming in another cinematic reference – in this case, to Alfred Hitchcock’s espionage classic “The 39 Steps,” which is also about a Scottish manhunt – is debatable. “Skyfall” is moody, thrilling and for the most part beautifully made, but like so much of contemporary action cinema it’s less like a story than a series of disconnected episodes, drawn from a whole range of plots and genres but employing the same characters.

Mind you, a lot of those episodes are pretty doggone terrific, and from the first seconds Mendes (best known for serious indie drama like “American Beauty” and “Revolutionary Road”) makes clear that he’s sticking closely to Bond formula and not arting up the thing too much. We begin with a dynamite opening chase sequence on the streets and rooftops of Istanbul, and then atop a train into the Turkish countryside, concluding with a surprise twist out of a classic Sherlock Holmes adventure (I won’t say which one). While the plot is the usual MacGuffin-ish search for something or someone – in this case, a hard drive that will reveal the identities of numerous British and American agents – the globetrotting quest packs in more film-school references to other movies than I could count, including several other Bond pictures, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Silence of the Lambs” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” (The technical work here is outstanding, especially Roger Deakins’ cinematography.)

There’s a tremendous fight sequence set inside a Shanghai skyscraper, shot entirely in silhouette against a backdrop of “Blade Runner”-scale digital billboards, and another one in the aforementioned ultra-louche Macao casino, involving a pair of giant carnivorous lizards. But “Skyfall” is also among the most conspicuously British of the Bond films, a blend of Empire nostalgia and generational anxiety that features a devastating terrorist attack on the M.I.6 headquarters in London and the prospect that Judi Dench’s M will be forced out by an officious Tory politician (Ralph Fiennes). As a brand-new wonder boy Q (Ben Whishaw) tells 007, the gadgetry of the past has been set aside in favor of ruthless efficiency. Which does not mean – spoiler alert! – that you won’t see that classic Aston Martin at some point.

Honestly, the convoluted plot surrounding Bardem’s dyed and spackled villain and the vague mood of “Homeland”-style paranoia feel as incidental as Bond’s come-and-go heterosexual liaisons. (Naomie Harris and French actress Bérénice Marlohe offer the non-Craig eye candy.) “Skyfall” is a push-pull between the past and the present, an effort to drag a symbol of maleness as iconic as the Union Jack bulldog on M’s desk into a world of approximate gender equality and approximate acceptance of sexual difference. I’m not sure how sustainable that is over the long term; this is a smashing entertainment, but also one that feels over-engineered and constrained by its origins. But if James Bond’s definitely not going to get it on with a supervillain – especially not one with such execrable taste in shirts – he doesn’t feel embarrassed about that thing that happened at Oxford that time.

Ed Champion's review, which I've excerpted, has some clever insights into the family thematics:

...I’m pleased to report that Skyfall is a sharp, thrilling, classy, and rich-looking installment announcing a confident trajectory for the Daniel Craig iteration of James Bond. While it’s somewhat alarming to see Craig transform from the new double circle on the block to aging agent in six mere years, he remains an enjoyably chilly and crisp Bond, preferring to unleash his quiet fury when his car is destroyed rather than when the people around him die. He’s good enough to ask about agents who have been killed, but this is more of a functional than a empathic query. He’s willing to rip shards of depleted uranium from his chest to ID a sniper. When given little more than a radio transmitter and a pistol responding to his thumbprint from Q or the family hunting rifle for a final showdown, he’ll make do with the Spartan setup. He’s the James Bond for the “too big to fail” age. If he wasn’t busy strangling henchmen with his legs in icy water, he’d have a bustling career as a corporate efficiency expert.

You could say that Craig’s Bond is the closest to Richard Stark’s Parker. Like Parker, Craig’s Bond is focused and economical, even when he’s holding onto the bottom of an elevator to pursue a sniper. Yet Bond’s commitment to professionalism extends beyond money. He isn’t against vacation. But his duty to his country, perhaps anchored by his reliance on pills and alcohol, hinders him from becoming a full-fledged sociopath. “Orphans make the best recruits,” says M to Bond. And the price for being a double agent is extirpating your need for family. It’s a distinction that former MI6 agent Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem, playing the baddie here), fails to understand, which may be one of the reasons Silva insists on calling M “Mommy.”

We’re informed early on that not everybody can make it out in the field. But while a lesser action film would drop this idea after the handsome actors deliver the details to advance the story, Skyfall actually follows up on this idea throughout its fast-moving two and a half hours. Aside from the many literal missed shots informing the narrative, Skyfall is smart enough to show us M’s poor pistol marksmanship when away from the office. We also see an injured Bond lose his aim after a serious injury (with Silva taking advantage of this later on an island in a very gripping William Tell moment).

Here is a Bond entry in which the best people don’t always make the best decisions on the job. But in Skyfall, there’s the suggestion that real world know-how is no match against technology. It isn’t just the service door that refuses to open in the Underground when there’s an oncoming train. The creative team here understands that Bond has always been steeped in an old world approach. By pitting MI6 against a vengeful hacker who would throw an Ugandan election just for kicks, the human intelligence — the way Bond has worked and seduced a room — that has always buttressed the series is given an intriguing trial. But if being a double agent is “a young man’s game,” there’s surprising adaptability for the old dogs in need of a shave. As Bond tells a man who attempts to seduce him, “What makes you think this is my first time?”

We even get to see M reciting Tennyson’s “Ulysses” during a public inquiry. Beyond this unexpected literary reading (not without precedent, given Simon Raven’s contributions to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), there’s also an unexpected cameo from an obnoxious CNN anchor. The priapic qualities of the old world may gave us James Bond, but it also saddles us with Wolf Blitzer.

I suspect these sly nuances — which have much to do with John Logan working with the established Neal Purvis and Robert Wade screenwriting team this time around — may cause Skyfall to hold up slightly better than Casino Royale‘s darker edge and Guantanamo Bay-inspired torture scene. While it’s tempting to compare the three Daniel Craig films with Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, Skyfall allows us more room to settle in. It’s possible that the delay in production caused Skyfall‘s creative team to tighten what they had. Because the exciting opening train chase, Silva’s indelible parable of the two rats, and the new Q trying to hide his sneaky work from Gareth Mallory are the types of moments that emerge from artful and well-considered entertainment.

It was also a brilliant move to get Roger Deakins on board as cinematographer. His ambers and umbers give this film the glow of fifty year scotch. There’s one especially coruscating scene in a Shanghai high rise, where Bond dukes it out with a sniper against the dazzling backdrop of endless glass and projected lights from the outside rolling slowly into the dark.

While Adele’s theme song is marvelous, Thomas Newman’s pulsating score is a major disappointment. Newman’s music here seems more at home in a forgettable action movie playing on HBO at three in the morning. I don’t know if John Barry can ever be replaced, but if the Bond films are going to step it up with installments like Casino Royale and Skyfall, then the Broccoli-Wilson team needs a composer to match.

For a more sour, even slightly resentful take, here are excerpts from Vadim Rizov's GreenCine review:

About halfway through Skyfall, James Bond (Daniel Craig) finally meets this installment's villain, Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem). Per usual, there's plenty of time for 007 and his prey to chat, so Raoul explains his cyberterrorism operations in detail. "Everybody needs a hobby," Bond smirks. "What's yours?" asks Silva. "Resurrection," says Bond, speaking on behalf of an ever-anachronistic series perpetually plagued by production delays.

...In a word association test, Bond doesn't hesitate to answer "country" with "England." The good old British bulldog spirit that built empires lives on M's desk, in the form of a porcelain canine with the Union Jack on its rump. Skyfall asks viewers to accept reactionary sentiments as eternal verities. M defends MI6's mission asserting that what looks silly and quaint is vital, which extends to limitless counter-terrorist shoot-to-kill activities for the good of all, never subject to review from nattering prime ministers who don't understand what's at stake. Bond's always been a rogue MI6 representative, but the implications of his contempt for authority cut deeper in a time of barely disclosed drone attacks and shadowy international law enforcement. Wrapping this kind of plea for unlimited authority in the British flag makes this plea even more old-school: taken to its logical limit, Skyfall would extend to an argument for recolonizing the Empire in the name of the greater good. (cf. Eldridge Cleaver: "The 'paper tiger' hero, James Bond, offering whites a triumphant image of themselves, is saying what many whites want desperately want to hear reaffirmed: I am still the White Man, lord of the land, licensed to kill, and the world is still an empire at my feet.") The finale finds Bond as lord of the Scottish manor, defending his territory from maniacal foreigners.

... "Sometimes the old ways are the best," Bond asserts in one of many pointed arguments for the series' eternal (ir)relevance. Later, M will recite Tennyson, Lord Alfred's "Ulysses" to a committee questioning her MI6 stewardship: "We are not that strength which in old days moved heaven and earth." Then Bond comes in and shoots some people, administering peace through strength.

The post-Empire angst is of greater interest than the series' attempt to deepen Bond by assigning him a tragic childhood backstory that "explains" why he has an "alcohol and substance abuse" problem. (Do cartoons need backstories?) The script goes cod-Freudian, with M's deferential "mam" becoming a surrogate "Mummy" for Bond and Silva. Attempts at psychological gravity or no, there's never a "new Bond," only some distracting feints in that direction until the time is right to reintroduce the old standbys and the unkillable super-spy makes all right with impossible timing and unwavering aim. The new Q (Ben Whishaw) refuses to give Bond the usual fancy gadgets, but fret not: the Aston Martin with machine guns in its headlights from Goldfinger will be along eventually, complete with a Bond brass blurt.

Director Sam Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins' shared job is to give old thrills fresh forms. Ever since his cinematic debut with American Beauty, Mendes tends for starchy, heavy-handed drama. Skyfall finds a fleet use for his technical acumen, and Deakins renders the film gorgeous. (One familiar image from their past collaboration on Jarhead: a nighttime field lit only by orange flames, only this time the background for running-and-gunning instead of contemplative staring.) The ostensibly moody touches are but window dressing for the most-muscled Bond on record (who, in 2006's Casino Royale emerged from the ocean like Ursula Andress in Dr. No) to give the audience what they came for. Nearly every Bond film coasts on franchise goodwill while delivering mediocre delights. Skyfall is the unreconstructed ideal, mixing preposterousness and expert stuntwork in perfect proportion.

Last, for now, is an another look at the film's family themes, done in an amused tone by the New Statesman's Ryan Gilbey:

If the first two films in Daniel Craig’s tenure as James Bond adopted a new broom approach, the mood of Skyfall is very much “out with the old, in with the old”. Nostalgia permeates the movie. “I like to do things the old-fashioned way,” says Bond, while several characters deliver the film’s mission statement: “Sometimes the old ways are the best.” Humour makes a comeback, which is good news for anyone who rightly cherishes Bond’s use of alligators as stepping stones in Live and Let Die, as do familiar figures including Q (Ben Whishaw), the gadgets expert reborn as a boyish computer whizz. Q boasts of the upset he can cause sitting at his laptop in his pyjamas, which may or may not be a Chatroulette joke.

Craig has relaxed into Bond without losing any steeliness. He still looks like a dented bullet with bat ears: appearing at the home of his MI6 boss, M (Judi Dench), he is as recognisable in silhouette as Mickey Mouse. M is being plagued by a terrorist who has access to the identities of MI6’s undercover operatives and is taunting her about past sins. It looks like Bond is in for the shock experienced by any child upon discovering that their mother had a life predating parenthood.

M turns out to be rather like the heroine of a Victorian melodrama who has put up her baby for adoption: while stationed in Hong Kong before the handover, she surrendered to China an agent of hers, Silva (Javier Bardem), who had antagonised the Chinese government. His new family gave him enough material for an entire shelf of misery memoirs and now he is determined to make Mummy face up to her mistakes. He destroys buildings and derails trains, which is an extreme way of handling abandonment issues. At least Bond now has a long-lost brother, sort of. He and Silva have a lot of catching up to do and obviously it would be nicer if this could take place without Bond being tied to a chair, but then no family is perfect.

Bond can certainly feel secure in the knowledge that he is M’s golden boy. Even Silva’s name is obscurely reassuring: silver, secondbest, second place on the podium. But Bond knows that what happened to Silva could happen to him too. No wonder he pulls out the stops to dazzle M. The final third of the film is taken up with Bond organising what anyone with siblings will know is a luxury beyond compare: quality time alone with Mum. Bond even wheels out the Aston Martin DB5 in her honour. She’s his special girl.

Silva can’t match that. He dyed his hair platinum, presumably to advertise kinship with his white-haired matriarch, but M would have seen through that even if his exotic, florid Spanish accent hadn’t given him away. Judi Dench has already been seen this year in J . Edgar as a matriarch disapproving of her gay son, and something of that feeds into M. Perhaps Silva’s mistake was expecting Mother to love him, whatever his preferences. In sanctioning at the start of the film a shot that almost kills Bond, M proves that her allegiance is to the family (ie Britain), rather than to its individual components. Anyone is disposable so long as the family endures. Even Bond has to learn that. In a psychological examination, he responds to the word “country” with “England”, but redeems himself partially by choosing Scotland as the site of a showdown with Silva.

Sam Mendes has not yet distinguished himself as a film-maker, but he brings to Skyfall some visual touches to support the theory that it could have been called All About My Mother (if Pedro Almodóvar, another exotic, florid Spaniard, hadn’t got there first). Bond’s crumbling family home in the Scottish highlands has a Bates Motel eeriness to it, while the first shot from the foot of its staircase mirrors Hitchcock’s camera in Psycho. It’s significant, in that context, that Bond’s only love scene involves him creeping unannounced into a shower. His only love scene with a woman, that is. Like Norman Bates, Bond has a side to him to which Mother is oblivious. Could it really be true, as he suggests to Silva in the film’s most highly-charged scene, that he has known the heat of another man’s weapon? Mum’s the word.

More articles to come...

Edited by Revelator, 16 November 2012 - 12:08 AM.

[glidrose]

We already have a dedicated thread on this subject.

http://debrief.comma...reviews-thread/

Critical opinions and excerpts from professional reviews appear later in the thread.

Can one of the mods please merge this thread?

[Dustin]

Mod note: topics merged.

[Iceskater101]

Entertainment Weekly gave this movie an A which is really good.

[SecretAgentFan]

What purpose served having the killer in Macau escapes me, too.

Not the only thing that escapes you.

[pgram]

What purpose served having the killer in Macau escapes me, too.

Not the only thing that escapes you.

True. Including the point of your post...

Edited by pgram, 16 November 2012 - 03:25 PM.

[Judo chop]

Re: Ian's review, which actually begins, after a paragraph or two of aimless wordiness, with the line: "The film begins in Turkey, whether we care or not."

That's just awesome.

How does he expect anyone to keep reading after introducing his analysis like that? Is he pretending to be mad that the starting location wasn't decided democratically by the fans? The sentence is so self-defeating of analysis, it's... just so funny I can't stop thinking about it. If reading this review was like playing a record, this sentence rips the needle across the vinyl with an excruciating screech... and then puts it back on the damaged track so that it skips across this line over and over again for eternity, or until you cut the power.

I'm going to have to start using the phrase in my everyday speak. Whether you care or not, naturally.

I thought SKYFALL was pretty good, whether you or I care. Or not.

Aren't we all Bond fans here, whether we care or not?

OMG. Is it starting to make sense to me??! Help!!!

[quantumofsolace]

Being James Bond Reviews Skyfall


http://www.beingjame...skyfall-review/

[quantumofsolace]

http://www.indcathol...viewStory=21500

[quantumofsolace]

http://www.birdsonth...review-skyfall/

[Quintin Sayers]

Best Bond film ever - none can compare to Daniel Craig.

[quantumofsolace]

http://thelondonrevi...d-2012-release/