SKYFALL Post-Release - Page 6

Bond clearly didn't want her in the field (all his hints), but that doesn't mean he doesn't want another person on his side in a firefight if she's standing right there. I think that some people wouldn't psychologically want a job where they might accidentally murder their coworkers. I had no problem believing Eve had had enough of that lifestyle by the end of the film. In interviews Harris said of Moneypenny that "she thought she was Bond's equal, but she's not."

She's a good asset but one that probably can do more good behind a desk, leaving murder and death to the men, like Bond, who live for it.

I love Bond abandoning Ronson to die. So perfectly Bondian. He will look at him with perhaps a shade of sympathy and understanding, but also a degree of contempt, because he knows one day he could be in that position, and he can't bring himself to acknowledge Ronson's humanity even though Ronson is looking at him with open eyes. He has to dehumanize Ronson in order to abandon him like he does. There is no "sorry", or a promise they'll send help. Bond just leaves, knowing Ronson knows the score.

OK, serious question -- what makes FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE such an unassailable masterpiece that is leagues above modern fare like SKYFALL or CASINO ROYALE? I mean other than it being old and therefor a de-facto "classic"? I think that it's a good Bond movie and all, but it's got flaws, even taken in context of its time period. What is Tatiana even doing for instance? SPECTRE's plan is for her to seduce Bond so that....she can kill him? Get secrets from him? What? Either way, she sucks at it. And the movie meanders pointlessly from plot point to plot point when it gets to Istanbul and doesn't pick up to the admittedly great Red Grant Orient Express train fight. Connery seems engaged so that's good but all said and done it's a pale Hitchcock imitation on its best day. I feel like the love for it is more 60's Mad Men nostalgia than anything. 

I wasn't sitting there thinking he couldn't shoot her, I was thinking how vile he was and how repulsed it made me feel to watch him put his hands on Judy Dench. In that moment , with his insane, genuine concern over the wound he basically inflicted on her, was the moment where I thought to myself that his madness was no longer entertaining, and I wanted Bond to end his sick existence.

I thought that scene was chilling.

It's more clear in the book but her role is to set Bond, MI6 and England up for disgrace. They're going to kill them both and make it look like Bond was sex crazed and crazy.

You're right though that it's a flawed film, with a huge amount of unnecessary flab after what by all rights should have been the climax on the train with Red Grant. That boat chase, that helicopter battle, is just empty and kills my enjoyment every time I see it.

 

Wish that was in the movie!

 

Again, I like FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. For its time it is very good. But I don't see how you can get a film like SKYFALL and say to yourself, "Nice try Sam Mendes, but nowhere near the unbridled genius of Terence Young's masterpiece!" 

I think FRWL remains a favorite for two reasons: the romantic, cold war travelogue atmosphere. The movie's climax, and finest sequence, is on the orient express after all. 2) it contains Connery's second best performance, and the Red Grant stuff is as good as nearly anything else from the series.

As a film, it's certainly imperfect.

In the book there is no SPECTRE: Russia's higher ups all have a meeting and decide that the best way to harm the west, to embarrass them but also not start a nuclear war, is to take out Britain's top agent, a man who has hurt Russian interests before and is somewhat high profile.

To not just kill Bond, but humiliate and disgrace him by implicating him in a sleazy murder suicide, with the sex tape they make with Tatiana as proof. The bodies would be discovered in Greece, where friendly communist elements and the Greek press could spin an embarrassing story for the whole world to see.

I like how this whole plot works in the book more than I do in the film.

 

Well said. I agree. 

 

I think this was Bardem's greatest scene in the movie (and, let's be honest, all of his scenes were excellent). I can't remember the last time I felt as tense, whilst sitting in the theatre, as I did in the scene where Silva has his gun on M and is so filled with rage that he can barely even talk. It's such a contrast to his earlier scenes (with the exception of when Silva is in prison and both his mental and physical scars are revealed) where he was more of a comedic figure. It completely unnerved me.

I very much agree, especially since that is when it finally began to sink in that Dench might actually not make it out of the film alive. I'd read the early rumors, and then the push back assuring fans she would not be assassinated, so in a way I'd never really believed she was in real danger till that moment. I was pretty stunned when she died. She went out well, and though I think I have to say after seven films that I don't think she was ever really "right" for M, she had a good death and one that Bond will clearly carry with him for the rest of his life.

The look on Bond's face at the end, and his final lines, they served to make me think woe unto the next person to cross Bond's path.

 

I think she was right for Craig's M. I wish we'd had another actor for Bronson's run so that she wasn't carrying the baggage of those movies with her, but I'm very glad that Judy Dench was the M of Skyfall.

 

I'm equally glad about who will be sitting in her seat going forth.

Oh yes, I'm ecstatic over Fiennes elevation to head of section. I felt like I was watching the dawn of a golden age at the end of this movie (Q excepted). I will have to see it again to have some clarity about how the Moneypenny reveal played out, but I love that she is (hopefully) now behind the desk and at M's side. And god it felt right to see Fiennes in that chair, and Bond treat him with respect.

I always liked Judi Dench as M and I felt that by having her be M all the way back to the Brosnan era made her death all the more impactful. There was this strange meta-baggage that I was bringing with me, even if it shouldn't have been there from a straight continuity standpoint. In my mind she was still the M that gives Bond that great dressing-down in GOLDENEYE. 

I respect the longevity of her tenure in the role, and that definitely gave her death more impact for me. Goldeneye was the first Bond I saw in theaters, so this was the end of an era for me as well. I expect that aspect of the film to grow on me with time, too. It's just that even here, of all places, she felt less steely and hard than she should have been with (some, not all of) her scenes. She was tough in Goldeneye, but since then has seemed too motherly. I have nothing against a female M, but she needs to be M, and not Bond's cranky grandmother.

Digression over.

The motherly M really suited the 'difficult son' aspect of Craig's Bond.

 

I was really impressed with the way the story played upon that motherly aspect (in clashing with her position), but I can't say I was at all emotionally affected by where her story went.  I don't know why.  It's all there.  But I didn't feel much there. 

 

Perhaps it'll work better upon second watch.  Happening tonight!!!

I wasn't moved to tears about it or anything, I just felt that after 7 films it was a nice swan song. Fiennes is a great replacement.

Oh definitely.

 

She's been in the position long enough that the return of a white man to that position feels somehow refreshing!

Surprised that they revealed "M"s real name here.

They did?  Must've missed that moment.  Likely during the hearing?

Maybe i misheard, but...

 

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Oh, I did hear that!

 

I just figured he was just calling her that as a placeholder or something.  Either that, he heard M and assumed something else.

felix, I think so.

Em is short for Emma. Kincaid heard Bond call M "M", and misunderstood.

I don't know if it impresses me or infuriates me that in six paragraphs, David Denby manages to say almost nothing about Skyfall and instead pine for Connery. I've said it before, I'll say it again: what a tweedy little bore of a man.

 

Right-o... It put me in mind of the "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" books, though: where the Victorian era Ms were Moriarty and Mycroft Holmes, in the last installment of the League the modern day M is Emma Peele.

 

.....

 

Something hit me reading duke fleed's description of the villain plot as basically to kill M. I guess this makes SKYFALL the first Bond picture where he fails at his mission.

Love Moore's League books! 2009 also had Daniel Craig and (Roger) Moore show up to validate the code name theory in that universe

Ad you're right, Bond failed. Whoever he next sets his sights on is going to face a 007 with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove.

I'm flabbergasted this movie is getting so much praise. I really wanted - and expected - to like it. I'm stunned by how much I didn't. 

 

The villain was a pointless weirdo with infinite, unexplained resources who's "master plan" was retardation incarnate. It was needlessly convoluted and basically made no sense. I'd love for someone to outline it for me in detail. 

 

And where was the action? There were exactly two action setpieces. The train sequence at the beginning (pretty cool) and the Bond manor sequence at the end (pretty lame). Everything else was abbreviated fist fights and run-of-the-mill shootouts. 

 

There were definitely some nice moments (the Moneypenny reveal being the best) but, man, this movie was a drag. At least Die Another Day had some fun spectacle and a villain with a comprehensible plan. 

I guess if you don't count well-staged and choreographed fist-fights as action sequences the movie would be totally disappointing on an action standpoint. But since I do count things like that as action sequences I'm left puzzled by people saying this has a lack of action.

 

Yeah, that's the one context in which that goofy code name idea actually makes some sense.

 

 

I can understand if the movie isn't your cup of tea-- but finding fault with a Bond villain master plan because it's needlessly convoluted is weird to me. If it weren't baroque and nonsensical, it wouldn't be a Bond villain plot. Kinda goes with the territory.

 

That said, I agree with this particular gripe to a degree. I really hope from here on out we can dispense with the villain-gets-himself-caught-on-purpose trope in adventure movies. It's already pretty played out, and was my least favorite part of SKYFALL, plot-wise. I loved everything-- like the chase through the underground and the shoot-out at the hearing-- that it led to, though. 

Edited by Slim - 11/9/12 at 6:57pm

Caught a matinee showing with my wife, and we both loved it. I still say that Casino Royale has the more impressive action scenes, but I dug that we learned more about Bond in this film, than we have in the whole franchise, and how the film was supposed to be "Big", but ends up being fairly small, and I didn't mind that. Didn't mind the whole plot being just about Raoul Silva wanting revenge on M either. It's no huge master plan, and I honestly was expecting "Skyfall" to literally be something messed up that Silva had planned to devastate London.

 

Finding out "Skyfall" was the name of Bond's familial home was cool, and a nice nod to Ian Fleming's home, "Goldeneye".

 

 

I really didn't like them keeping the gun barrel sequence until the end. Really hoped the film would start out with it. Even with everything being set up at the end for more traditional Bond films, and it "making sense" to put it at the end, I'd still rather have seen the gun barrel sequence at the beginning.

 

 

Oh yeah, and nice fake outwith Severine being the main Bond girl, and having it really be M. I was expecting her to help Bond out, but then Raoul Silva caps her during the William Tell routine, and we never hear about her again. She may be the Bond girl with the shortest appearance time ever. Only about 3 scenes.

 

Still, I loved the film, and it was definitely much better than Quantum Of Solace.

 

There's a difference between an action sequence and an action set piece. An action set piece is a car chase that turns into a rooftop motorcycle chase and ends up on the roof of a speeding train. Two guys slugging it out for three or four minutes isn't an action set piece, no matter how well it's choreographed. Bond movies are all about action set pieces, not artfully backlit fist fights. 

 

 

Bond villain plots are typically convoluted, but usually in accordance with whatever epically outlandish goal they seek to achieve. In this movie, the villain's goal was painfully pedestrian, and with the resources he had at his disposal, should have been child's play to achieve. Everything that happened between Silva releasing the undercover agent's identities and bursting into the hearing to kill M was pointless, and often ran counter to his goal. 

 

And not only that, but the stakes were laughably low, as the movie itself demonstrates. The one thing Bond was trying to prevent from happening, happened. And everything turned out fine in the end anyway. 

 

Think about that for a second. 

 

James Bond failed in his mission. And there were no real consequences. 

That's the one thing that bugged the shit out of me after leaving the theater. I don't mind the scaled back realistic tone they were taking the franchise in, no more exploding pens, and it was great seeing Craig and Dench shine. But the elaborate plan was just too stupidly lazy copycat of Joker's scheme in the Dark Knight that reminded me of the too stupidly lazy copycat shit they pulled in Quantum of Solace's last scene. Didn't ruin the movie for me - dug the intro chase, the goofy lizard pit fight, and the last stand (plus the unboxing of the car) - but come on, you can do better than that.

I like the idea that the Craig movies are all Dr. No prequels. Then for the first time we can have in-movie continuity that happily loops back in on itself and implodes.

 

But seriously, I thought this was a pretty great movie. I get why people are bringing up The Dark Knight -- a lot of the score cues reminded me strongly of Zimmer, Silva is basically a tech-savvy, more gay Joker, and some of the dialogue -- "he meant to be caught!" -- is basically lifted straight from Nolan's movies. But I'm not saying it bothered me. I thought Newman's score was really good, and Silva was quite interesting. And man, the fucking photography. The photography is just so amazing.

 

It makes me wonder what's next for this franchise. If this has really been Bond Begins, then presumably we're going to be served a more classic version of Bond on the next go-round, especially now that everything, including that damn office, is all set up. I just hope they keep what's been so great about the last few movies, which is the emphasis on Bond as a human being who actually feels things in a non-ironic way, and don't slide into the self-conscious winking at the audience stuff that this movie sort of flirts with.

 

Did anybody else find Silva's story about the rats really chillingly effective? It's a genuinely impressive combo of good writing and better acting, I think. But again, all the stuff where the villain tells stories from his troubled past? Reminded me a lot of the Joker.

My issue with that would be that all three of the newbies basically have the same arc. They show up, Bond thinks they're an asshole, then they prove themselves to him, and by the end they're all a team I guess? Except that Eve just randomly decides "Nah, I'm not cut out for fieldwork" after she's pretty much been pitch-perfect (note that she doesn't decide this after shooting Bond, but after saving him in Macao, defending M in the courthouse, etc.). It just rings of "But Moneypenny is a secretary!"

 

Before you think I'm just nitpicking, I actually thought they were going in the direction of Moneypenny successfully making the decision Bond tried to make near the end of Casino Royale, and getting out of the business while there's a soul left to salvage. THAT would've made so much sense and given their relationship so much depth, that I can't believe they just went with "Oh well, some people just can't be spies even when they totally can be." It's like the movie wants to have its cake and eat it too.

 

Also, how many people do we have now whose entire job description is chatting up Bond over an earpiece? There's M, Turner, Moneypenny, and Q (since he doesn't hand out gadgets anymore. Because it's silly). Are we going to be watching Bond movies or Metal Gear Solid?

 

My next post should probably be some praise before people start thinking this is a McNooj vs. TDKR situation. Because I really did like the movie, silly continuity and all. It's just I liked Casino Royale more and this had it in it to match CR, and I'm interested in why it didn't.

 

"You thought I was gay, sir...

but now I'll kill your boss with my la-ser!"

 

Skyfall is a whole week of Saturday nights, a hot fudge sundae with 100 orgasms sprinkled on top, a Mardi Gras of Bondian bliss.  All you nit-pickers and nay-sayers are crazier than Bardem's midget nostril.

for a movie forum, there are sure a lot of people that don't like movies.  

 

Really, someone is complaining that a Bond villain's plan was convoluted?  What's next, someone complaining that water is wet?

 

I mean, if we are going to complain about villains, how about Quantum employing a man with a gambling problem to handle their clients money?  

Objection, Le Chiffre didn't have a gambling problem, he had a "James Bond wrecking his Wall Street scam" problem.

 

And I think we can attribute the complaints to all the build-up to this, THIS is what Silva has been planning for years, THIS is his grand revenge, THIS is what he's spent the entire movie orchestrating... and it's one step above a drive-by shooting. Sorta like when there was all that build-up to the villain's plan in Quantum of Solace, and it turned out he just wanted to control the utilities in Bolivia. By comparison, Le Chiffre's plan is even more rinky-dink... he wants to win a card game to pay back the terrorists he stole from... but because the movie doesn't hype up that Le Chiffre is a SUPER-SECRET CRAZY AWESOME CRIMINAL GENIUS, you don't go "Wait, that's his plan? I could've come up with something better than that!"

and he would have gotten away with it too... if it wasn't for that pesky Bond and those meddling MI6 agents!

 

This sounds super-weird.

 

It's like "Goddamnit! I had these two big action sequences and plenty of other small scale stuff! But I wanted a bunch of crazy shit happening for the whole movie!'

I sort of was hoping that M was going to live, but Bond was going to say she died.  Mirror what happened to Bond in the beginning and let M sort of walk off into the sunset.  Hell, she could have went off with Kingcade and lived happily ever after.  

 

The complaint isn't that Silva's plan is too convoluted, full stop. It's that his plan was too convoluted for what he was trying to achieve. He wanted to kill M. He had virtually unlimited resources and invincible hacker skills. He should have been able to handle one simple murder with a phone call before breakfast. Instead, he repeatedly risks death and lifetime imprisonment... for some reason. 

 

Well, we got one big action sequence. The Bond manor scene was really nothing more than a random collection of gunfire and explosions. The opening scene at least had the sense of logic and momentum worthy of a Bond action sequence.

 

But yes, I am upset that in a Bond movie that was two and half hours long, the only big action set pieces were before the credits and in the finale. James Bond =/= small scale. Sorry if that seems super-weird. 

It seems really super-weird.

 

Like we had Bond movies that are mostly nothing but spectacle. Most of them suck. Skyfall's smart enough to make sure most of the action happens for actual reasons as opposed to "Bond gets in another chase sequence and shit blows up" and understands that a good suspenseful fistfight* is worth ten scenes of big-budget mayhem any day of the week.

 

 

I mean seriously think about Die Another Day for a second. Because if you think that movie is superior to Skyfall on the basis of "fun spectacle" then the whole conversation is already lost.

 

 

*People can argue otherwise but nothing beats a good fistfight.

Also and to make certain that I'm not coming across as just an attack dog for the movie:

 

1. I don't like Severine's death, but then again I find the tradition of "one Bond girl dies" to be wince inducing. Though at least she's wasted less than Gemma Arterton in Quantum of Solace.

 

2. Silva's plot after being captured CAN be a little too complicated. But I enjoy his interactions with others in those scenes too much to complain that heavily about it.

 

3, I wanted MORE Noamie Harris in the movie, but that's just because she's amazing and I'm deeply in love with her.

 

I would have been thrilled if Skyfall had three spectacular action set pieces like Casino Royale (Madagascar, Miami International Airport, and Venice). Instead it had one. I'm all for Bond movies being brought into the modern age. I just don't think stripping them of action is the way to go.

 

Yeah, sorry... but a lot of the action in Skyfall didn't happen for a good reason. It happened because the villain apparently realized he was in a James Bond movie and decided to carry out his master plan in the most ridiculous, contrived way possible so we could have some action scenes. The real sin is that those action scenes left so much to be desired. Either be over the top and give me spectacle, or be realistic and gritty and give me narrative-driven, small-scale action. But don't give me over the top coupled with small-scale action. It's not a good combination. 

The "more action" complaints are the beggining of the path towards Bay-dom. This had as much action as the story demanded and of proper scale too. They were not suprefluous.

 

And I'm quite certain that both M and Moneypenny will feature much more prominently this time around. Q too. Dench as M followed pretty much the archetype at first but with the Craig films got her more and more involved.

 

Every action beat that happened in between the release of the undercover agent's identities and Silva trying to kill M at the hearing was completely superfluous. None of that had to happen. M should have been dead the moment her disgrace went public. Silva didn't need to wait for Bond to arrive at his island (while strangely trying to kill him in the process), get captured, escape, and then try to kill M. He could have easily killed her anytime before all of that. 

 

If the argument is that dumb, pointless action ruins the integrity of the movie, then those making that argument need to reconcile it with the colossal idiocy of Silva's plan.

 

If the argument is that stupid villain plots are just part of the Bond tradition, then those making that argument need to reconcile it with the dearth of action spectacle, also a Bond tradition. 

 

You can't have it both ways. 

I'm mainly in agreement with jhp1608 about this mediocre, irrationally overhyped movie ("mainly" because I probably liked it less than he did). 

 

Even with its unfinished script, QUANTUM OF SOLACE had a story and characters that made sense. SKYFALL is just all over the place and, incredibly, Craig can't hold it together (like jhp, I'm pretty much done with him in the role).

 

The opening sequence is an ass-kicker, Dench is superb, Deakins' visuals are as solid as one would expect, but beyond those things I'm at a loss. Huge disappointment.