Skyfall

I personally thought it was a pretty good flick, but I was less impressed with it than many of my younger coworkers.* I thought it was very interesting in that it showed the physical frailty of Bond, and few action movies really do that with their lead characters (what frailties they have generally are motivational, mental, emotional, etc--nothing that affects their physical ability to kick butt!).

To me, the last sequence (the attack on the estate) really ruined the movie for me, too. I thought Silva was a better-than-average Bond villain, but his lack of planning (that was an extraordinarily poorly executed raid) and his inability to actually do anything with M once he caught her really betrayed the spirit of his character.



* I am not sure but I suspect age--and maybe familiarity with the Bond canon--has something to do with it. I remember seeing Moonraker in the theater, though I was a kid. My folks were fans and by the time I was 16 I'd seen every movie that had been produced up to that point, at least once, and I have since seen every Bond flick since the 1970s, I guess, in the theater at least once. I think I've read all of Ian Fleming's books but not any of the "fan fiction."

 

Batman was comparatively frail in the last movie and got his ass thoroughly kicked by Bane.

 

I liked it mostly but felt the pacing was a bit off. There was a huge chunk of the film where not much exciting was happening which isn't like Bond. Not that the pacing was bad as such just I don't feel a Bond film should go so long without any action.

The ending was fun but didn't really make logical sense (by Bond film standards, not real life). I get why he went where he did but it made no sense not to ask some others to meet him there to help.

 

Absolutely true. There a few movies that have done it. Conan the Barbarian, too (with Arnold, not that joke that someone made last year or 2 years ago). But not many flicks do it.

 

Well... Bond movies have always been a stretch when it comes to realism.

Remember the one where he wears a wrist watch that could shoot out a grappling hook on a cord, to instantly pull himself out of danger? Well - in reality, each use of it would have either ripped the watch off his arm, or his arm off his body.

Many of the chases with jumps from high places or onto moving vehicles would have also left his body crushed, in reality.

Skyfall really differed from a usual Bond movie in many ways, but I don't think requiring suspension of disbelief was one of them...

 

Speaking of Bond...anyone else missing the charm and style of the older ones.

 

I didn't really like the beginning. He gets shot in the chest, falls into a river, goes over a waterfall, and in the next scene he's living in Turkey, presumably some weeks later, in seemingly pretty good health for someone who you would assume had both suffered a fatal gunshot wound and drowned.

 

Yeah...everytime I see one of the Connery movies, I think, "man, that dude is just plain cool."

And the dialogue in the Moore movies is pretty funny--his ability to turn a funny quip was IMO the best of all the Bonds.

I thought Casino Royale brought a lot of style back--which made it all the more impressive to me, since it was also kinda gritty and tough, compared to most of the other Bond movies. Quantum of Boring or whatever it was called, and Skyfall, not as much.

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Yeah, I found that a little bizarre. I mean, I got what the movie-maker was trying to depict, with him being broken down, both physically and mentally, but were were supposed to assume he just got up, walked off to a doctor, and then moved into prime real estate on the beach with a hot model girlfriend and nightly forays at (apparently) the one notable tourist bar where people drink scorpion-drinks (whatever that is, I want one!) with no one from Mi6 noticing any of it and telling him to come in for debriefing? And he must speak fluent Turkish? You'd think, at the very least, the Turkish police would have called the Brits and said, "hey, we got a ticking timebomb here, and it's one of yours, we think."

 

Sorry to keep bringing up Batman, but same goes there again. I mean he got his back broken and was banished to a pit prison, and all he had to do to get back into fighting trim and escape the pit was some pushups and a few pullups (and to jump without a rope, which gave him the magical ability to succeed ). Hell, just having a slipped disc or sciatica can knock you out of commission for years.

 

There was plenty of stupid to go around in all 3 of Nolan's Batman films (Batman Begins* especially). But I don't really care, I loved them anyway.


* Like this one:

Guy 1: Gotham's entire water supply must be laced with it.
Guy 2: Well why aren't we feeling the effects?
Guy 1: It must be compound that's absorbed through the lungs.
Guy 2: Good thing no one boils water or takes showers - we'd be SKROOOOD.

* Or this one:

Guy 1: Unless you have a microwave emitter big enough to vaporize the water in the mains.
Guy 2: Wait, if this device can vaporize water through lead pipes, wouldn't it just kill everyone?
Guy 1: Why would it do that?
Guy 2: Lucias, you tit, the human body is over 70% water. Anyone - including the schlub who turns it on - would explode immediately!
Guy 1: Don't worry your pretty little head, Mr. Wayne. The villain in this movie is Liam Neeson. Between he and I, ANY bullsh!t exposition we come up with sounds plausible and sprinkled with magic wisdom dust.
Guy 2: I think I've gone cross-eyed.
Guy 1: Why don't you go kill a hooker with a chainsaw? You'll feel right as rain.
Guy 2: Okie dokie.

 

The above made me spit soda all over my screen and nearly choke. Thanks a lot.

 

Other silliness from 'The Dark Knight Rises' (Why not 'Batman Rises' btw? Or 'The Dark Knight Begins?' I bet that title was a condition for production due to the success of the middle film.)

Commissioner Gordon gets shot in the sewers and makes a dramatic getaway, and is found in very short order by Joseph Gordon Levitt (why is he in this movie again?) because some kid had washed up at that outflow point earlier - one of doubtless very many locations in the city. Good thing Joseph Gordon Levitt (why is he in this movie again?) knew exactly what was going on and knew exactly where to look at exactly the right time.

Later, Gordon (the commissioner, not Joseph-Levitt) lies gasping through a breather at the hospital talking to Bruce Wayne, who has snuck into his room for fear of ... what I don't know exactly. Anyway, we can't understand the Commish for f*ck all, much like Bane in the trailers before he got his vocal chords repaired and his mask's aspirator cleaned out for the actual movie. Gordon (the commissioner) utters some dire sounding gasps and whatnot. Whatever it is, he is obviously f*cked up. Clearly Bruce will have to re-emerge as Batman and save the day, because the city is screwed with Gordon on his death bed and Bane getting ready to blow up the football field.

Then a bunch of other stuff happens, including Bane kicks Batman's ass and blows up the football field.

Joseph Gordon Levitt (he should definitely be on Gordon-commissioner's Christmas card list by now) immediately deduces that Gordon (the commish - jeez this is getting tiresome) is in danger - once again - with armed thugs coming to kill him fresh off their victory at the footbal field, because naturally you would go straight to the police commissioner's deathbed to speed up his demise after starting a reign of terror with no cops to stop it anyway. Gordon-commish though is more spry than we thought! He caps the two dudes sent to kill him and then leaves hospital (no discharge papers even!) and proceeds to join in the festvities for the rest of the movie, which festivities include jumping into moving trucks and stuff and giving motivational speeches.

I hope when I get shot I bounce right back like that, though I admit it would be cool to gasp dramatically through a breather first for a day or two (though people would probably be pissed because they couldn't understand me and would actually think it was more irritating than cool).

~

Anyway, I agree DR that they were essentially good movies. By the end of the third (actually about mid-way through the first) I had had enough of the Leage of Shadows though. League of Shadows, got it. Cool, Batman defeated them, we're all set. No more League of Shadows. Please, no more League of Shadows. Just give me another Joker or maybe even a Riddler. Oh god no, wait - the cast of Inception is here ... and they are the League of Shadows!

 

I thought it was great. I still prefer Casino Royale but it was pretty awesome imo.

"Mommy was very bad." Damn, Javier Bardem made being flamboyantly gay seem so menacing.

 

That Skyfall song is pretty annoying. It sounds like she is singing about sky foals and crumb bowls.

On The Dark Knight Rises, I thought the most annoying bits were:
- how easily Bane was defeated (by punching him in the face!); and
- the last five minutes. It would have been much more powerful for the film to have ended before the two epilogue bits.

 

ah, we'll have to agree to disagree on the skyfall theme.

it's definitely my favorite since Shirley Bassey(sp?) belted out... Goooooldfingaaaaaah!

 

I always like to have a little chuckle to myself now and then that a lot of the gadgets in Star Trek are arguably more realistic than the ones in Bond. Not that I expect to see transporters and the like anytime soon but a lot of them are theoretically possible. With the Bond ones we know they're not.