Skyfall (50th Anniversary) - Review Thread

[sshuttari]

uhhh Unless you go before 2pm... I would suggest waiting it out til after the weekend!

[Angelixx]

Originally Posted by Neverending

I totally called it months ago when it was leaked online .

Well la dee da for you, I didn't go looking for spoilers on this movie

[nine1wing]

I have a question, for dracula, if craig did from russia with love, would it still be your number 1? Better yet, how would you rank the movies if craig did them all? I guess I pose that question to everyone. Yes I know connery was great, but lets forget all the others and just assume craig did them.

[JBond]

The idea's invalid, they were made 40-50 years apart.

[nine1wing]

No, I"m not talking special effects, I'm asking if we get rid of the connery effect, would the stories still hold the rank of the movie, or even if craig changed the rank. Forget the old throwing the razor hat, and the goofy effects from back in the day.

[JBond]

Who's talking about special effects? I mean Craig is a contemporary actor. Who knows what it would be like if he was an actor in the 60s (or if From Russia With Love was made today. It doesn't make much sense. To me.)

[saveus1011]

I'm wondering what would have happened had David Niven starred in them all.

[JBond]

Even after he died.

[Dracula]

Originally Posted by nine1wing

I have a question, for dracula, if craig did from russia with love, would it still be your number 1? Better yet, how would you rank the movies if craig did them all? I guess I pose that question to everyone. Yes I know connery was great, but lets forget all the others and just assume craig did them.

Well, I like Connery a lot, so no I probably wouldn't like FRWL as much if someone else were playing Bond in it. But Connery alone doesn't make or break any movie, Connery did also star in my all time least favorite Bond film as well.

[Ramplate]

24 bloopers found in Skyfall [VIDEO]

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/en...20121124.shtml

[JBond]

Drink levels change in all movies.

[Neverending]

As of today, Skyfall is the 4th most successful Bond film. The series' biggest hit since Moonraker in 1979. Congrats to Sam Mendes, John Logan, & EON Productions.

[SnoBorderZero]

Originally Posted by Neverending

As of today, Skyfall is the 4th most successful Bond film. The series' biggest hit since Moonraker in 1979. Congrats to Sam Mendes, John Logan, & EON Productions.

Funny how the worst Bond was such a big hit, I guess the thirst for "Star Wars" was still running rampant.

[Neverending]

Originally Posted by SnoBorderZero

the thirst for "Star Wars" was still running rampant.

Superman. Star Trek. Moonraker. They all benefitted from Star Wars. But anyway... people are already talking about Skyfall reaching $1 Billion Worldwide. It's currently at $790 million, so it's possible. The film hasn't opened in Japan yet (it opens there on December 1st) and that's a HUGE market. Thunderball, so far, is the only Bond film to reach a billion worldwide. So, if Skyfall does it too, that will be incredibly impressive.

[IanTheCool]

I must confess that I am not a James Bond fan. I've always found them to be either incredibly cheesy or just rather dull. The only real exceptions are Dr. No and the more recent Casino Royale. So coming from a non-Bind fan, what was my opinion of the super-hyped Skyfall?

Its good.

Its still no Casino Royale, but its good.

In Skyfall, MI-6 itself is attacked, leading Bond and M on the search for a former agent who is behind it all. This former agent is Silva, played with delicious malevolence by Javier Bardem. What we end up with is a more personal James Bond story than audiences are used to, which is both off-putting and refreshing all at the same time.

This is truly a Bond film of its age. It strives very hard to be a modern telling of the classic series, through not only its technology, but in integrating the idea of old fashioned intelligence in a modern political climate. And it manages to work while keeping the Bond feel (which is something Quantum of Solace didn't pull off so well).

Skyfall also dares to venture further into the background of the character of James Bond himself. Bond's past was traditionally considered a taboo subject, since the movie studio always considered him too iconic of a character to start delving into too deeply. He was always supposed to be a shallow character and that should never be messed with. But Skyfall dared to there, and it paid off well. The last act of the story, coupled with Craig's humanizing performance, gives the character of Bond new life. And after 50 years, lets face it, new life is always welcome.

But the odd thing is is that as non-traditional as this movie tires to be, it is also riddled with fan service. They play this up like an origin story (even more so than Royale), and we get the introduction of some of the old-school characters from the past, as well as some lines obviously added as a commentary on the history of the series involving, among other things, gadgets and martinis.

And while these were fun, they also felt out of place in this otherwise well-constructed action film. Casino Royale had tongue-in-cheek references to the older films as well, though I liked the subtlety of those far more than the gigantic winks made in this movie. Yet even with the weight of 22 previous efforts, Skyfall is certainly one of the franchise's stronger efforts, with a great hero excellently played by Craig and some really good action set pieces. Definitely worth it for fans and non-fans of 007 alike.
8/10

[JBond]

I saw it again yesterday. Still awesome.

[Justin]

[JBond]

Nice.

[MasterChief117]

I hopefully might go to see this tomorrow. I'm not really sure, but I hope so.

[PG Cooper]

Originally Posted by Justin

Love it.

[Neverending]

The road to a billion.....


As of today, Skyfall has grossed $918 million worldwide.

[bbf2]

I know I'm late to the party, but I finally saw this the other day. It has the honor of being the first movie I've seen by myself in a theater without being paid to review it in an advance screening. (I was incredibly busy during its first week or two of release so couldn't go out with my friends to see it, and all my friends all saw it during that timeframe.)

I absolutely loved it. You could have given me 500 guesses as to what the term "Skyfall" was referring to and I would never have guessed what it was.

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

Bond's childhood house, which is named as such because it's a place where a lot of fog and clouds gather. Wow. Considering it was so ominous, I thought it would be the villain's plan to use satellites to destroy stuff or whatever, never would have thought that it would be something so small and character-driven.

I absolutely loved the fact that it was so character-driven and focused on Bond and M as people, and their relationship and their histories.

I did have a few issues, however minor. Mainly, I didn't see the need for the villain to be some expert computer hacker. He didn't have some sort of diabolical world-conquering plot or anything, his plan was just to kill M. He definitely didn't need to be super-hacker in order to do that, and it seemed dubious that a former field agent in the secret service would also be able to acquire the world's greatest computer hacking skills. He didn't even use his hacking skills to any real purpose other than to mess around with people. I also feel that it was a bit odd that a lot of the plot focused on the fact that a lot of the conflict came from the idea of "You're getting old and slipping, Bond!" when the last two movies were basically an origin movie and then another film that picked up immediately after the origin movie. Especially since

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

the ending shows that this is also still a bit of an origin movie, introducing Moneypenny and a more old-school M with the old school office.

That being said, I still think, as someone who has seen every James Bond film (although in all fairness, some of them have sort of blended together in my memory and I don't remember the details exactly, especially the later Moore films) that I'm ready to make a declaration: I think that Goldfinger and from Russia with Love are the best "James Bond films," but I think that this is the best overall film in the James Bond series. I don't know if that makes complete sense but I hope you sort of grasp what I'm getting it - in many cases it didn't really feel like a "James Bond" film, but it was actually emotional and powerful in many ways.

[JBond]

Silva didn't hack himself out of MI6, his associates did it. Were there other hacking moments?

And it wasn't that he was old and slipping, it's that he was injured and sort of reborn after his vacation.

And I know what you mean by best overall film, and I think I would agree. Goldfinger and such are brilliant, but they're not very good movies.

[bbf2]

Originally Posted by JBond

Silva didn't hack himself out of MI6, his associates did it. Were there other hacking moments?

Maybe I misunderstood - I thought that he had set up his computer himself so that when someone hacked it, it set off the London underground doors to open. The other hacking moments I had in mind were in his introduction, where he was telling Bond about how easy it was to hack into anything and he could get Swiss bank accounts or disable satellites easily with the push of a button. If he wasn't uber-hacker himself and only employed people who were, that would make more sense, although I thought the film was saying that Silva himself was the uber-hacker genius mind. I could be wrong, though.

And it wasn't that he was old and slipping, it's that he was injured and sort of reborn after his vacation.

Yeah, that was a large part of it, but I also thought that there were parts that said it was also due to age. There were definitely references to both him and M being outdated, and I think in his first meeting with Fiennes, Fiennes said something along the lines of Bond having a long distinguished career and he should know when to hang it up.

And I know what you mean by best overall film, and I think I would agree. Goldfinger and such are brilliant, but they're not very good movies.

Yeah, I mean, Goldfinger had a character who was literally named "Pussy Galore." There might be recency bias at play here, but I'd be hard pressed to consider it a better overall film than something as smart as Skyfall which actually analyzes its characters and their histories and motivations.

[JBond]

Nah, you're probably right about the hacking.

Let's not forget that Goldfinger had no reason to kill his employers seperately from the guy crushed in the car (or at ALL), that blowing up gold instead of stealing it is stupid, and that Bond escaped a jail cell by ducking behind the door and waiting to be let out.