Who has watched the movie Skyfall?

[Henry Pease]

Well, is there any one who has watched the 23rd release of James Bond series ? Daniel Craig is one of my favorite actor but due to some reason I have not watched the movie yet. Just share about the best scene of the movie.

[Laddy]

Nope, I have to wait another week to see Danny again. :(

[Del Murder]

Still have to wait another week for it.

[Bolivar]

HEYYO I'M HYPED!

[Old Manus]

It was pretty good. The DB5 making a return was my favourite part. The new Moneypenny is shit though.

[Shiny]

Isn't MoneyPenny that girl from 28 Days Later? I spent the majority of the beginning trying to figure out where I saw her from.

I loved the opening scene on the trains and the subway scene with them sliding down the stairs. I always want to do that in the subway and just push people out of the way.

I liked it though the ending was anti-climatic. I wanted a bigger showdown with Bardem and Craig. I haven't bothered watching all of the Craig-era Bond films, but the parts I've seen of the previous ones -- I'd have to say this one is the better of the bunch.

Can someone please tell me why Bardem has dyed blond hair and brows? It was extremely distracting and pointless for the character.

[Laddy]

I like Bardem's dye job, it suited his character's sort of "ah smurf it" attitude.

Great Bond flick, Daniel Craig is turning into one of my favorite Bonds and he and Javier Bardem did excellently playing off of each other. Definitely recommend it.

Three scenes that were visually mesmerizing were in Shanghai, Macau, and in the final scenes in Scotland with the burning house in the nighttime landscape

[blackmage_nuke]

Well, is there any one who has watched the 23rd release of James Bond series ? Daniel Craig is one of my favorite actor but due to some reason I have not watched the movie yet. Just share about the best scene of the movie.
"I have not seen the new James Bond movie, please ruin it for me with spoilers"

Seriously?

[Night Fury]

Isn't MoneyPenny that girl from 28 Days Later? I spent the majority of the beginning trying to figure out where I saw her from.

I loved the opening scene on the trains and the subway scene with them sliding down the stairs. I always want to do that in the subway and just push people out of the way.

I liked it though the ending was anti-climatic. I wanted a bigger showdown with Bardem and Craig. I haven't bothered watching all of the Craig-era Bond films, but the parts I've seen of the previous ones -- I'd have to say this one is the better of the bunch.

Can someone please tell me why Bardem has dyed blond hair and brows? It was extremely distracting and pointless for the character.

I loved his hair, he was a very camp and unhinged character, and at times it was hard to tell it was Bardem

[Agent Proto]

Three scenes that were visually mesmerizing were in Shanghai, Macau, and in the final scenes in Scotland with the burning house in the nighttime landscape

I have to agree. This movie was very visually appealing and fun to watch. I also enjoyed the fighting scene with Bond and the mercenary inside the building.

[Sephex]

It made up for the disappointment that was Quantum of Solace, but I still feel that Casino Royale was the best Craig lead Bond movie.

Still, it was a very fun watch and the Bond Villain was my favorite type that was used in this movie.

[Heath]

Three scenes that were visually mesmerizing were in Shanghai, Macau, and in the final scenes in Scotland with the burning house in the nighttime landscape

I have to agree. This movie was very visually appealing and fun to watch. I also enjoyed the fighting scene with Bond and the mercenary inside the building.

I think that fight was one of my favourite bits from the film - it looked really cool.

Overall, I really enjoyed Skyfall. I had deliberately tried to keep myself in the dark about a lot of the plot points. All I'd really heard was that it was really good. On a rather more literal basis, I'd also heard Adele's song, which I actually think was top drawer too. Overall it was tussling with Casino Royale for the best Bond of the past 25 years for me. Whether or not it was better than Casino Royale, I don't think I'm quite ready to decide.

Much of what follows is spoiler-y, so I'll just tag the whole thing.

It was a great film. The locations were great - I particularly liked all the scenes in London. The bit with the tube train was great, as was the enquiry scenes. One of the things I've quite liked about the more recent Bond films have been this sense that MI6 have had to account for their actions, and that M has been under pressure from the politicians. The death of M was actually something I thought was good, but also rather sad. I really liked Judi Dench in the role, and she's been one of my favourite Bond characters pretty much since Goldeneye. It was pretty obvious she was going to go, if only for the fact they wouldn't have cast Ralph Fiennes in such a small part otherwise.

The film was visually spectacular. I've already touched on the scene that Proto mentioned, but also the island where Silva was hiding, and the destruction of Skyfall were pretty cool. Like Manus, I really liked the inclusion of the DB5 which was a nice twist. The acting was good, the action scenes were believable and overall the film was paced well. Daniel Craig, I think, is a really great Bond. Part of me will always picture Roger Moore as Bond, because they were the films I grew up with on Saturday afternoon on ITV, but Craig really is a great Bond.

I'd actually quite like to see it again, actually.

[DMKA]

Saw it today. It was fun and had lots of great action scenes. Definitely one of the best action flicks I've seen in awhile.

The only think I absolutely hated about it was that after all that, a whole two hours of everyone dying or almost dying to save M, she ends up dying right after the villain is killed off. And then Bond cried. Boo.

[Pike]

Fantastic movie. One of my new favorite Bond flicks for sure.

New Q is the best part

[Del Murder]

I found it a bit disappointing. It was good, but not near the hype it's getting and no where even close to being as good as Casino Royale.

I was disappointed that it didn't build at all on the previous movies. Quantum wasn't mentioned at all even though it was heavily set up in the previous movie. This movie did it's own thing with the Adventures of Bond & M and that was cute and all, but it almost didn't even feel like a Bond movie at times. It was also odd that the 'Bond girl' of this movie was Judy Dench. I liked her as M but you really can't have an old lady in the center of action sequences. The pacing on this movie was also bizarre. Almost like it was two different movies at times.

[charliepanayi]

They ditched the whole running story arc from Casino Royale/Quantum of Solace because nobody liked the latter film.

The film is on course to make more money in the UK than Avatar did - blimey.

[Pike]

Yeah, I liked the fact that it stood on its own.

Forgot to mention in my last post: I thought they did a really good job with the themes of the movie and using motifs and symbols that built on those themes. It tickled my storyteller bone.

[Shoeberto]

I loved it. Sam Mendes was a fantastic choice for director. He brought some serious class with all of the color direction. I liked that it was such a personal film, too, with Bond's history being explored. Especially the two ends of the spectrum that he and Bardem's character represented.

Also, holy crap Bardem. What a great nutcase. Probably my favorite Bond villain ever.

[Loony BoB]

I agree with Sephex that Casino Royale is the best Craig Bond film to date.

I agree with Murd that Skyfall was disappointing, although only retrospectively for me. When I was watching it, I was really enjoying it. The end ruined it for me.

Firstly, the final standoff was not a standoff in any way whatsoever. There was no drama, no real tension to speak of. It was incredibly predictable, too. Everyone could see it coming.

Secondly, the Bond girl got the most boring end ever, and it was terribly done. With the same gun, Bond is able to blow a chunk off a boulder, but all this does to the girl is kill her and it was a shame because I felt she could have been much more interesting if they had some kind of purpose for her in the general plot, because the purpose she was given was meh to say the least.

Pike nailed the best bit, though.

[Del Murder]

The movie was so disengaging that at some point it occured to be to check on my fantasy football team. In a great movie I would be so involved that the thought wouldn't even cross my mind.

[Loony BoB]

By the way, I disagree over who was the Bond girl in the movie... thought it was pretty obvious who the Bond girl was, and she was a proper hottie, too. ;)

Still not talking about M, I'll save the grannylove for Psy and Thatcher

[Miriel]

I was SO excited for this movie. I really love Daniel Craig as Bond. And I loved Casino Royale.

But I actually started to fall asleep at one point during this movie. The pacing was so off.

Also, I think the thing that people love about the Bond movies is that James Bond is supposed to have this super glitzy dangerous beautiful life. And that's what was so great about Casino Royale.

But in Skyfall, Bond is haggard and tired. He's "old" and off his game (which is ridiculous because he's like, what 45?). He has nothing left. At one point, I actually said out loud, pleadingly: Shave the beard!!

And then instead of a smokey chemistry with a hot Bond girl, we get Judy Dench who I LOVE, but completely changed the tone of the movie. Instead of sexy times, it became more of a Mother/Son relationship which is... odd. I really like Dench as M, but she really worked best as M in small doses. As a central character, they showed her to be incompetent (which I hated), and then they killed her!!. WTF is up with that?

They also unceremoniously killed off the Bond girl which I know is a common James Bond thing but I loathed.

I have all these complaints but I actually thought the movie picked up towards the 2nd half and was pretty entertaining. But nowhere near as good as people are saying it is, and the first half dragged so sooo much.

[Chris]

I not much of a Bond fan, but I went to see it tonight with a couple of buddies. You know what? I actually liked it. That being said, it kinda dragged in the middle part, but the beginning was great, and the ending was even better.

[DMKA]

I not much of a Bond fan

Not even A View to Kill?

http://images.wjla.com/pictures/1828/graceretro_606.jpg

[Skyblade]

I think The Spoony One (http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/11/12/vlog-11-12-12-skyfall/) recapped most of the non-spoiler stuff relatively well (honestly, I think his analysis has gotten a lot better recently), so my discussion is going to focus on the spoileriffic bits.

First, am I the only person who seems to think that M is not dead? Not that I think that the movie goes out of the way to say she survived, but it certainly made a lot of effort to leave it open for interpretation.

There's all the talk about Bond's own death. The mention that it's pretty much the only clean way out of the system. Bond recommends she tries it. M's mention that she'll retire when the job's done. There's also no funeral, no coffin, no grieving or choking up by any of the secondary characters, nor by Bond himself after the scene.

Again, I'm not saying that it's a definite that she's alive, but I do think it was, intentionally, left as a possibility. And that she's currently retired on a beach with old man Kincaid (who still calls her "Emma"), doing shots with a scorpion on her hand (should have filmed that, would have been an awesome post-credits scene).


Second, if they did mean to kill her, they did it in the worst possible way. M is a strong character, and the death was weak. It left her impotent, powerless, and motionless, which did not fit the character. They needed something else to it. Examples:

Bond: "Why didn't you 'take the bloody shot', mum?"
M: "I trusted you to get the job done."

Pulls the scene full circle and makes it seem as though her refusal to pull the trigger was a deliberate act of faith in her agent, rather than just her being paralyzed with fear into inaction, which is how it appeared.

Another option: Have her take the shot. Again, this pulls back to the original point. It's worth expending an asset to eliminate the threat, and she is no different. Had she taken the shot then, we would have seen that apply to everything, even herself. Eliminating the threat takes priority, and the fact that you can't get a clean shot doesn't stop you from taking it. It would have been an incredibly strong way for the character to go out, especially since she didn't know Bond was alive at the time. Plus, we would have gotten to see Bond's rage at her death, which would have been epic.

It's not horrible, but it could have been a lot better pretty easily.


Third, I don't buy Silver as a villain. Spoony covered a lot of it with the basic problems with cyberterrorism, but there's one key point he missed. Namely, Silver's age. The guy is like 65. He was an agent until he was, what, 40, probably? A field agent is not a computer expert (yeah, ask Bond to hack M's office and see how far he gets), and you don't jump into things at that age and pick them up without being a total savant, which he clearly wasn't (wrong mindset). Had he been a computer savant/genius, he never would have become a field agent, he would have had a role more like Q's.

Fourth, how did he escape, exactly? I mean, I know he hacked all the doors open, ok, I can accept that. How did he kill the guards? He had no weapons, and was covered by multiple guards who (if they had any brains at all) would have started shooting as soon as the doors open, certainly before he crossed the ten feet between his cell and the first guard.

Fifth, Bond's psyche evaluation was bull. I'm not saying it's unrealistic, but simply that Bond's reactions were absolutely correct. As soon as "Skyfall" was mentioned, Bond failed his psyche evaluation. It doesn't matter how you answer that one. If you answer too quickly, you're putting something up to get it off your mind. If you answer too slowly, its because its deeply affected you. If you give a nonsensical answer, its because you are hiding something. If you give a logical answer, its because it still preys on your mind and you think about it. No matter how you answer that one, a psychologist can interpret it to say "yep, deep lasting unresolved childhood trauma". Bond's reaction was the best one, and the psychologist should be fired.


But, yeah, I liked it, and I think it was one of the better Bonds. And I did not expect to like it that much going into it. The characters and acting were grand.

Although there is something I'm wondering about now: We know this is Daniel Craig's last Bond film. So... Why did they do such a great job setting up a new M and a new Moneypenny, yet we're going to get nothing to ease the transitions of Bond himself?

My sister actually had the idea that Bond is a Time Lord, which, when I got to thinking about it, actually makes a lot of sense. Not only does it explain the transformations, it also makes the whole "why are you still here" thing make a lot more sense. They aren't asking for Bond to retire or give up, they're asking why he's hanging on to a battered and no longer top-of-the-line body when he could just regenerate into a younger, stronger, healthier one. Of course, it still feels like death, and the current persona of the Time Lord doesn't want to give up, especially not when there's a job to do, so it holds on as long as it can, at least through the end of the current mission, before finally letting go and passing it on to the new self.

[charliepanayi]

His last film? Um...hasn't Daniel Craig signed on for two more Bond films?

[Slothy]

His last film? Um...hasn't Daniel Craig signed on for two more Bond films?

Yes he has as far as I know.

[Bolivar]

I had a great time watching it. I thought it was a really good movie and an actually emotionally touching Bond, which is something they've been going for with Craig. I like Skyblade's theory, but I have to think M is dead because of how powerful it was. I was legitimately sad leaving the theater so I think they accomplished their job.

That being said:

The intro was very underwhelming. After the badass chase scene that opened Quantum of Solace, you can't try the same thing if you're not going to top it. It seemed like a middle-of-the-movie scene. The sound was also very underwhelming for a title of this caliber, but it may have just been my theater.

They jumped the shark with him surviving an assault rifle shot followed by a however-many-meters fall into a river in the middle of nowhere.

That close quarters fight at the top of the building with the sniper rifle was really cool, but it was too short. Like with the chase scene, I kept thinking back to the opera scene in Quantum of Solace and wondering when we were going to get a really creative shootout or fight scene and I don' think it satisfied that need for me.

Bardem... I have mixed feelings. I liked the last two Bond villains - just creepy Euro dudes who are kind of sadistic. Okay, that describes Silva pretty well, but he got back to more of the weird and camp of the Roger Moore era. When he pulled out the mouthpiece (which was an awesomely disturbing scene) I thought they were going to make him the new Jaws. I've just never been into the Moore era, so it does nothing for me. Plus there was the whole homoerotic hint. I read once that Bardem does this every chance he gets just to piss people off, and I don't think that's a good sentiment to inject into a film. It certainly did nothing to advance the plot. I almost thought they were trying to have their version of Heath Ledger's the Joker, especially with the breakout and while he got the job done, he won't be one of my more memorable and certainly not favorite Bond villains.

I also have mixed feelings about the whole continuity build at the end. They use the same office and furnishings as the first movies and it gave me a nostalgia high but I'm confused on two parts. One - Craig is looking old as hell, something they comment on a lot in the film. I feel like they've used the entirety of these last three films to build up to something, a new golden age of Bond (which I assume they would like us to believe we're already in) but it would be disappointing for him to step down before we get there. But also with M. So they build it up like there's a continuity with the old movies, that there was a female M and then where Dr. No picks up, the male M is in there. But from the main films we have the female M coming in after the collapse of the Soviet Union as Mrs. "I miss the Cold War." So it's like we have this same character who was there before the majority of the time span, and another at the end after it's been going on for a while, and that's really horribly explained, but it's seems paradoxical to me

But yeah, it was cool.