**Spoilers within, read at your peril if you havent watched it yet**
Personally I thought it was pretty mediocre. And I was surprised! The reviews were glowing... 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. Why!?!
My thoughts:
-Did not even feel like a Bond film. Felt like one big buildup, with some second-rate Jason Bourne action thrown in. Actually felt like a similar kind of let-down like Dark Knight Rises.
-Some scenes were so cardboard and cliched they were laughable... the whole Macau thing, it wasnt Bond, it was a cliche of Bond. I was thinking "huh, how can this be so cheesy"...
-The computer hacking was predictable and boring. There was no cleverness in general. A couple of times I thought "cool, here it comes..." and then, nope.
-Ralph Fiennes character and hipster Q were almost unnecessary and seemed to exist only to further the plot at 1-2 points, despite devoting chunks of the film to them
-Bardems villain had the beginnings of something interesting but ended up just seeming comical and pathetic. I never once thought "damn this guy is FUCKING COOL/SCARY/GENIUS"
-All the London action scenes seemed like a second-rate Bourne ripoff
And the whole last half an hour in Scotland was atrocious. This is James Bond! He's supposed to have some climactic problem solving / complex action / infiltration/ sabotage/ rescue / save the girl climax of awesomeness... not one boring last stand shootout in a barn in Scotland.
And if you're going to reveal Bonds past, and strip away the mysteriousness around him, at least make it have a payoff - some trial by fire, or touching something deep in his soul that develops the character. Obviously he has trauma and a dark past - but to actually take the audience back to his house, meet the old gamekeeper... why? Just so they can have a boring shootout with the badguys? You're destroying Bond's mysteriousness for nothing.
Casino Royale was AWESOME. Understated. Subtle. Intellectual. Pure Bond Awesomeness - stubborn determination, smooth social engineering, mysteriousness, razor-sharp masterful handling of conflicts. International jet-setting. Subterfuge, levels peeled back to reveal more complexity, deceit and intricacy underneath. An amazing twist. Bond being Bond.
Where was that in Skyfall? what happened?
There were only a couple of moments where I thought "YES, this is Bond". The 10 minutes when he'd returned from his 'death' and was going through the tests at Mi6, failing and getting stubborn, defiant and deliciously British. The other was the pistol shoot & helicopter scene at Silva's hideout where he owned it and pulled off the operation with sick Bond-ness.
Other than that though... man. Such a let down! I read that it's a "transition" movie... from what?! From having Judi Dench as a supporting character?!?! Casino Royale made the transition to the new Bond... this should have been pure awesomeness in the same vein. IMO it fell flat.
If you enjoyed it, what did you like? I obviously was expecting something and got something very different. Help me see why it was good...
Personally I thought it was pretty mediocre. And I was surprised! The reviews were glowing... 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. Why!?!
My thoughts:
-Did not even feel like a Bond film. Felt like one big buildup, with some second-rate Jason Bourne action thrown in. Actually felt like a similar kind of let-down like Dark Knight Rises.
-Some scenes were so cardboard and cliched they were laughable... the whole Macau thing, it wasnt Bond, it was a cliche of Bond. I was thinking "huh, how can this be so cheesy"...
-The computer hacking was predictable and boring. There was no cleverness in general. A couple of times I thought "cool, here it comes..." and then, nope.
-Ralph Fiennes character and hipster Q were almost unnecessary and seemed to exist only to further the plot at 1-2 points, despite devoting chunks of the film to them
-Bardems villain had the beginnings of something interesting but ended up just seeming comical and pathetic. I never once thought "damn this guy is FUCKING COOL/SCARY/GENIUS"
-All the London action scenes seemed like a second-rate Bourne ripoff
And the whole last half an hour in Scotland was atrocious. This is James Bond! He's supposed to have some climactic problem solving / complex action / infiltration/ sabotage/ rescue / save the girl climax of awesomeness... not one boring last stand shootout in a barn in Scotland.
And if you're going to reveal Bonds past, and strip away the mysteriousness around him, at least make it have a payoff - some trial by fire, or touching something deep in his soul that develops the character. Obviously he has trauma and a dark past - but to actually take the audience back to his house, meet the old gamekeeper... why? Just so they can have a boring shootout with the badguys? You're destroying Bond's mysteriousness for nothing.
Casino Royale was AWESOME. Understated. Subtle. Intellectual. Pure Bond Awesomeness - stubborn determination, smooth social engineering, mysteriousness, razor-sharp masterful handling of conflicts. International jet-setting. Subterfuge, levels peeled back to reveal more complexity, deceit and intricacy underneath. An amazing twist. Bond being Bond.
Where was that in Skyfall? what happened?
There were only a couple of moments where I thought "YES, this is Bond". The 10 minutes when he'd returned from his 'death' and was going through the tests at Mi6, failing and getting stubborn, defiant and deliciously British. The other was the pistol shoot & helicopter scene at Silva's hideout where he owned it and pulled off the operation with sick Bond-ness.
Other than that though... man. Such a let down! I read that it's a "transition" movie... from what?! From having Judi Dench as a supporting character?!?! Casino Royale made the transition to the new Bond... this should have been pure awesomeness in the same vein. IMO it fell flat.
If you enjoyed it, what did you like? I obviously was expecting something and got something very different. Help me see why it was good...