Most would balk at an open-ended series of adventures vaguely set in the Star Wars universe but with the same variance of style, tone and competence that the Bond franchise has displayed. Will they have to endure different actors taking on the central characters?
But, as the roles of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia are taken forward, the opportunities for other actors to screw them up – or rather "put their own stamp on them" – are endless.
Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
- Blowfeld
- Ministry of Defence
- Posts: 3195
- Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2007 9:03 pm
- Favorite Bond Movie: Goldfinger
For Your Eyes only
The Living Daylights - Location: the world
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
Love this bit:
"Those were the days when we still associated Bond with suave, old school actors such as Sean Connery and Roger Moore,"
"Daniel didn't have a hint of suave about him," - Patsy Palmer
- James
- OO Moderator
- Posts: 1593
- Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2007 5:14 pm
- Favorite Bond Movie: On Her Majesty's Secret Service
- Favorite Movies: George A Romero's Dawn Of The Dead
Silent Running
Harold and Maude - Location: Europe and Outer Space
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
Kristatos wrote:David Mitchell gets medieval on Skyfall's ass (in a column aobut Star Wars!)
The latest release from the 50-year-old 007 franchise is being showered with critical praise and box-office cash. Having seen Skyfall, I can't say I understand why. I mean, it's fine. It's probably an above-average Bond movie but then it benefits from both budgetary and technological possibilities that most of its predecessors lacked. It certainly isn't the "best Bond ever" as many are claiming. It is very nearly the longest Bond ever, narrowly beaten by Daniel Craig's first appearance in the role, Casino Royale. Maybe Craig has ambitions to be the longest-serving Bond but wants to get there in the fewest possible films.
There's a lot wrong with it. It takes itself far too seriously, the suavity of the character is lost; the heartless charmer, the well-dressed psychopath who will unhesitatingly deploy violence to get what he wants – but who wants nothing more, due to an accident of his nature, than the furtherance of British national interests – has been replaced by a gnarled potato-headed bruiser haunted by his own past. Batman without the gear. I miss the jammy sod in the bow-tie whose toast always lands butter side up. Yet, for all this self-importance, the plot is still as daft as in the campest days of Roger Moore. I won't spoil the end for you – the writers have already done that – except to say: have courage, the film does, eventually, end.
A gnarled potato-headed bruiser I'm surprised sometimes more people don't kick up a fuss about them changing the film Bond so much he's almost unrecognisable.
"I can't do that superhero stuff" Daniel Craig
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
http://community.compuserve.com/n/pfx/f ... &tid=24862
I didn't see a wa to share the link on Facebook or twitter
I didn't see a wa to share the link on Facebook or twitter
From: Harveycritic
Date: Nov-5
SKYFALL
Columbia Pictures
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Grade: C
Director: Sam Mendes
Screenwriter: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, John Logan
Cast: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Berenice Marlohe, Ben Whishaw, Albert Finney, Rory Kinnear, Ola Rapace
Screened at: AMC Empire, NYC, 11/5/12
Opens: November 9, 2012
[spoil]Skyfall As you survey the unfolding landscapes in this 50th Anniversary issue of the James Bond series, you may think, as did I, that the most impressive decision was made not by Sam Mendes, who directs the movie, not by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan who scripted the work, but by a small group of top leaders in the Chinese Communist party. The skyline of Shanghai, a city I visited in 1985 which then looked somewhat like Omaha, Nebraska and which had an airport that would be more at home in Ouagadougou, is sensational. It looks like Tokyo in the year 2040. All this change resulted when China’s leaders decided to shuck communism in all but name to make their land the super-capitalist nation that holds much of America’s debt and sends us a landslide of products from computers to sweaters.
After watching the breathtaking scenes filmed in China’s largest city, you might wonder what happened to the rest of the film. Dark, gloomy sets, scenes filmed underground in damp, scary tunnels proliferate. But what is lost most in this “Skyfall” is everything we recall that made the wildly successful franchise so different from other spy tales that fill our screens annually, whether the Bourne series which represents a generic example, or the dull, literary bore that was “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy.” In short, “Skyfall” has become that sadly generic thriller, full of car chases, explosions, and acts of derring-do, but which lacks the irony made famous by Sean Connery, the greatest of the Bonds, in everything from the opening work of the series, “Dr No,” through gems that hit the screen annually like “From Russia with Love,” “Goldfinger, and “Thunderball.” Sean Connery was well aware that James Bond’s activities are absurd, unbelievable, but he showed us the playfulness of the franchise by virtually winking at the audience when he made a cappuccino in under forty seconds and whose dialogue included such gems as “shaken, not stirred.” What’s more the early Bond movies were filled with gadgets like exploding pens, automobiles that spewed thunderbursts of clouds, and watches that could do a lot more than the most expensive Rolex. And when Sean Connery introduced himself as “Bond, James Bond,” the impact on the movie audience was electrifying.
All we have no is a standard-issue thriller which, though I’d grant the terrific job by a virtual army of special effects technocrats who make us believe that Bond and a villain could engage in a life-or-death struggle atop a fast-moving train, ducking just in time as it approaches a tunnel. And the chief villain Silva, played by Spanish star Javier Bardem, is no Donald Pleasance, who died in 1995 but who will always be remembered by me as the scoundrel who stroked his cat in “You Only Live Twice” while verbally exercising his power over Connery’s Bond.
Sure, there’s some psychology in “Skyfall,” more than you’d find in most other pics of this series. Bond (Daniel Craig) is shown with a weakness that should have drummed him out of M-16, Britain’s famed spy agency. He cannot shoot straight, he can barely get through tests of muscular strength graded by an accreditation panel. Why? He is victim of a near-murder thanks to a bad decision by M (Judi Dench), his boss, who tells agent Eve (Naomie Harris) to “take a shot,” despite the risk of hitting Bond rather than the man he is fighting. M even believes that Bond, like many of her other agents, has died and which threatens to cause her dismissal from the agency per her superior officer, Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes).
Daniel Craig acquits himself just OK despite being the anti-Sean Connery. Terrific as Tuvia Bielsky in Edward Zwick’s “Defiance”—perhaps because as the leader of a group of 1,000 Jews hiding in the forest from the Nazis the story is grounded in reality—he is here given nary a slice of witty banter, nor does he seem like the sort of actor who could pull that off, at least not like Mr. Connery. More like Timothy Dalton than Pierce Brosnan, Craig is merely adequate in the job. Don’t blame the scripters, who may have realized that they did not have a Connery on hand.
In this tale, Craig’s character is assigned the task of bringing down a rogue agent of M16, a man who was sold out by his boss, M, who gave him up to save five or six other agents and who bears a fierce urge to gain revenge against the woman he calls “the old lady.” Nor does Sam Mendes give him enough sex to frighten the MPAA into giving an R rating—ironically good for box office since the PG-13 will bring in a far bigger audience.
Character roles include Ben Whishaw’s Q, or Quartermaster, a computer geek who tracks Bond’s every move and Kincade (Albert Finney), unrecognizable as a caretaker of a bleak stone structure who helps Bond put an end to the vengeance-hungry Silva. And what’s with Severine (Berenice Marlohe) a tall, young woman packed with make-up who is in effect a captive operating in a Macao casino? Bardem is himself a character actor, bearing a blond hair dye-job, a swishy dude made psychotic by months of torture which he blames on M.
If we want to see a spy story, we’d go to any of the Bourne series, or even better some of the best oldies being Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and “The Thirty-Nine Steps.” Or we can take in the exploits of agents during World War II such as “13 Rue Madeleine.” We go to 007, however, to see irony, wit, and sex, don’t we? But we don’t get much of that this time around. That’s mighty disappointing.
Rated PG-13. 143 minutes © 2012 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online[/spoil]
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
http://thepopcornjunkie.com/2012/11/05/review-skyfall/
[spoil]After James Bond was rebooted in ‘Casino Royale’ and the slight detour via the dreadful ‘Quantum of Solace (QOS)’, Daniel Craig’s era of Bond has spent a lot of time with training wheels on. ‘Skyfall’ has Bond still learning the ropes and leaning on 50 years of nostalgic gimmicks for appeal, but it could be the final step in a prolonged road to the first great Craig Bond flick.
MI6 is under attack and M (Judy Dench) is the target. Bond (Craig) is dispatched to hunt down the threat.
Director Sam Mendes kicks things off with an over-the-top chase sequence that hints of Bond finally finding his feet in 2012 while Mendes displays skills for crafting action sequences. As Bond uses earth moving machinery while on board a moving train to cut a hole in a train carriage, and jump onto it while fixing his suit, it feels like Bond is back.
After the traditional silhouetted naked ladies dancing to the tones of Adele it becomes clear that Bond is still in a rebuilding phase as almost rebooting the character again as to erase ‘QOS’ from the mind. A cyber threat one Facebook reference away from trying too hard to – make Bond matter to a tech savvy audience with the keyboard trumping the way of the gun.
An intriguing villain in the form of Javier Bardem skulks over the plot like a phantom but is never fully utilised when in action. Bardem’s manikin like appearance is a false projection of perfection that hides a scared backstory which is where the character shines briefly.
Craig’s Bond is a dull, advertising meat sack. The franchise has always been plagued by product placement but when he’s slowly pulling back on a specific brand of beer or randomly putting on designer sunglasses while being held hostage it’s clear that Craig’s performance as a walking billboard is as good as it gets. An attempt is made to plunge into Bond’s past to give the character depth but it’s a futile attempt to ground a character who is a shallow womanising embodiment of the male bravado. The relief is that Ben Whishaw brings personality to franchise favourite, Q and Naomie Harris is flirtatious and dangerous as a minor sidekick.
Mendes is a steady hand with the camera in an age where most spy themed films look like they were shot in the middle of an earthquake. Instead of forging ahead with something new, the film relies on gags and references to previous Bond films with familiar cars, gadgets and one liners that proves it’s only as good as your fondness of the franchise will allow.
‘Skyfall’ is thankfully an end of the beginning of Craig’s Bond. There are certainly moments that farewell the past to set the stage for Craig to finally fill the boots of the character after playing in the kiddie pool for three films. It seems the wait is over, well, until Bond 24 is released.[/spoil]
2.5/5
Cameron Williams
The Popcorn Junkie
‘Skyfall’ is released:
9 November 2012 USA
22 November 2012 Australia
- The Saint 007
- 0013
- Posts: 3716
- Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2012 11:16 am
- Favorite Bond Movie: The Spy Who Loved Me, A View To A Kill, Goldfinger, GoldenEye, For Your Eyes Only, Moonraker, Octopussy, Thunderball
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
From The Popcorn Junkie review: "Daniel Craig’s era of Bond has spent a lot of time with training wheels on."
That is one of my biggest gripes with the reboot. Craig's Bond struggles to become Bond for three films, while the beginnings of other superheroes are done properly by the first film. And considering the fact that there's at least a 2 to 4 year wait between Bond films, it does make things drag on for too long. At this rate, Craig will spend most of his Bond career trying to become Bond. It really looks like this prequel wasn't planned very well.
That is one of my biggest gripes with the reboot. Craig's Bond struggles to become Bond for three films, while the beginnings of other superheroes are done properly by the first film. And considering the fact that there's at least a 2 to 4 year wait between Bond films, it does make things drag on for too long. At this rate, Craig will spend most of his Bond career trying to become Bond. It really looks like this prequel wasn't planned very well.
- Blowfeld
- Ministry of Defence
- Posts: 3195
- Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2007 9:03 pm
- Favorite Bond Movie: Goldfinger
For Your Eyes only
The Living Daylights - Location: the world
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
Oh no! More sacrilege! I can barely stand to read it. (and post it to three other places!!!! )
New Bond film ‘Skyfall’ falls flat
By Kyle Smiths
Like the Rolling Stones, James Bond movies turn 50 this year, and you can’t blame either for playing their hits. What more do you want from “Start Me Up”? Violins? A hip-hop beat?
But like the Stones, 007 is showing his wrinkles, and in the utterly routine effort “Skyfall,” we’re actually expected to cheer each chord we’ve heard so many times (here’s a martini shaker! Look, it’s a Walther PPK! And there’s an Aston Martin!) We’ve been turned into wretched Pavlovian dogs, salivating at the bell instead of the snack. The highlight, by far, is a classic animated credit sequence: Adele, you are the new Shirley Bassey.
Bond (Daniel Craig) is nearly killed in the opening scene, yet another Third World chase (again, with the motorcycles and the bazaar? Really?) in which 007 inexplicably keeps calling home to the boss, M (Judi Dench), for direction. Guys, James Bond does not use permission slips. Where’s the moment where he throws away his headset and goes it alone, consequences be damned?
Worse, he’s highly dependent on the heroics of a groovy co-secret agent (Naomie Harris) who seems thrown in to make Bond seem less alarmingly white and male. The sparks between them are nonexistent and brace yourself for an amazingly idiotic exchange between them at the end.
Worse still: Bond survives something that is unsurvivable (he’s not Superman) then, feeling his life was endangered by M, he hides, whines, sulks, stops shaving and (this is truly unforgivable) drinks a Heineken. (To his credit, he does cover the label with his hand, ashamed at being caught drinking Austin Powers’ brew).[spoil]Back at MI6 spy HQ in London, there’s a bombing and M gets chastised by her political overseer (Ralph Fiennes), yet when told to resign, she simply refuses, which seems contrary to the British spirit of taking responsibility. A nerdy new Q (the boy-pixie Ben Whishaw) hands Bond his new sidearm . . . in the middle of the National Gallery? These are secret agents? Do they post photos of their kills on Facebook?
Soon we’re off to China and the Pacific in search of a stolen list of the true identities of secret agents (the idea itself is stolen: Remember the NOC list from “Mission: Impossible”?) and to meet the gay supervillain behind everything. He is the campy Silva (Javier Bardem, in a Princess Di wig), who caresses Bond’s thighs and whispers, “Let’s see who ends up on top.” Silva, it turns out, is an ex-colleague of Bond’s who was betrayed by M for no reason except being overenthusiastic in his duties.
“American Beauty” director Sam Mendes, now riding a streak of five bad movies, borrows heavily from “The Dark Knight,” giving Bond a Bruce Wayne back story and a big, silly shootout at a Wayne Manor-like estate. Silva becomes a Joker-ish master of disguise. But there’s no wit or spirit to the action scenes (if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen all of the good stuff in this movie), and the imagination-free script keeps expressing amazement at these things called “computers” that can apparently wreak so much havoc.
Bringing on Mendes and “Shawshank Redemption” cinematographer Roger Deakins turns out to be a bit like hiring Mark Rothko to paint your house, and I don’t mean that in a good way. “Er, Mark, what’s with the splotch of burnt orange here and the splotch of crimson there? I wanted it all the same color. Also, that color was blue.”
Mendes and Deakins are so busy trying to be visionary that they don’t notice that characters are wandering too far from their roots, and half the time you can’t see what’s going on. A sequence in Shanghai in which Bond fights a fellow assassin against a gorgeous giant screen of jellyfish images degenerates into two anonymous backlit shadows. Silva is introduced with a shot that’s so ridiculously deep-focus, the camera work becomes a distraction. The scenes at the country house (which feature an amusing cameo by Albert Finney, trying his best to sound Scottish) are a bedlam of shadow and blasts of mustard-colored light.
There is a nice symmetry between underwater scenes at the beginning and the end, but just to summarize how perfunctory most of the movie has been, Bardem chimes in: “All this running, jumping around, it’s exhausting!”[/spoil]
kyle.smith@nypost.com
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/m ... p642vqU4M/
"Those were the days when we still associated Bond with suave, old school actors such as Sean Connery and Roger Moore,"
"Daniel didn't have a hint of suave about him," - Patsy Palmer
- Blowfeld
- Ministry of Defence
- Posts: 3195
- Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2007 9:03 pm
- Favorite Bond Movie: Goldfinger
For Your Eyes only
The Living Daylights - Location: the world
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
In ‘Skyfall,’ James Bond fights irrelevance
By Wesley Morris
The James Bond movie franchise turns 50 this year and continues with Daniel Craig in the title role. But to hear everybody in “Skyfall” debate whether, after 23 movies, James is now too long in the tooth for glamorous spy craft — the leaping onto speeding trains, the sneaking up behind a sexy lady as she showers — you would think the star of this movie is Methuselah. “Skyfall” refers to James’s boyhood manor. But, really, it’s what Chicken Little calls his action thriller, not 007.
At almost 2½ hours, the movie plays like a long, familiar family conversation: Should we put dad in a home or not? This idea of retirement comes up over and over, and it does so at the expense of the actual fun of these movies: their exaggerated interpretation of international politics — warlords, terrorists, greedy pigs, insane demands, the pathological need of sex to be had.
“Skyfall,” which has a midnight showing tonight at the Jordan’s Furniture IMAX theaters in Reading and Natick, doesn’t feature much of any of that. The movie gives us Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), an evil former agent who’s still mad about his treatment by MI6 and its ruthless director, M (Judi Dench). He wants the British intelligence agency in general and M in particular to suffer, so he steals a file with the names of NATO field operatives and begins to blow their cover, one mission at a time. He also has a computer virus obliterate the headquarters and flash ominous messages on M’s laptop. Obviously, she needs her precious 007 to stop the destruction. But before he can begin, James’s fitness for work is questioned. He was presumed dead after the film’s opening sequences and returns to London a drunken wreck. The security breach and James’s resurrection prompt the new intelligence and security chairman, Gareth Malloy (Ralph Fiennes), to question whether it’s time to put both the spy and his boss out to pasture. It’s the dignified thing to do, Malloy tells M. “Oh, to hell with dignity,” she spits, Denchly.
These are truly tedious stakes for an action movie. The franchise isn’t worried about world safety. It’s fretting over whether to start wearing Depends. After more than an hour, Silva reveals himself, among the vivid brutalist ruins of Japan’s deserted Hashima Island. The combination of Bardem’s slabby handsomeness and his newly yellow hair and orange eyebrows achieves unsightly alchemy: He’s Frankenstein’s Ken doll. Silva ties James up to a chair and proceeds to fondle, among other parts, his Adam’s apple. It’s quite a moment, one that both deliberately echoes a grisly torture sequence in “Casino Royale” (a much livelier evening at the movies, with Craig’s maiden outing as Bond) and implies the character’s bisexuality. Silva is flirting with Bond, and, sadly, “Skyfall” is flirting with us. Silva brings bond to Hashima Island not for sex, but to lecture him about what dinosaurs they all are — Bond, M, the agency, the series, their technology, their jet-set approach to intelligence.
[spoil]The script is credited to John Logan and two regular Bond screenwriters, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. The film’s been directed by Sam Mendes, an Englishman with a high style that can either mask mediocre material (“American Beauty”) or find unexpected moral art in familiar subject matter (the first Gulf war in “Jarhead”). I don’t know what Mendes believed he could bring to the series that would have freed it from all that it’s obligated to do. It seems as if Silva’s contempt for M — his vengeance is like that of a spurned child — and her discovery of an orphaned James might push the film into strange psychological territory, that M might be some rethinking of the manipulator Angela Lansbury played in “The Manchurian Candidate,” that the “M” might stand, sardonically, for “Mommy.” But the misogyny in this movie doesn’t extend that far. It’s still mostly women as bait, screw-ups, and exercise.
Watching the purposefulness of this movie, the way Mendes argues for conversation and atmosphere over conventional, incoherently assembled chases and fights, I realized I was frustrated. “Skyfall” does every single thing these movies have to do (Bond’s last-name/full-name introduction, the shaking of the martini, the sport cars and sport sex; the stunts, deployment of gadgets, and camped-up villainy), and there’s little Mendes can do to enliven the familiarity. He has a set of instructions and straying too far from them risks rearranging an entire room when your assignment was simply to remove a chair. Once James finds himself behind the wheel of an Aston Martin, Silva reveals his detachable jaw, and the equipment specialist, Q, and the executive assistant, Moneypenny, are reintroduced to the series, the movie’s self-defensiveness has atrophied into the kind of nostalgia that calls into question going on with this enterprise at all. Here we go again.
Mendes opens things up. There are three exquisite set pieces, one in MI6’s vast new underground lair that — austerity measures be damned — features a chic interrogation hangar with a holding tank that Bardem fills with the high-minded arrogance of Hannibal Lecter and the musky perversion of his serial killer in “No Country for Old Men.” Another is that Hashima Island interlude. The last is the film’s climax, which has been orchestrated in and around the grand old Skyfall manse in the Scottish Highlands. Nearly every Bond movie has fabulous exterior sequences. The ones in Skyfall are the first to achieve theatricality.
Mostly this is the result of ingenious art direction and production design, but it’s also a result of the manner in which the camera and editing resist carving up all that open space. As much as he can, Mendes wants you to appreciate the scale. These are sublime locations, particularly the last two. Why waste them in a barrage of technical excess? I would love to see them again. That, of course, would mean watching this movie a second time, and there’s not enough here to make that worth doing, even on HBO at 2 a.m.
Mendes conducts things with such deliberateness and precision that often all you have is clockwork. There might be people excited by trains that pull into the station on time, but that’s the least a good rail system can provide. Mendes meets expectations and visually exceeds them, but I didn’t have much fun at “Skyfall.” A kind of incompetence is the engine that keeps the franchise going. Professionalism should come more from MI6 than the filmmaking, per se, and all you notice with “Skyfall” is the professionalism.
This is especially true of Craig, who after three movies actually does look ready to retire. He has an actor’s dramatic heft, but, with the exception of “Casino Royale,” these movies have given him very little to act, which means you need a star with the kind of shameless, unembarrassed charisma that Craig — unlike Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Pierce Brosnan — might be too self-consciously talented to deploy. “Casino Royale” gave him a psychology to play. Here, he’s best as a kind of solemn fashion model, leaping from an excavator into the car of a moving train, stopping only to adjust the cuff of his shirt. Craig is either playing a man who’s psychologically firewalled or he’s layered a lot of posing and grave expressions into a sophisticated illusion of instinct — Richard Burton not drunk enough to let loose.
For all of “Skyfall,” I thought about the most recent “Mission: Impossible” — “Ghost Protocol” — a movie that didn’t need to exist and was seemingly delighted by its own extravagance. That movie had a star who loves, loves, loves being himself and a director who prizes coherence and was spared the assorted hassles that come with being responsible for a half-century-old franchise. The “Mission: Impossible” movies, as well as the “Bourne” films, a generous handful of television series, and almost anything starring Jason Statham, breathe the cultural oxygen of the Bond franchise without having to contend with or maintain its legacy. What was special about these movies’ ideas of international politics and sexual indecorousness 40 and 50 years ago feels standard now; some of that specialty, like Bond’s suaveness (Tom Ford made the excellent menswear), has a dated allure.
We’ve absorbed these movies so fully that there’s almost nothing left for them to say. The marketplace demands that the franchise exist, and with that comes a kind of pressure not to trash things too much. This means James Bond could never have been a woman or have sex with a man, that he must continue to battle craggy foes, that he’ll be more beholden now to the demands of the ratings board than he was even a decade ago (like many of its predecessors, the movie is PG-13, but this time the decorum is depressing), that he’ll never fully live in the 21st century because, this series seems to say, there’s something undignified about how we live now. But if these movies are ever to matter again, their makers have to be willing to say to hell with dignity.[/spoil]
Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @wesley_morris.end of story marker
"Those were the days when we still associated Bond with suave, old school actors such as Sean Connery and Roger Moore,"
"Daniel didn't have a hint of suave about him," - Patsy Palmer
- Blowfeld
- Ministry of Defence
- Posts: 3195
- Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2007 9:03 pm
- Favorite Bond Movie: Goldfinger
For Your Eyes only
The Living Daylights - Location: the world
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
Some are realizing Daniel looks ready to retire so him becoming Bond over three movies and 6 years just doesn't make senseThe Saint 007 wrote:From The Popcorn Junkie review: "Daniel Craig’s era of Bond has spent a lot of time with training wheels on."
That is one of my biggest gripes with the reboot. Craig's Bond struggles to become Bond for three films, while the beginnings of other superheroes are done properly by the first film. And considering the fact that there's at least a 2 to 4 year wait between Bond films, it does make things drag on for too long. At this rate, Craig will spend most of his Bond career trying to become Bond. It really looks like this prequel wasn't planned very well.
I like this from a new review
This is especially true of Craig, who after three movies actually does look ready to retire.
"Those were the days when we still associated Bond with suave, old school actors such as Sean Connery and Roger Moore,"
"Daniel didn't have a hint of suave about him," - Patsy Palmer
- Omega
- 0010
- Posts: 7325
- Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:01 pm
- Favorite Bond Movie: TLD LTK GE TND TWINE DAD OHMSS
- Favorite Movies: Gladiator
John Wick
Pacific Rim
LOTR trilogy
RED
Kingsman
X-Men First Class
X-Men Days of Futures Past
MI Rogue Nation - Location: the lost city
- Contact:
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
This is all Craig Bond is going to be, a bunch of wanna be art house films looking for a gritty edge.
............
- The Sweeney
- 003
- Posts: 3388
- Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:21 pm
- Favorite Bond Movie: OHMSS, GF, LTK, CR, FRWL
- Favorite Movies: Bullitt, The Long Good Friday, The Towering Inferno, Jaws, Rocky, Superman the Movie, McVicar, Goodfellas, Get Carter, Three Days of the Condor, Butch & Sundance, The Sting, All the Presidents Men
- Location: Underneath a Mango Tree....
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
I've definitely noticed more negative reviews popping up in the US. I wonder if US audiences won't respond positively to Skyfall like Europe has?
- stockslivevan
- SPECTRE 02
- Posts: 3249
- Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 12:13 am
- Favorite Bond Movie: From Russia with Love
- Location: Crab Key
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
Seems there's a lot of complaints about SF being an extension of Bond Begins, which from what I understand is untrue. This is more about Bond getting his groove back (after a mission goes wrong) as he is supposed to be a veteran 00 by the beginning of the film.Blowfeld wrote:Some are realizing Daniel looks ready to retire so him becoming Bond over three movies and 6 years just doesn't make senseThe Saint 007 wrote:From The Popcorn Junkie review: "Daniel Craig’s era of Bond has spent a lot of time with training wheels on."
That is one of my biggest gripes with the reboot. Craig's Bond struggles to become Bond for three films, while the beginnings of other superheroes are done properly by the first film. And considering the fact that there's at least a 2 to 4 year wait between Bond films, it does make things drag on for too long. At this rate, Craig will spend most of his Bond career trying to become Bond. It really looks like this prequel wasn't planned very well.
I like this from a new reviewThis is especially true of Craig, who after three movies actually does look ready to retire.
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
Village Voice: "Skyfall's fatal misstep is its slavish hewing to event-movie trends."
"He's the one that doesn't smile" - Queen Elizabeth II on Daniel Craig
- Napoleon Solo
- Agent
- Posts: 529
- Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2012 4:56 am
- Favorite Bond Movie: From Russia With Love
- Contact:
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
The Rotten Tomatoes score is 93 percent. Gotten good reviews by the NYT. Here's AP's via The Huffington Post:The Sweeney wrote:I've definitely noticed more negative reviews popping up in the US. I wonder if US audiences won't respond positively to Skyfall like Europe has?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/0 ... ertainment
If U.S. audiences don't respond the way they did in Europe, I think part of the reason will be the U.S. isn't into Bond to the same degree. I had lunch with a friend this summer -- just after the big Summer Olympics skit -- and this person (who's pretty well read) wasn't aware a new Bond movie was in production. A friend of mine commented on FB, "James Bond: 50 years, one plot."
- The Saint 007
- 0013
- Posts: 3716
- Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2012 11:16 am
- Favorite Bond Movie: The Spy Who Loved Me, A View To A Kill, Goldfinger, GoldenEye, For Your Eyes Only, Moonraker, Octopussy, Thunderball
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
But producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, who years ago inherited control of the franchise from their father Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, have been quite content with Craig's initiative. The 44-year-old actor is signed for two more Bond films, but Broccoli would have it be longer.
"We're not going to let him get away," says Broccoli. "We want him to keep making these films as long as he's willing."
So you're going to keep him in the role of Bond forever just because YOU like him, right? They're always going on about realism in these new Bond films. Well, here's some realism for you, Barbara; TIME STANDS STILL FOR NOBODY. Craig's not going to stay young forever. In fact, he's already looking quite old and withered at 44, and I'm sure that audiences do not want to see a tired and old Craig still paying Bond years from now. Oh, and speaking of the audience, THEY are the ones who ultimately decide how long Craig should stay, NOT YOU, Barbara.
"Daniel gives you more opportunities," Wilson adds. "He is definitely the main reason people want to be in these films."
Right...
EDIT: Here's a song for Barbara's Craig obsession:
"We're not going to let him get away," says Broccoli. "We want him to keep making these films as long as he's willing."
So you're going to keep him in the role of Bond forever just because YOU like him, right? They're always going on about realism in these new Bond films. Well, here's some realism for you, Barbara; TIME STANDS STILL FOR NOBODY. Craig's not going to stay young forever. In fact, he's already looking quite old and withered at 44, and I'm sure that audiences do not want to see a tired and old Craig still paying Bond years from now. Oh, and speaking of the audience, THEY are the ones who ultimately decide how long Craig should stay, NOT YOU, Barbara.
"Daniel gives you more opportunities," Wilson adds. "He is definitely the main reason people want to be in these films."
Right...
EDIT: Here's a song for Barbara's Craig obsession:
- tehmanis
- Lieutenant
- Posts: 66
- Joined: Sat May 26, 2012 3:00 pm
- Favorite Bond Movie: On her Majesty Secret Service, Casino ROyale,For Your eyes only, Goldfinger,Thunderball
- Favorite Movies: Gladiator
- Location: asia
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
yes, i think the audience ultimately decide how long Brosnan would stay back then in 2004The Saint 007 wrote: Oh, and speaking of the audience, THEY are the ones who ultimately decide how long Craig should stay, NOT YOU, Barbara.
- Omega
- 0010
- Posts: 7325
- Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:01 pm
- Favorite Bond Movie: TLD LTK GE TND TWINE DAD OHMSS
- Favorite Movies: Gladiator
John Wick
Pacific Rim
LOTR trilogy
RED
Kingsman
X-Men First Class
X-Men Days of Futures Past
MI Rogue Nation - Location: the lost city
- Contact:
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
Definitely more critical here. it has 10all it needs are 3 more to beat CR.Napoleon Solo wrote:The Rotten Tomatoes score is 93 percent. Gotten good reviews by the NYT. Here's AP's via The Huffington Post:The Sweeney wrote:I've definitely noticed more negative reviews popping up in the US. I wonder if US audiences won't respond positively to Skyfall like Europe has?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/0 ... ertainment
If U.S. audiences don't respond the way they did in Europe, I think part of the reason will be the U.S. isn't into Bond to the same degree. I had lunch with a friend this summer -- just after the big Summer Olympics skit -- and this person (who's pretty well read) wasn't aware a new Bond movie was in production. A friend of mine commented on FB, "James Bond: 50 years, one plot."
Maybe being a batman rip off plays badly here.
............
- Omega
- 0010
- Posts: 7325
- Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:01 pm
- Favorite Bond Movie: TLD LTK GE TND TWINE DAD OHMSS
- Favorite Movies: Gladiator
John Wick
Pacific Rim
LOTR trilogy
RED
Kingsman
X-Men First Class
X-Men Days of Futures Past
MI Rogue Nation - Location: the lost city
- Contact:
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
If there is good new for sweeney its Ebert likes it
............
- Dr. No
- 006
- Posts: 3453
- Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2007 6:28 pm
- Favorite Bond Movie: Dr. No
- Favorite Movies: Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade
SpiderMan 2
Empire Strikes Back
Shawshank Redemption - Location: Crab Key
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
We did and he should of had his 5th movie Casino Royale 2005. The crazy lady who owns the movies decided to fire him and nobody else. They were trying to get him back in 2005 but the crazy lady wouldn't allow it she had to have the guy who looks so psychotic skinheads cross the street to avoid him.tehmanis wrote:yes, i think the audience ultimately decide how long Brosnan would stay back then in 2004The Saint 007 wrote: Oh, and speaking of the audience, THEY are the ones who ultimately decide how long Craig should stay, NOT YOU, Barbara.
Chief of Staff, 007's gone round the bend. Says someone's been trying to feed him a poisoned banana. Fellow's lost his nerve. Been in the hospital too long. Better call him home.
- The Sweeney
- 003
- Posts: 3388
- Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:21 pm
- Favorite Bond Movie: OHMSS, GF, LTK, CR, FRWL
- Favorite Movies: Bullitt, The Long Good Friday, The Towering Inferno, Jaws, Rocky, Superman the Movie, McVicar, Goodfellas, Get Carter, Three Days of the Condor, Butch & Sundance, The Sting, All the Presidents Men
- Location: Underneath a Mango Tree....
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
Is he a decent name among US reviewers?Omega wrote:If there is good new for sweeney its Ebert likes it
- English Agent
- 0012
- Posts: 1284
- Joined: Sun Aug 12, 2007 12:27 am
- Favorite Bond Movie: OHMSS, CR, TB, LALD
- Location: England
Re: Sweeney's Rockin Skyfall Review Thread
EBERT is top dog film reviewer in US..........writes for a Chicago newspaper i believe.The Sweeney wrote:Is he a decent name among US reviewers?Omega wrote:If there is good new for sweeney its Ebert likes it