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Skyfall was awesome!

I saw Skyfall last night at it's North American premiere and it was quite good! Not the biggest fan of Daniel Craig, I have grown much more respect for the actor and Javier Bardem was better than ever! What a creepy villain! Anyway, check it out and even if you're not a fan of the 007 series, you should still get a kick out of it! Well done! It's up there with GoldenEye, Casino Royale and Goldfinger! The film is quite emotional for a Bond film. I would say just as much if not more so than Timothy Dalton's outing in Licence to Kill.

Do I need to know the previous two films or is it completely independent?

It's completely independent.

I saw it last weekend, and I really enjoyed it by the end but I found the plot and the 'secrets' more conventional than I was hoping for. Mendes has already commented on how Nolan (obviously as is standard issue these days) influenced some of their approach but I'm not sure a dash of copying works as that's what it feels like a bit more.

But I liked it, it's the best of the Craig Bonds for me and I absolutely loved the final third of the film thanks to Roger Deakins photography in the settings there. I wasn't big on Bardem, I gotta say but Judi Dench really got more to do here than she ever has before and did great. Good chemistry with Craig along the way.

I keep hearing rumors that this might be the first Bond film to be nominated for Best Picture in 50 years.

Seems a tall order for any 'franchise' movie, regardless of genre.

I personally felt this was the weakest of the Craig era Bond films. I think if you go threw all the Bond films the smaller scale ones that tell the more intimate stories work better than the big elaborate ones. Casino Royale still holds for me as one of the best.

Plot Details

I've seen "Skyfall" twice now and this wasn't really a movie about Bond it was far more about M. In premise it wasn't a bad idea but I don't think it was executed very well. They set up this elaborate web at the beginning of the film and the payoff was far too simple for my liking. As one reviewer put it "A stiff drink with a weak chaser" I didn't feel emotionally invested in the film. The impact of M's death at the end didn't move me as it should have, which makes me sad because I loved Judi Dench's M. I just felt like the whole movie was missing that Bond feel, I can't put my finger on it exactly. Also you can totally fell the Nolan Batman influence in this film, trying to make things epic with some grandiose message that they fell the need to beat you over the head with. In "The Dark Knight Rises" it was "Rich vs. Poor" in "Skyfall" it's "The old ways vs. the new ways," just because you keep repeating a message doesn't give the film more meaning or emotional impact. I got the message early on and got annoyed after hearing it over and over again just as I did with TDKR. It's like they think the audience is too stupid to figure it out. You could make a drinking game out the amount of times they mention it and finish a bottle of vodka by the end. I would have enjoyed more focus on the Bond/M relationship and those characters than the message. I think Bond works far better when it's personal. One of the greatest scenes for me that sums up Criag's Bond is in Quantum of Solace. Bond gets in to a brawl with an assassin in a Haitian hotel and ends up stabbing the guy in the leg cutting the femoral artery. The look on Craig's face as he watches the guy bleed out slowly in front of him is fantastic. It's a horrible image but it makes you feel a little bit of what it must be like to be this guy. On the plus side of things, "Skyfall" was visually stunning. I thought despite not feeling the emotional impact both Dench's and Craig's performances were still very good. I even enjoyed Javier Bardem's performance as the villain. I did like the fact that they addressed Bond aging but I didn't like the lack of explanation for Bond's survival at the beginning. The fall alone should have killed him. I also thought that might have been a set up when I saw the trailers but it ended up being a sort of cheap why to get him out of the picture for awhile. I'm really hoping the next one will get things back on track but only time will tell.

I still think that Pierce Brosnan has one more left in him. It's a shame they let him go when they did. But, since they were turing to make James before he became Bond then I guess I could understand. I thought this film stood out and I plan on seeing it again and again. There are still some questions regarding it. The theme by Adele is one of the best in a long while. If you haven't heard it, check it out here and let me know what you guys think!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeumyOzKqgI

Can't wait to see it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by omegaman (Post 327283)

Can't wait to see it.

Let us know what you thought of it when you see it! I'd love to know! For those of you that aren't aware of the James Bond films that have come to pass, here is a list for your viewing pleasure! *This list includes the two unofficial Bond films Never Say Never Again (1983) and Casino Royale (1967) including the CBS Climax! episode "Casino Royale" in 1954.

Table of Contents:
Barry Neslon
Sir Sean Connery
David Niven
George Lazenby
Sir Roger Moore
Timothy Dalton
Pierce Brosnan
Daniel Craig

Casino Royale (1954)
Dr. No (1962)
From Russia with Love (1963)
Goldfinger (1964)
Thunderball (1965)
Casino Royale (1967)
You Only Live Twice (1967)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Live and Let Die (1973)
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Moonraker (1979)
For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Octopussy (1983)
Never Say Never Again (1983)
A View to a Kill (1985)
The Living Daylights (1987)
Licence to Kill (1989)
GoldenEye (1995)
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
The World is not Enough (1999)
Die Another Day (2002)
Casino Royale (2006)
Quantum of Solace (2008)
Skyfall (2012)