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I won't post anything here to avoid mouse over spoilers. Just a question:

Great bond film, or greatest bond film?

I'll post my thoughts later, but I think this movie sticks out enough to get its own thread.

Just got back from it. As a huge, huge, huge James Bond fan, all I can say is



I dunno.



It's a very high quality James Bond film, there's no doubt there. It's well acted, well filmed, well scripted but it really plods along at the end there. Could use a lot of editing down to a brisker movie.

I loved it! Villain was great as well.

I would have loved the villain more had the audience we were with not giggled incessantly over his flamboyantness.

I liked that it was a concise plot - one villain seeking revenge against one person, not someone looking for world domination, or to take over a government, or seeking immense power or control. I guess they had to abandon the idea to take down Quantum from the previous two films. Maybe the studio bankruptcy forced them to scale the budget back, as most of the film was shot locally instead of exotically.

I dunno, I actually liked the uber villain out for world domination kind of plots that the old James Bond movies had. To me, James Bond is like the ultimate super spy, saving the world in style, with that charming nonchalance. I understand the need for reinventing the franchise (if they kept it up, they'd probably end up with stuff similar to xXx), but it's like they did a complete 180: No villain with some kind of crazy scheme, no witty James Bond, no gadgets (granted, the pen joke was funny, but WTH no gadgets?! And what's up with the new Q? Cleese didn't die, did he?), no cool cars (except for the tribute, but then again there's a reason everybody got all giddy when it appeared)...

Tl;dr: It feels more like "a regular spy thriller with a character named James Bond in it" than "a James Bond movie". It's not bad, but I miss the entertaining action-adventure level that the old movies had.

Also:
- I wish it weren't so easy to hack into everything in movies. I get that he was a field spy with specific hacking skills, but hacking into what's supposed to be the country's most secure network? And how the hell do you hack gas pipes? If it was that easy, then why go to the trouble to get the disk in the beginning, he could've just hacked the info..
- Really? The only way to get to Silva in the end is by going off alone, 2 people against an army fully loaded with guns and more? You can't a secret army of your own somewhere, or have guns for hire if MI6 is comprimised?
- When they were setting up the traps, my friend and I looked at each other and said "Home Alone" at the same time.
- Had a facepalm and a grin at the same time when the helicopter killed the house. Facepalm because of the helicopter killing the house, grin because it looked a bit like "In your face, Die Hard 4!" (the 'You just killed a helicopter with a car!' line).

Just saw it today. I liked it but I'm still formulating all my thoughts.

I liked it until

Am I the only one who liked that part?

Gusto said:

I liked it until

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My wife leaned over and whispered very much the same thing when that part got start. I was almost waiting for the A-Team music to kick in.

MindDetective said:

My wife leaned over and whispered very much the same thing when that part got start. I was almost waiting for the A-Team music to kick in.

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Yeah as soon as they showed up his place I whispered to my friend "Aw man this is turning into Home Alone" and them M and Bond had a trap-making montage and I just nudged him with my elbow and mouthed WHAT THE HELL.

Jax said:

It feels more like "a regular spy thriller with a character named James Bond in it" than "a James Bond movie". It's not bad, but I miss the entertaining action-adventure level that the old movies had.

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You just nailed the reason why I haven't seen any of the Bond films with Craig.

phil said:

Am I the only one who liked that part?

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I liked it too. I guess it was a little silly, but it fit. Part of what made the villain so scary was how tech-savvy he was, and how he could use technology to plan all these elaborate schemes. Being in the middle of nowhere, making weapons out of basically garbage, and going after machine guns with a sawed-off shotgun was pretty cool. So it just felt like a statement about what he could do with very little, with getting back to basics, regaining confidence, and also facing his past.

Also, for the record, the ending was much more akin to Straw Dogs than fuckin' Home Alone.

When they were making the traps, I was also reminded of MacGyver. And when they started boarding up the windows, a little part of my brain was waiting for the theme of the A-Team..
I guess the new James Bond movies are still old school

Charlie Don't Surf said:

Also, for the record, the ending was much more akin to Straw Dogs than fuckin' Home Alone.

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Never seen Straw Dogs. I work with the movie archetypes I got.

Charlie Don't Surf said:

Also, for the record, the ending was much more akin to Straw Dogs than fuckin' Home Alone.

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Straw Dogs (the newer version) box office: 10 million

Home Alone: 500 million worldwide

Which movie do you think more people are going to draw similarities between?

Frank said:

Straw Dogs (the newer version) box office: 10 million

Home Alone: 500 million worldwide

Which movie do you think more people are going to draw similarities between?

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I never said I was surprised by the Home Alone jokes! Just saying for the record since I'm one of the 4 people that has seen Straw Dogs, and it's a really great movie (original, obviously)

Frank said:

Straw Dogs (the newer version) box office: 10 million

Home Alone: 500 million worldwide

Which movie do you think more people are going to draw similarities between?

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SIMILARITIES? (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

oh wait, that's not the same... ┬─┬ ノ( ゜-゜ノ)

Saw it in avant-premiere; nice movie, but as some have already said...I don 't know about the Craig Bond. I'm happy he's not I'm-american-in-all-but-name super-action-hero Brosnan, but it's not exactly Connery. I prefer the classic Bonds as Bonds go, but it was a very good movie. It was a better movie than it was a Bond movie.

jwhouk said:

You just nailed the reason why I haven't seen any of the Bond films with Craig.

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I really enjoy the more realistic plots, as realistic as any Bond film can be, that the Craig era has brought to the table.

Brosnan's span of work made the franchise pretty much unwatchable for me.

Also I'm very glad they went with the Adele theme over the proposed Muse one.

I thought the Adele theme was as boring as possible...really lackluster.

How bad was the Muse one?

I liked Casino Royale better as a Bond movie, but I thought this was a great overall movie. It made up for Quantum, and felt like a good trilogy ending.

I think Casino Royale was one of those moments where everything seemed to click (and after Die Another Day our expectations were quite low.) It really is a fantastic movie, it's immensely rewatchable and the theme, music, acting, are all incredibly sharp. Complaints such as replacing chemin de fer with Poker are understandable but silly considering most people wouldn't even know how to play baccarat.

I've watched Skyfall twice now and it did get better the second time around.

Frank said:

I thought the Adele theme was as boring as possible...really lackluster.

How bad was the Muse one?

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Not bad at all, really. Just thought the Adele one better fit the whole 50 years of bond thing SkyFall had going on.

Adam said:

I think Casino Royale was one of those moments where everything seemed to click (and after Die Another Day our expectations were quite low.) It really is a fantastic movie, it's immensely rewatchable and the theme, music, acting, are all incredibly sharp. Complaints such as replacing chemin de fer with Poker are understandable but silly considering most people wouldn't even know how to play baccarat.

I've watched Skyfall twice now and it did get better the second time around.

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I think part of the issue with Skyfall is that it's the end to a trilogy about Bond's transformation into who he is (modernized, of course), but Casino Royale was came off as a standalone origin story, and Quantum just generally mucked it up without making up its mind (and being not so great, to boot). So the expectation wasn't really set for what it is.

If you went into Skyfall expecting a modern take on the standard Bond formula, I can see why anyone would be disappointed. I was forewarned though, that it was more like the end of what Casino Royale began, and I really liked it as such.

Vagabond said:

Not bad at all, really. Just thought the Adele one better fit the whole 50 years of bond thing SkyFall had going on.

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I generally like Muse but that was three songs jammed together. Any third of that song would have made a great bond theme, or even two out of the three.

phil said:

Am I the only one who liked that part?

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I also like this movie. I have watched this movie 2 time and i love it. But there was not latest technology used in this movie which was the worst thing of this movie. Otherwise skyfall movie is one of the best movie of James b0nd movies series.

I agree trusted Halforums poster Jamesdawn.

I actually don't. Bond's lack of gadgets is definitely not an issue.

SpecialKO said:

I think part of the issue with Skyfall is that it's the end to a trilogy about Bond's transformation into who he is (modernized, of course), but Casino Royale was came off as a standalone origin story, and Quantum just generally mucked it up without making up its mind (and being not so great, to boot). So the expectation wasn't really set for what it is.

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The sad thing about it being that I really felt like Casino Royale ended in such a way left the door open for a fantastic followup movie.

And instead they dropped the ball.

I think "okay" sums up my review. It felt like it was trying to mix in too much of the Moore era, and in the process, it lost what made the Craig Bond appealing. Craig's athleticism helps define his character, and they actually went so far as to introduce a plot device to limit it at the beginning of the film. I was literally on the edge of my seat for the parkour scene in Casino, but not so much in this one. They reached for Moore-like over the top things, like trains crashing through the ceiling, and komodo dragons eating Asian stereotypes. All in all, it felt like we were being led by the nose to a new director/style, kicking and screaming. They had all of this thinly veiled symbolism, like blowing up the old Bond house, multiple references to Craig's age, killing M, replacing Q, the gamekeeper proclaiming that sometimes the old ways are the best, and Bond being reborn through the vagina-like opening in the ice (okay--that one was a joke).

I like QoS, but I like it even more when you watch it back to back with CR.

I want to watch Skyfall, but having a 2.5 month old gets in the way of movie time. Except for the Hobbit...I'll make arrangements to catch that on opening day and multiple times after that.

KCWM said:

I like QoS, but I like it even more when you watch it back to back with CR.

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IMO the biggest problem with QoS was that is not really a stand alone movie and more of a part 2 to Casino Royale. Otherwise I did not mind it too much.