Stryder
Posts: 114
Joined: 15/10/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: howiet1971
I was disappointed; often style over substance. (A couple of scenes were shot beautifully - the entrance to the casino and the glass office). But there was no 'Bond'; a few (poor) one liners that seem to get worse, hardly anything from the Bond girls, little glamour, no gadgets, no car scenes, and an unfortunate scene in Instanbul which mirrored (the awful) Taken 2 . Updating Bond should not mean losing what made Bond 'Bond'.
It was no where near as good as Casino Royale, better than Quantum, enjoyable but ultimately disappointing.
Just come back from watching this movie and i hate to say it but i agree with you entirely on every point - You have summed it up exactly as i did ;) In a nutshell - A great film in it's own right, enjoyable but disappointing and definitely a little over-rated. No where near as good as Casino Royale as you say, but better than Quantum :)
Casino just had the 'perfect' balance, of keeping it Bond but taking it somewhere new with a different grittier style tone and treatment akin to the Bourne Identity movies and it worked brilliantly. Skyfall just takes it a step too far for me. It's too gritty, too heavy, too dark, too melodramatic, too dull and too depressing. Too much realism and not enough fantasy - though ofc i'd rather take too much realism over too much fantasy, the last thing we want is a Roger Moore throwback!
I thought the pace was too slow and it took far too long to get going. The flow was just not quite right somehow. Apart from the opening sequence ending with the train Craig never seemed to get going in full flow. In fact i can hardly think of anything memorable or thrilling action-sequence-wise at all. From Casino for example, we had nice car chase, opening island action sequence, fights at the casino in stairwells, explosive chases at the airport and a venitian finale. In Skyfall we had a few fisticuffs in the shanghai casino, MI6 blowing up and a bleak scottish set-piece. None of which was sustained or exciting for me. With the much talked about train crashing subway sequence being a huge disappointment, lasting all of 30secs and seemingly serving no real purpose. What was Bardem trying to do? Hit Bond with a train?! He might as well have just shot at him a few times instead!
Character-wise the villain only appeared i'm sure what seemed like half-way through and yes Bardem as always was brilliant but he hardly had 'that much' screen time. I found him a little freaky but hardly menacing and certainly not a great or memorable villain. Similar to the villain from Quantum in a way - weird more than anything. The Bond girls again, seemed to hardly figure that much. We had the gorgeous girl Bond meets in Shanghai, who lasted all of 5mins. In fact the whole of the Shanghai casino scenario looked great but it would have been nice to have spent more time there, or in Shanghai in general (Bond could have actually gambled a little we could have a had a more elaborate action sequence, more screentime for the Bond girl and perhaps even Bardem could have showed up somewhere). In Casino we had really great female character in Vesper who had lots of screentime and some brilliant dialogue and chemistry with Craig. Which was the other thing missing for me - the wit, humour and dialogue in the 'lighter' fashion. Yes there were some nice exchanges of dry wit between Craig and Winshaw and M and Bond, but nothing that rivaled the complexity or 'fun' of conversations such as that between Vesper and Bond when they meet for the first time on the train. I found a similar issue with Quantum. Perhaps it's just that Casino was better written, but either way after a promising opening, Skyfall just didn't grab me and by the time the film was coming to it's Scottish finale i'd lost all interest somehow.
However, i don't want to appear as if im shooting holes left right and centre here! There was also much that was great about it. I liked the opening sequence, the style and shooting of the casino entrance, the Adele song and the Shanghai scenes and the glass office - gorgeous. I love Judi Dench's performance and the dialogue between her and Bond. I absolutely loved the various throwbacks to the Connery-era Bond with the Aston Martin, Craig being a little less feral and ever so slightly more refined (straightening his suit after jumping on the train) and the whole clever ending with the new M, his office, Miss Moneypenny and the whole 60's throwback. I do think it's a slow burner and i do think that it'll grow on me more over time.
Ultimately it felt almost like it was trying too hard? A sense of it's a step 'too' far from the film-makers and in the process it's lost it's sense of fun and action and the feel of 'Bond'. It just seemed too 'serious' - i can't think of any other way of putting it. It was a gamble to do what they did with it this time and don't get me wrong, the execution was great and i'm not saying the treatment doesn't work - it was just not for me ;)
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Printable Version
RE: Skyfall - 
(still wish they could put the gun barrel back in the right place, though) 
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