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Yeah I'm not sure if you could really pull off a more classic-style Bond these days, just like you couldn't do a Carry On film. ...OK you probably could, there are enough loving terrible people out there that would unironically love both those things.
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Oct 25, 2015 23:52
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It is really weird though come to think of it, Craig's 3 films in, and he's failed at almost all his missions: Casino Royale: fails to stop the plane bombing at the airport, fails to capture le chifre, the bond girl double crosses him and he can't save her Quantum of Solace: Mr White escapes, 1st bond girl dies, I guess Bond saves the bolivian water supply or whatever bullshit happened in that movie, but he doesn't end up tracking down or finding more about Quantum, who are technically behind everything Skyfall: he loses the NOC list, gets shot, lets the assassin kill his target, lets the bond girl die (again), then lets M get killed so Silva essentially accomplishes what he set out to do Like, if you didn't have the previous films in the series to fall back on, you would rightly wonder why the gently caress Bond hasn't been fired from MI-6, because by all accounts he's completely useless
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Oct 26, 2015 02:52
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He did stop the plane bombing but he does gently caress up and lose his card game initially.
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Oct 26, 2015 05:22
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A lot of that really isn't his fault. In Skyfall alone, he lost the NOC list because his partner shot him off the train. We don't know that he wouldn't have just beaten the guy on the train had that not happened. The assassin killing his target isn't a failure, the target was just a random guy that Bond and MI6 apparently had no interest in. Finally, Silva likely wouldn't have ever escaped MI6 had Q not plugged the laptop into their network like a dumb poo poo. I wasn't the only one in the theater that groaned the second he did that. A lot of this poo poo is really the fault of the people surrounding James Bond.
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Oct 26, 2015 07:35
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In addition to all the photos he gets at the opera, Bond gets a ton of info from Mr. Green at the end of QoS, part of which he uses to track down Vesper's "deceased" boyfriend at the end of the film. It seemed to me the intention there was to either set up Bond taking on Quantum proper (which it seems has now morphed into/been revealed as Spectre) or to suggest at the start of the next film that they'd already been dismantled. But QoS was pretty poorly received so Skyfall seemed more interested in getting everything back to basics, and now it seems Spectre (from what little I've seen on it so far) is about tying those first two Craig films back into the mix. I still enjoy Quantum though the seams in the story show pretty clearly - in addition to the writers' strike trouble it had the unenviable task of following up Casino Royale which remains an utterly magnificent film. Skyfall was a different beast altogether and I loved it, especially the beautiful visuals (big shock from a Deakins film, I know!) but if they could make more films like Casino Royale I'd be very, very happy.
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Oct 26, 2015 08:29
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I can't stand Royale because it's just not a Bond film to me. It's got more in common with a blasted romance movie than a Bond film. That and the motherfucker's tell is literally him crying blood. How the hell does he win at poker?
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Oct 26, 2015 11:56
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Yorkshire Tea posted:I can't stand Royale because it's just not a Bond film to me. It's got more in common with a blasted romance movie than a Bond film. They don't actually use that as a tell. He even explains it that it's not a tell when it first happens and that you can't read too much into it.
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Oct 26, 2015 11:58
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bullet3 posted:Quantum of Solace: Mr White escapes, 1st bond girl dies, bullet3 posted:Skyfall: he loses the NOC list, gets shot, lets the assassin kill his target, lets the bond girl die (again), then lets M get killed so Silva essentially accomplishes what he set out to do
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Oct 26, 2015 13:39
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El Grillo posted:Yeah I'm not sure if you could really pull off a more classic-style Bond these days, just like you couldn't do a Carry On film. There is probably some middle ground between "Roger Moore 70s smirking sexist/racist camp-fest" and "absolute joylessness" though? Wacky idea I know. sean10mm fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 14:54
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The most incomprehensible thing about Quantum of Solace to me is Bond seeing that Mathis is alive, and then immediately using him as a human shield.
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Oct 26, 2015 15:44
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Yorkshire Tea posted:I can't stand Royale because it's just not a Bond film to me. It's got more in common with a blasted romance movie than a Bond film. There was one bluff in the entire movie (why did they not make Bond a reckless player that wins at the end on dumb bluffs that get lucky - horrible misstep), and super awesome math skills make little to no difference in poker. He was just incredibly lucky at poker as a superpower is the only answer.
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Oct 26, 2015 15:53
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Chairman Capone posted:The most incomprehensible thing about Quantum of Solace to me is Bond seeing that Mathis is alive, and then immediately using him as a human shield. I always liked that a lot actually. Craig's Bond would've preferred Mathis be alive, but it seems fully in character that Mathis is definitely not on his list of "guys I'm willing to die for." Using his pudgy still-breathing body as a meat shield, killing his attackers, then giving his sort of friend a perfunctory tribute before tossing him in a dumpster is peak Craig Bond and a great character moment for me
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Oct 26, 2015 16:30
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sean10mm posted:There is probably some middle ground between "Roger Moore 70s smirking sexist/racist camp-fest" and "absolute joylessness" though? Wacky idea I know. It's called mission impossible rogue nation, probably the best "fun" bond film in decades
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Oct 26, 2015 17:37
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You completely misspelled The Man From UNCLE.
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Oct 26, 2015 18:04
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Rap Record Hoarder posted:It's surprising to me that Skyfall is so reviled? None of the criticism seems unfair, I just always thought the consensus was that everyone loved it. It's a "vocal minority" thing, I assure you. I haven't even seen Skyfall but pretty much my entire impression of it is "the hugest, most successful Bond movie in decades that everyone loves for some reason".
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Oct 27, 2015 00:06
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Just got back from a screening. Some thoughts: Dat opening shot  I guarantee someone with a Cthulhu fetish will use those opening titles to jerk off to. I absolutely cannot trust Andrew Scott after seeing him as Moriarty so him ending up as a bad(ish) guy was no surprise whatsoever. There was an audible intake of breath when the new Aston was shown. No idea how it supposedly cost MI5 £3 million though. After the plane/Land Rover chase down the mountain Bond just wanders off without making sure that Dave Bautista, Spectre's hired henchman, is actually dead and not just a bit hurt? I mean, if Bond actually made sure people were dead instead of just assuming he'd run out of villians pretty drat quickly, but still. Also apparently Bautista's character has an actual name, which is news to me because I'm drat sure it never got uttered on screen. Did whoever owns that hotel in Tangier not notice one of their rooms being walled off, or did they just not care? Blofeld's plan is possibly the most insane and pointlessly drawn-out plan of every Bond villain ever, which is really saying something. He's spent nearly 40 years of his life becoming an all-powerful crime boss just so he can gently caress with Bond as revenge? Also having spent most of the film having various henchmen attempting to kill Bond, once he finally gets a real opportunity he decides to indulge in some light torture instead. Every other insane Bond villain went down that path, and look how it turned out for them. And what exactly is Spectre's endgame? This worldwide and all-powerful crime organisation wants to access the CNS system to get everyone's surveillance data (although they seem to have pretty good surveillance themselves already) so they can become even more worldwide and all-powerful? M's line "I guess we know what C stands for" got the biggest laugh of the night. Also nice callback to Casino Royale with the villain trying to shoot someone with a gun that'd already been unloaded. Having two timer-based catastrophe events within 5 minutes seems like a fairly unoriginal and unsubtle way to try to achieve some tension, it just comes off as overkill. I'm assuming they'll use Blofeld in the next film, seems a bit pointless introducing such an iconic character and then having him be one-and-done. Especially since he only had the scar for the final 10 minutes or so. Overall it was pretty fun while it was happening, just if you think about it too much afterwards it starts to fall apart a little bit. Better than Quantum of Solace for sure but I think among Craig's Bonds I'd rate it below both Skyfall and Casino Royale.
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Oct 27, 2015 00:16
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lizardman posted:Hahaha, I don't care what that article says, "I'm Mickey Mouse, rear end in a top hat," could be an AMAZING line. It was. Just got out from this. Don't know how I feel about it yet. Better than Skyfall in some ways, worse than Quantum in others. Waltz phoned it in hard, and the entire third act made barely any sense at all.
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Oct 27, 2015 00:18
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Is the action any good? Is the cinematography solid? That's been my fear coming out of the trailers, it all looked very dull and visually flat. But Hoytema's done awesome work in the past so I've been hoping in context it looks awesome.
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Oct 27, 2015 01:13
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Genetic Toaster posted:Just got out from this. Don't know how I feel about it yet. Better than Skyfall in some ways, worse than Quantum in others. Waltz phoned it in hard, and the entire third act made barely any sense at all. That's disappointing, I have opening night tickets and was looking forward to (if nothing else) a good Waltz performance.
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Oct 27, 2015 01:27
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Just saw it, not as good as Skyfall, on par with Casino Royale. It's a stunning movie. That opening shot... dang. It also plays a tonne of stuff straight that I'd assumed Austin Powers had conclusively laid to rest: secret villain lair, bizarrely long-winded torture device, uniformed goons, Nehru collar - even a goddamn white cat. And it works! Waltz' character is a teensy bit underdeveloped, but he's still drat good.
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Oct 27, 2015 01:44
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lizardman posted:It's a "vocal minority" thing, I assure you. I haven't even seen Skyfall but pretty much my entire impression of it is "the hugest, most successful Bond movie in decades that everyone loves for some reason". Pretty much. It's easily the best Bond film since On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but people who don't actually like Bond complain that it - the movie where Bond fights a Komodo dragon & gets a train launched at him - is too 'grimdark' or something.
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Oct 27, 2015 01:52
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In Spectre a building collapses with Bond inside and he lands safely on a big sofa, smirks and strolls away. It's pretty goofy.
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Oct 27, 2015 02:05
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:the movie where Bond fights a Komodo dragon If I recall, Bond doesn't fight the dragon so much as use it as a trampoline, which is exactly the kind of humorless grimdark bullshit that's been poisoning the Craig era
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Oct 27, 2015 03:03
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Is there a gun barrel?
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Oct 27, 2015 03:04
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Saw it, loved it. The third act IS a bit weak, although I think the big world changing threat (unified pervasive surveillance from the worlds superpowers) was shoehorned in nicely enough to give the whole film the gravitas that it needed to carry the third act home. I guess we have Snowden to thank for the motivation behind that one. I especially liked that the big headline after the opening credits condemning the Mexico fiasco was on the front page of The Guardian, so realistic! That said, I personally wasn't quite sure how Blofeld managed to get that... elaborate "trap" for bond set up in old MI6 building with such haste, it all seemed a bit too perfect and neat. That said, I still had a "blast" watching the whole thing. I think peoples concerns about Blofeld's motivations for not killing Bond when he had about a hundred separate chances can be explained away fairly easily by just accepting that Blofeld is pretty insane and just wants to gently caress with bond as severely as possible. If Bond never caught up with him, that would be a victory in itself. I loved that he had the whole shebang though (Evil lair, elaborate set pieces, monologuing, torture table, white cat, uniformed grunts, henchmen), it felt like I was watching a fusion of the older films and the newer films that I didn't really know that I ever wanted quite that badly. That said though, if someone walked out of the film not liking it all that much I think I would struggle to argue against them. Not because I agree with that sentiment but I can imagine that lots of things that I liked about the film could just as easily turn someone off the film. I think that it depends on what sort of bond you prefer. I think the balance tipped over to good rather than bad, though it could have easily gone the other way if they had left certain things undone.
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Oct 27, 2015 03:58
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Back from seeing it. I liked it okay, though not nearly as much as Skyfall or Casino Royale. Craig's acting felt weaker in this one. Writing was rather confusing, I couldn't keep track of why Bond was going to each of those places. Good action though. Best part was the prologue. I mean really, Bond, don't kill the pilot of the helicopter you are in! That seems unwise.... Otherwise, taking down the Spectre base was way too easy. Silvia from Skyfall felt a much more threatening and competent villain than Blofeld. I was thinking that the twist with the bomb was that Swann had already left, she was not around to be rescued by him. But alas not. Also I didn't get why everyone was in a hurry to kill nine eyes before it starts up. I did like that the new Q's shtick seems to be that everything he gives Bond sucks or is designed to actively hinder him. A bit sad that the smart blood subplot didn't go anywhere, and the watch actually did work. Fangz fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 04:06
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Jenny Angel posted:If I recall, Bond doesn't fight the dragon so much as use it as a trampoline, which is exactly the kind of humorless grimdark bullshit that's been poisoning the Craig era I noted this in the comicbook thread a while back: the 'grim' in 'grimdarkness' refers exclusively to how much fun the main character is having. (Darkness refers to literal darkness.) This is why, for example, Die Hard is not considered a 'grimdark' movie even though it involves the protagonist undergoing various tortures in a night-time environment. While Skyfall is a goofy fuckin movie, Bond himself finds the whole situation rather unpleasant. Worse: his mommy gets upset with him.
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Oct 27, 2015 04:21
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I noted this in the comicbook thread a while back: the 'grim' in 'grimdarkness' refers exclusively to how much fun the main character is having. (Darkness refers to literal darkness.) This is why, for example, Die Hard is not considered a 'grimdark' movie even though it involves the protagonist undergoing various tortures in a night-time environment. I agree with most of the premises here but not really the one that Bond is finding Skyfall particularly unpleasant. Rather, he's just not one for performative displays of joy - contrasted with his Dark Mirror Figure, a flamboyant showman who's also suicidally depressed. The final line of the movie is literally Bond saying "with pleasure" while maintaining his stoic expression, so for a viewer who's been studying his face carefully the whole movie to determine whether they're allowed to have fun, the movie just straight up gives you the answer key. Yes! This has been Bond's happy face the whole time.
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Oct 27, 2015 04:55
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I don't know, he seems pretty drat happy when he shouts,"Q Branch's latest invention, it's called radio!" 
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Oct 27, 2015 06:41
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I think it was the worst Craig Bond film, though I didn't like Skyfall on first viewing either so maybe this will change? I didn't like that it required a massive amount of suspension of belief that the two most exceptional men on the planet happened to be fostered brothers, but not because they shared an exceptional event or anything, just because yet at the same time the stakes were so low as Spectre seem to be organisation that don't exactly seem to do anything, other than one line about prostitution and some bombings that you never see. Their doomsday plan to just to construct a giant CCTV network. Also, in what way is he Blofeld responsible for Le Chiffre/Quantum/etc, as the film didn't really go to show how Blofeld was masterminding it other than just be claiming "Yeah, that was me who did it all"  . Lastly, is the Blofeld is James Bond's brother plot the first time that Bond actually cribs from Austin Powers rather than the other way around?. Daniel Craig is also getting on a bit now, can't see him doing another one, he's getting into James Bond loving his daughter/grand daughter territory. I agree that Waltz performance did not at all meet my expectations of him.
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Oct 27, 2015 09:11
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You don't need to spoiler tag, but is there a gun barrel or not?
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Oct 27, 2015 09:13
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CelticPredator posted:You don't need to spoiler tag, but is there a gun barrel or not? There is a gun barrel! I found this movie so boring that I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the ways in which it's quite strange. In some ways, it reminded me of Die another Day, in that it takes the established format of the Bond movies immediately preceding it and stretches it to the point that it snaps apart completely. A real problem it has is that the overarching narrative now spans ten years, and to an extent this means that the concerns the film deals with seem like the ones people had in 2005 rather than the ones we've got here in 2015. Today, I'd say what characterises the world is a broad collapse of the post Cold War order, as tensions between major states steadily increase and the political situation in minor ones undergo complete collapse. To me, it's a world defined by a growing sense of rudderlessness and chaos— but the threats in SPECTRE's world, by contrast, are ones defined by total order. It was a strange experience to go and see a film where the bad guys' plan depends on the USA and China giving each other access to their security infrastructure, then coming out of it to find those two countries have engaged in military posturing out in the South China Sea. It made me feel that the world where SPECTRE win and get to spy on everyone was still, on balance, a safer and more secure one than actual reality. It made me feel like the world I lived in had more in common with a James Bond movie than the one I saw on the screen. I think this has to be the end of the Craig films because of that: it doesn't really matter to me that the star is now quite old, but I do care that the underlying philosophy behind them is. A world where MI:6 disbands because there isn't any use for it anymore may have seemed feasible back when Casino Royale was released, but now... ...well, it's a bit silly, but in a really tedious way. At least an invisible car is a fun idea, and at least Die Another Day never thought it was in any way gritty or real.
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Oct 27, 2015 13:44
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I won't get a chance to see this until the DVD comes out (having a baby rather limits your opportunities for cinemagoing), so can anyone say whether the third act got changed from what was revealed in the Sony leaks? Ie, SPECTRE's plan is stopped by Bond uncovering a single incriminating document before a deadline, and Blofeld is killed when 007 shoots him in the face.
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Oct 27, 2015 14:24
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Payndz posted:I won't get a chance to see this until the DVD comes out (having a baby rather limits your opportunities for cinemagoing), so can anyone say whether the third act got changed from what was revealed in the Sony leaks? Ie, SPECTRE's plan is stopped by Bond uncovering a single incriminating document before a deadline, and Blofeld is killed when 007 shoots him in the face. Yes, things don't play out like that in the movie at all: Bond walks away from killing Blofeld, who is arrested instead, while SPECTRE's plan is stopped by some hacking and one of the bad guys falling down a hole.
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Oct 27, 2015 14:51
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Jerusalem posted:I don't know, he seems pretty drat happy when he shouts,"Q Branch's latest invention, it's called radio!" Nah, he's raising his voice a bit on account of the helicopters, but he's still pretty sedate. Silva's a little more perky when he throws the line back at Bond later.
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Oct 27, 2015 15:35
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Thank CHRIST there's a gun barrell. I was going to lose my mind if Craig never got a proper one.
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Oct 27, 2015 15:54
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Darko posted:There was one bluff in the entire movie (why did they not make Bond a reckless player that wins at the end on dumb bluffs that get lucky - horrible misstep), and super awesome math skills make little to no difference in poker. He was just incredibly lucky at poker as a superpower is the only answer. M even mentions off-hand that 007 would've been given the assignment anyway because he's apparently the best poker player they have in MI6. The whole poker part of the plot falls apart something fierce if you know anything about poker, but I'm resigned to that just being what happens when something gets put in a movie that people in general don't understand and then gussied up to be exciting to the layman. E.g. the blinds are so high in the end that it's pure dumb luck who wins and who doesn't. If Le Chiffre's so good at the game, he was incredibly desperate to enter such a crapshoot of a tournament. The final hand's action is nonsensical and statistically like winning the lottery.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:00
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Casino Royale was Craig's best, Goldeneye was Brosnan's best. Which ones were the best for Dalton and Moore? Is it always a thing that the first movie of any new James Bond actor is his best one? Because if so, maybe they should cast a new James Bond for every movie.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:13
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Steve Yun posted:Casino Royale was Craig's best, Goldeneye was Brosnan's best. Which ones were the best for Dalton and Moore? Moore's best is either For Your Eyes Only or The Spy Who Loved Me, both of which are somewhere in the middle of his run. A View to a Kill would have been much better with improved focus and less "Old man making out with twenty-something woman", especially since it has Christopher Walken and Grace Jones as the villains.
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Oct 27, 2015 22:08
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Steve Yun posted:Casino Royale was Craig's best, Goldeneye was Brosnan's best. Which ones were the best for Dalton and Moore? The Living Daylights and The Spy Who Loved Me respectively though License to Kill is also really good too. Roger Moore took a while to find his groove.
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Oct 27, 2015 22:12
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