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rynner2

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 7, 2001
Messages
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Surprising we don't have a thread on this topic, although JB has been mentioned elsewhere several times. But now the film series has celebrated its 50th anniversary it's time we had a thread!

Here's a review of the latest:


Skyfall, James Bond, review
Robbie Collin reviews the new James Bond film, Skyfall, starring Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem.
By Robbie Collin
10:51PM BST 12 Oct 2012

Dir: Sam Mendes; Starring: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench, Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Bérénice Marlohe, Albert Finney, Helen McCrory, Ola Rapace. 12A cert, 142 min.

When is a Bond film not a Bond film? It’s a question likely to prey on the minds of the very many cinema goers who will see this 23rd official 007 adventure. Skyfall shakes together familiar elements of the Ian Fleming canon – the cars, the guns, the exotic locales with the dames to match – into a blistering comic book escapade that the old Bond, and one suspects Fleming too, would find altogether alien.

Sam Mendes’s frequently dazzling, utterly audacious entry in the franchise has less in common with its much-loved predecessors than Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. After its release in 2008 (when it left Quantum of Solace, the 22nd Bond film, trailing in its wake), Nolan’s pathbreaking superhero picture almost single-handedly reconfigured the modern blockbuster template. Like a wise old dog, 007 has studied it carefully, and learned some new tricks.

Here, Bond (Daniel Craig) faces a foe almost as inscrutable as the Joker himself: Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), an ex-MI6 agent who worked with M (Judi Dench) in her pre-Handover Hong Kong days who has returned, unhinged by a perceived betrayal, as a master computer hacker bent on vengeance.

Bardem’s lip-lickingly camp turn makes him the oddest Bond villain since the Roger Moore era, and his nicotine hair flops queasily over his forehead in a way that calls to mind Julian Assange. By acknowledging the rise of cyberterrorism in the same way Nolan played on the West’s new vulnerability in the wake of 9/11, Skyfall is a Bond film for the Anonymous generation.

Mendes is unafraid to let the quieter dramatic moments breathe (a loaded conversation between Bond and Silva drew cheers at last night’s preview screening), and ace cinematographer Roger Deakins makes the wildly ambitious action sequences the most beautiful in Bond’s 50-year career. (The release of Skyfall marks the series’ half-centenary.)

The sensational Istanbul-set prologue is soon bettered by a early soujourn to Shanghai, in which Bond pursues an assassin through a glass skyscraper lit up like a neon Aurora Borealis. This is Skyfall’s popcorn-dropping moment, and an uneven third act that harks back to the Bond films of old (the Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5 makes an appearance) never quite coheres.

“We don’t go in for exploding pens any more,” quips young Q (Ben Whishaw). Nor do audiences, which is why I suspect Skyfall will be a stratospheric hit.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film ... eview.html

I used to love the Bond films, but in recent years, since I've not had my own TV, I've rather lost touch. Time to get reacquainted!
 
Wotsit of Thingy was mind numbingly bad.

I watched the first half on illict download and then gave up. :eek:
 
Quantum of Solace was early into shooting when the writers' strike kicked off, which kind of doomed it - it's surprising it got made at all - and all concerned seem to tacitly agree that the finished article could have been a lot better. That said, it's not that bad, does get a bit better as it goes along (and it's really short for a 007 flick) just pales rather into comparison with its predecessor.

However, I'd urge anyone who'd largely given up and walked away from Bond movies by the end of the Brosnan era (myself included, and I bloody love Bond, me) to see the Craig Casino Royale. I only went cos I got a free ticket, expecting to be mildly entertained for a couple of hours, and enjoyed it so much I went back the following afternoon and paid to watch it again. It's one of the best of all Bond films, if not the best, Connery notwithstanding.

And it's on that basis that I'm going to forgive them Quantum, and queue up to see Skyfall at the first opportunity I get. On my own. With a bucket of salt popcorn and a gallon of cola.
 
stuneville said:
With a bucket of salt popcorn and a gallon of cola.
Go easy on the cola, or the film'll get to a very tense bit just when you suddenly need to use the facilities... ;)
 
Actually, that doesn't affect me that much (yet), but my usual companion on cinematic jaunts expertly picks her moment to use the facilities, always returning at the least opportune time to ask "Who's he, then?" and "What have I missed?".

Fun when we were watching The Bourne Legacy...
 
What do you think of the new theme by Adele? Listen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HKoqNJtMTQ

Bit of a cliche Bond theme, but I suppose they're playing it safe after the last one. Except I really liked the last theme. And I enjoyed the film, too, it's not every blockbuster that heavily references the Bolivian Water Wars.
 
I like it. Nicely overdone and nonsensicle lyrics belted out with gusto.

Couldn;t ask for much more. :lol:
 
The new theme ranks amongst the worst for me. Nice backing track; shite lyrics and vocals.

I quite enjoyed Quantum of Solace. It was quite refreshing to avoid the "now listen here, 007, this belt rope is only able to withstand the weight of one person" thereby making it perfectly obvious that it would have to support the weight of two somewhere along the lines. And QoS didn't keep repeating things, as though pandering to an audience with the attention span of a goldfish on speed. It weren't great, but at least it weren't Die Another Day or Tomorrow Never Dies.
 
James Bond: Skyfall wins praise from critics

The latest James Bond film Skyfall has been praised by critics, with some hailing it "the best Bond ever".
Starring Daniel Craig in his third outing as 007, the 23rd film in the franchise has been directed by Oscar winner Sam Mendes.

The Independent's Geoffrey McNab said: "If not a full blown triumph, this is certainly one of the best Bonds in recent memory."

The Times's Kate Muir called it "a great British bulldog of a movie".
"From the moment the orchestral sound of Adele belts out, sending a nostalgic shiver down the audience's collective spine, we know this will be a triumphant return to classic Bond," she wrote.

McNab added in his review: "Mendes has gone back to basics: chases, stunts, fights.
"At the same time, he has subtly re-invented the franchise, throwing in far greater depth of characterization than we're accustomed to in a series of films that are often proudly superficial."

The Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye gave the film five out of five, calling the film "a fantastic combination of 007 meets Bourne meets Spooks meets Home Alone".

Robbie Collin praised director Mendes in The Telegraph: "[He] is unafraid to let the quieter dramatic moments breathe...and ace cinematographer Roger Deakins makes the wildly ambitious action sequences the most beautiful in Bond's 50-year career."

Skyfall sees Dame Judi Dench reprise her role as MI6 director M, while Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw and Naomie Harris join the franchise as Bond's co-workers.

Critics also praised Javier Bardem's performance as villain Silva, with McNab saying "he combines pathos, grotesquerie and a Hannibal Lecter-like viciousness".

Caroline Jowett added in The Express: "He is not a villain in pursuit of world domination like Ernst Blofeld, and he is slightly upstaged by his own hair but he never fails to surprise.
"That he can make us laugh at the same time only makes him more menacing."

As one of the few US critics at the preview on Friday, The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy called the film a "serious and spectacular show".
"Dramatically gripping while still brandishing a droll undercurrent of humour, this beautifully made film will certainly be embraced as one of the best Bonds by loyal fans worldwide and leaves you wanting the next one to turn up sooner than four years from now."

However The Guardian's Xan Brooks was not as impressed as other critics.
Giving it three stars out of a five, he praised the "whiz-bang first half" but said the film "falls prey to a common failing of many 50th birthday bashes: it allows sentimentality to cloud its judgment and loosen its tongue."

The film opens in the UK on 26 October.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19940764
 
rynner2 said:
The Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye gave the film five out of five, calling the film "a fantastic combination of 007 meets Bourne meets Spooks meets Home Alone".

Here, wait a minute, I hate Home Alone!
 
rynner2 said:
"a fantastic combination of 007 meets Bourne meets Spooks meets Home Alone".

Hang on - that's supposed to be a good thing???? :shock:

The only good thing about Spooks was Richard Armitage getting his kit off. But then, I am shallow and sexist, just like the Bond films. ;)
 
Ravenstone said:
The new theme ranks amongst the worst for me. Nice backing track; shite lyrics and vocals.

...
The lyrics sound like they were put together by a foreign speaker with the help of a rhyming dictionary and Adele sings as though she was in a cataleptic trance.

Come back Matt Monro, all is forgiven.
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
The lyrics sound like they were put together by a foreign speaker with the help of a rhyming dictionary and Adele sings as though she was in a cataleptic trance.

Come back Matt Monro, all is forgiven.

Perfectly put, Pietro :D

Okay, 'slick trigger finger for Her Majesty' wasn't exactly Bohemian Rhapsody standards, but it had a good riff, did Another Way To Die. Again, lyrics and singers were shite.

'Imself reckons they should stop going for the popularity vote with top chart holders and go back to getting proper singers (Lulu excepted). A-Ha clearly didn't know what The Living Daylights meant, but at least it's a foot tapping song you can belt out. And "Living's in the way we die" is a good Bondian line if ever there was one. Get someone good, but they don't necessarily have to be the current Number 1 all the time.

Still - look on the bright side. It's better than Madonna. Then again, anything's better than Madonna. Even The Man with the Golden Gun.

Shirley Bassey can still belt out a good torch song. Let her sing her fourth Bond theme, I say.
 
I've always felt that one of the most underrated Bond songs was Surrender from the end of Tomorrow Never Dies. kd land deserves the chance to do a song at the front of the film.
 
The lyrics sound like they were put together by a foreign speaker with the help of a rhyming dictionary

You mean something along the lines of:

He looks at this world and he wants it all
So he strikes like thunderball!

:lol:

I thought the words to Bond themes were supposed to be stupid. :D
 
"And in this ever changin' world in which we live in..." (Or is "In which we're livin'..."?)
 
Diamonds Are Forever is supposed to be about hand relief for men :D
 
Johnny Cash - big fat no

Alice Cooper - so much better than Lulu.

What about Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang?
 
Ravenstone said:
Johnny Cash - big fat no

Alice Cooper - so much better than Lulu.
[/b]
What about Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang?

If Bond was played by John Wayne and SPECTRE were Apaches it might have worked :)

My old strimmer would have been better than Lulu
 
or in the case of Diamonds Are Forever, maybe a Weed Whacker would have been better too. :lol:
 
I haven't enjoyed the last 2 Bond films with Daniel Craig at all and that's despite Eva green being in one of them.
I've already mentioned the rather spooky Q/Psi division providing exactly the right gadget he'll need towards the end of his mission to the point where this bizarrely reworks the principle of Chekhov's Gun - which now goes 'If, in Act 1, you show a glovebox defibrilator, it must be used in the third.'

It all went a bit wrong when they tried to copy XXX and Bourne. That's when they stopped being Bond movies for me. A bit like how the new Batman movies aren't really 'Batman' but just some bloke with a put on gruff voice being bothered by Liam Neeson. (A less terrifying presence I can hardly imagine)

Anyway -overall, I've always felt that Daniel Craig was miscast and his natural calling would be in the role of Andy Capp.
 
jimv1 said:
I haven't enjoyed the last 2 Bond films with Daniel Craig at all and that's despite Eva green being in one of them.

That's funny - I loved Casino Royale despite Eva Green.

I've got my tickets booked - 4.25 26th October. I can't wait.
 
There seems to be some division in those who like serious Bond and those who like silly Bond (for want of a better phrase). The latter aren't enjoying the Craig movies much, though they do get a bit silly if you care to look hard enough.
 
jimv1 said:
Anyway -overall, I've always felt that Daniel Craig was miscast and his natural calling would be in the role of Andy Capp.

Craig doesn't 'look' like Bond. He's more suited to playing a Russian villain.
I thought Brosnan fitted the part best, looks-wise.
 
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