As one of the few moviegoers who just wasn't impressed by The Avengers and thought Skyfall was an asinine insult to the Bond franchise, I'm glad that someone directed me towards these video reviews by CinemaSins on YouTube. While I'm sure some defensive people dismiss their critiques as nitpicking (and some critiques are exaggerated for comedic effect), I think they're right on the nose about why The Avengers was ridiculous and why Skyfail fails from frame one of its hole-ridden, idiot plot screenplay.
Sorry, I'm just irked at reading on a daily basis -- no matter what forum I go to -- what a "masterpiece" The Avengers is, or how Skyfall is the best Bond movie, when it makes every character look like a nimrod in order to get their lame-o, rip-off villain to look good.
I also think J.J. Abrams' Star Trek is wayyyyyyyyyyyyy overrated, but CinemaSins didn't do as good of a job taking that one down.
Welcome back! I'd comment on your blog about sixths, but I can sum that up with "One can only assume that while growing up Gai had a steady diet of his own teeth. No creature in nature is THAT annoying.".
ReplyDeleteSaw the Skyfall video that you linked. I like they cut of his jib. No mention of why his Aston Martin DB5 is fully gadgetized? Or why it is suddenly Right Hand Drive despite being Left Hand Drive in Casino Royale? Unless Bond has multiple $3million+ cars mothballed in sheds around the world. On the otherhand.......Adele.
Hmmm. While I agree about Skyfall being nowhere near the masterpiece it has been hailed as, it's a movie I've been able to watch over and over since it came out. It is so, so entertaining--something that has been missing from Bond films since Albert Broccoli's death. I liked Casino Royale, but it just kinda went on forever. In movie time...that card game lasted like an entire week!
The characters were...eh, kinda ninnies in the film. The "He's keen to get home" guy stole the film for the most realistic performance. Hahaa.
Skyfall slots itself in the same league as movies like Rush Hour and Ronin--movies that truly aren't great by any stretch, but are super entertaining to me.
...if that makes any sense. Then again, I liked movies like "Licence To Kill" (a.k.a. All the sudden...NINJAS!) and "For Your Eyes Only" (a.k.a. All the sudden...SKATE SLUT!). I've been told I'm weird for liking those two...more for the former.
(Couldn't they just let Dench retire? The hell...she was alright and then suddenly x_x)
I wish I found Skyfall as entertaining as you do...that would really save it for me. I mean, something like Tomorrow Never Dies is weak and The World Is Not Enough could have been polished a bit, but I still find those entertaining enough to forgive some of their flaws. Cubby's death certainly hurt the franchise, but I haven't been real fond of it since Sony's become involved. (I totally think they were the ones pushing for the misguided "reboot.")
ReplyDeleteI can definitely understand liking movies that, while you recognize they're not the greatest, you just can't help but have fun and find them entertaining anyway, but I find Skyfall too infuriating to enjoy at all. Bond -- the man, the franchise -- is better than this. Nobody acted like they had a brain in that movie, and they're professionals! And even though I despise Die Another Day, I think that movie handled Bond's emotions at M's supposed coldness and feelings of betrayal better than Skyfall did.
Licence to Kill and For Your Eyes Only are two of my top favorite Bond movies! LTK has a bad reputation by movie fans, but Fleming fans have always considered it one of the best, and FYEO is considered one of Moore's better Bond movies. There might have been a few corny moments in them that haven't aged well (Margaret Thatcher + Orville Redenbacher; Wayne Newton), but at least the key characters acted like they had brain activity.
I agree about Dench, though. It's a cheap way to write someone off, and it was pretty useless since it didn't have any resonance whatsoever -- her M and Craig's Bond never came to like one another. It would have worked with Brosnan's Bond, definitely, but not Craig's. (It bugs me that Craig's Bond is always described as "the most human, soulful Bond" when his Bond is really an emotionless robot to me.)
I also find Skyfall funny in that the reboots were *supposed* to focus on Bond early in his career, a "fallible" Bond who makes mistakes, and then...suddenly, in the third movie, he's Danny Glover, he's just too old for this shit! These reboots just haven't been thought out, man... I still think it's the biggest mistake the franchise has made (so far). Cubby strongly opposed the idea when it was pitched in the '80s for a reason.
And about the Aston Martin, the worst part is...that it's supposed to be the one from Goldfinger. So, preboot Craig Bond somehow crossed over into the original series timeline, stole the car from Lazenby's Bond after On Her Majesty's Secret Service, drove it back to his timeline, and hid it until he needed it? Jesus, Doc, that's heavy...
I think the idea of a Bond reboot could've worked if it was handled better. It should've been "Film 1: Bond gets his wings, learns from mistakes, becomes Bond in 140 minutes". Instead it's been "Film 1: Bond screws up for 140 minutes" followed by "Film 2: Bond screws up based on the previous screw-ups for 120 minutes" and finally "Film 3: Bond screws up some more, meets a half-faced weirdo, screws up some more, saves the day (?), and FINALLY becomes Bond in the last 30 seconds...in 140 minutes". A little much, eh?
DeleteNice! My friends always seemed to think that Licence to Kill wasn't a real Bond movie and that For Your Eyes Only was boring with lousy music (I gotta have more cowbell! -Max Zorin). I was always fond of Dalton's two movies as a youngster and only seemed to like moments from Moore's films. Seems like every other one was decent.
Ahh--but Lazenby's Aston Martin was a black Aston Martin DBS (the current model by then). So really...Craig hitched a trailer to the Delorean and stole the DB5 from Lazenby before On Her Majesty's Secret Service even started. Maybe he was on his initial test drive when he ran into Teresa.....hmmm.
Oh, and I always thought this was a little strange. Teresa dies in the shot-up DBS at the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service...but toward the beginning of Diamonds are Forever you can see the DBS getting new gadgets in the background while Bond is talking to Q. Company car or not, wouldn't they atleast spring for some new wheels for Bond? Q...that heartless bastard. :[
I never really thought -- beyond sponsoring reasons -- why Bond ditched the Aston Martins after On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but that's a pretty interesting reason. So, it basically takes Bond about eight movies to get over Tracy?
DeleteBTW, I wanted to mention that one of my favorite Bond movies is Live & Let Die, and other Bond fans have given me MAJOR flak for liking that one -- I've found it's thought of less favorably than probably even Licence to Kill. (And I'm sure Skyfall fans think my complaints are silly when I like Octopussy, when if Bond had just CHILLED OUT and waited for that woman to get off the payphone, he could have saved a lot of time for himself and about 50 minutes of running time for the audience. Octopussy is probably a good example of liking a movie despite its enormous flaws -- it's a plot that could have been dealt with in about 25 minutes, but, I think that movie is just so much fun.)
For real!? I always thought Live and Let Die was beloved by all. Unless the haters you know happen to have names that end with "Lazenby" or "Connery" or such...
DeleteI mean there were some facepalm moments like the cabbie and how easily Bond was caught...but solid film all the way. :D