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jackSkyfall was very enjoyable, had many good moments, and did well a lot of things Bond films don't always do, although I felt it missed some opportunities and dragged a bit by the end.
It had actual character development between Bond and M! That's almost unheard of and was very good to see, and because of the pseudo-flashback-reboot thing, it's plausible to let Bond go to pieces on his way to becoming the traditional Bond, in a way you don't think he would when he's really grown into it.
Bond had a vaguely plausible number of shots and then ran out of bullets! I'm not sure if that was consistent all the way through, but even seeing it a few times was quite impressive. And also that his physical problems continue to trouble him.
The tension between Bond, Eve, and M in the opening scene and the aftermath were very well done. At first I felt M was too querulous, but actually, I think she was doing the best she possibly could do in that situation.
"It's hard to describe, sir". No, no, no! M can't do anything about the details so there's no point trying to describe them, but the important information is that Bond's still on the train but having difficulty closing with the chase.
I didn't care whether the MacGuffin was stupid or not: it did it right, establishing the nature of the macguffin in the first few scenes, and then not making any important decisions turn on the exact nature of it. It may be unrealistic, but that didn't matter for most of the film. Or it may be realistic: the list of important confidential things governments have put on hard drives and left on trains is staggering.
I loved young Q.
I thought the computer security was rather stupid: the plot structure of who hacked whom when was I think realistic, but it was rather immersion breaking to see, for instance, someone plugging a compromised computer into a supposedly-secure network.
Also, if someone is under 24-hr guard, the benefits of having their cell door be computer controlled are probably minimal?
And the one thing that really bugged me, when Bond and M escaped from London, why did they go to Skyfall and entice Silver to follow them? If they could track him at all, why didn't they send in the police or SAS? Or have the police or SAS waiting for him at Skyfall? Or, indeed, the RAF! Or bring some guns? Or make the trail harder to follow so they had more time to buy guns?
Silva was ok as a villain, and his personal relationship with M and Bond was really interesting, but he was a little forgettable, and the other guy was completely forgettable: even bad bond films have often had more memorable villains.
OTOH, the ambiguity of his grief against M was very interesting. M certainly was capable of ruthlessly sacrificing people when it was necessary, so he had good reason to be very bitter, even though we don't know whether he really was or not responsible himself for his capture. It's ironic that his revenge included exposing other British undercover agents to capture: that's apropos, as it makes other people finally blame M for what happened to him, but is obviously bad!
Eve was awesome all the way through, but I was disappointed to see that she turned out to be Moneypenny: she was awesome, and she and Bond had an unusually egalitarian flirtation, even by the standards of Bond-and-other-agents flirtations. And it's obviously true that many people are not suited for fieldwork, but it's also sending a disappointingly traditionalist message that men should be secret agents and women shouldn't. I hope she doesn't go back to mooning after him.
The courtroom enquiry scene was interesting, because in the context of the film, M is clearly right, but in the real world, we probably don't have much use for James-Bond-style adventuring so the annoying prosecutor would actually be right.
I can't believe they killed Judi Dench! She was awesome.
It had actual character development between Bond and M! That's almost unheard of and was very good to see, and because of the pseudo-flashback-reboot thing, it's plausible to let Bond go to pieces on his way to becoming the traditional Bond, in a way you don't think he would when he's really grown into it.
Bond had a vaguely plausible number of shots and then ran out of bullets! I'm not sure if that was consistent all the way through, but even seeing it a few times was quite impressive. And also that his physical problems continue to trouble him.
The tension between Bond, Eve, and M in the opening scene and the aftermath were very well done. At first I felt M was too querulous, but actually, I think she was doing the best she possibly could do in that situation.
"It's hard to describe, sir". No, no, no! M can't do anything about the details so there's no point trying to describe them, but the important information is that Bond's still on the train but having difficulty closing with the chase.
I didn't care whether the MacGuffin was stupid or not: it did it right, establishing the nature of the macguffin in the first few scenes, and then not making any important decisions turn on the exact nature of it. It may be unrealistic, but that didn't matter for most of the film. Or it may be realistic: the list of important confidential things governments have put on hard drives and left on trains is staggering.
I loved young Q.
I thought the computer security was rather stupid: the plot structure of who hacked whom when was I think realistic, but it was rather immersion breaking to see, for instance, someone plugging a compromised computer into a supposedly-secure network.
Also, if someone is under 24-hr guard, the benefits of having their cell door be computer controlled are probably minimal?
And the one thing that really bugged me, when Bond and M escaped from London, why did they go to Skyfall and entice Silver to follow them? If they could track him at all, why didn't they send in the police or SAS? Or have the police or SAS waiting for him at Skyfall? Or, indeed, the RAF! Or bring some guns? Or make the trail harder to follow so they had more time to buy guns?
Silva was ok as a villain, and his personal relationship with M and Bond was really interesting, but he was a little forgettable, and the other guy was completely forgettable: even bad bond films have often had more memorable villains.
OTOH, the ambiguity of his grief against M was very interesting. M certainly was capable of ruthlessly sacrificing people when it was necessary, so he had good reason to be very bitter, even though we don't know whether he really was or not responsible himself for his capture. It's ironic that his revenge included exposing other British undercover agents to capture: that's apropos, as it makes other people finally blame M for what happened to him, but is obviously bad!
Eve was awesome all the way through, but I was disappointed to see that she turned out to be Moneypenny: she was awesome, and she and Bond had an unusually egalitarian flirtation, even by the standards of Bond-and-other-agents flirtations. And it's obviously true that many people are not suited for fieldwork, but it's also sending a disappointingly traditionalist message that men should be secret agents and women shouldn't. I hope she doesn't go back to mooning after him.
The courtroom enquiry scene was interesting, because in the context of the film, M is clearly right, but in the real world, we probably don't have much use for James-Bond-style adventuring so the annoying prosecutor would actually be right.
I can't believe they killed Judi Dench! She was awesome.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-11 08:53 pm (UTC)I assumed that was because of Political Consequences/Faff/ "it would be political suicide" etc type reasons ("Secret Service boss uses publicly funded soldiers as personal bodyguard" type thing, although actually having written that it sounds quite reasonable). Also I thought they couldn't track him but he could track them? (so they were just trying to make their traces sufficiently obscured such that he would be a bit delayed, letting them get there first rather than him running them down on a motorway). But they should definitely have brought guns, even if it would have gotten rid of the MacGyver-esque improvised explosives (which were kind of cool, particularly because M was putting them together).
no subject
Date: 2012-11-12 01:30 pm (UTC)In fact, I feel like the link from the london events to skyfall was rather tacked on: the explanation as presented for why Bond and M went there is mostly missing, but if you imagine they'd had time to present something better (eg. they were discredited somehow and couldn't get help, so went to Bond's best idea for a stronghold) it would have fixed all the problems easily.