SPOILER ALERT - Skyfall Media Reviews Thread

Stamper wrote:

This is what people thought of Dr No and FRWL back in the days, Largo ;)

Yeah cos Craig da man shot Grant in da eye wiv a nail gun.

I do agree with Sharky about the violence to an extent. If they toned it down it might have made the torture scene more shocking.

I love CR it's my fave Bond.

However thinking about Skyfall, I may revisit my initial disappointment. I feel it works better as part 3 of a trilogy, than a single film.

I think in the future, all three films will not be judged on their own, but as a trilogy that redefined Bond for the 21st century. Warts and all.

Apparently CNN's Wolf Blitzer is in SKYFALL. That'll give CNN some much needed publicity.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

Apparently CNN's Wolf Blitzer is in SKYFALL. That'll give CNN some much needed publicity.

More evidence this M. is not the M. Judi started off playing. Didn't she say she prefers to not get intelligence via CNN back in GE?

Yeah. "Unlike the American government, we prefer not to get our bad news from CNN."

More reviews in. All positive -

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/film/ ... -1-2590476
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainmen ... z29vMRAaQh
http://www.shropshirestar.com/entertain ... lm-review/
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/90537/skyfall.html
http://www.lovefilm.com/reviews/Skyfall
http://uk.askmen.com/entertainment/news/skyfall-review.html

Eric Kohn at Indiewire is a little less enamored of SKYFALL:

Quote :

That "Skyfall" looks strikingly beautiful may explain why it has already generated waves of positive buzz. At two hours and 25 minutes, the movie runs far too long, but has been artfully rendered to obscure its fundamental simplicity. A long string of incidents only watchable enough to keep the pace in flux, the premise finds Bond briefly going off the grid, much to the chagrin of his maternal supporter M. (Judi Dench, weirdly underutilized despite her elevated role in the story). A full hour goes by before the arrival of a defected former agent played by Javier Bardem. With his absurdly out-of-whack blonde 'do and curiously flamboyant delivery, Bardem's character is weighted with innuendo. Creepy enough for the standards of the material, he faces down Bond on two drawn-out occasions before the explosive (yet oddly anti-climactic) finish. The movie staggers forward with episodic surges that may reflect an evolving commercial pressure to import television sensibilities in the feature-length form. The result is paradoxically enjoyable and tiresome (enjoyably tiresome?), but does the trick for a formula that needs only to stun, startle and titillate its audience to gain acceptance.

Even so, a fatigue hangs over the entire picture. "We're both played out," Bond tells M., and you can see why. By the time an end credit acknowledges the anniversary and promises further sequels, the very idea of more Bond movies arrives like a predetermined mandate. If we're lucky, that will yield further opportunities to use the franchise as an excuse to keep heating up the genre with unbridled energy. Let's hope so, because it will take more than a martini to shake Bond up.

Harmsway wrote:

Eric Kohn at Indiewire is a little less enamored of SKYFALL:

Quote :

That "Skyfall" looks strikingly beautiful may explain why it has already generated waves of positive buzz. At two hours and 25 minutes, the movie runs far too long, but has been artfully rendered to obscure its fundamental simplicity. A long string of incidents only watchable enough to keep the pace in flux, the premise finds Bond briefly going off the grid, much to the chagrin of his maternal supporter M. (Judi Dench, weirdly underutilized despite her elevated role in the story). A full hour goes by before the arrival of a defected former agent played by Javier Bardem. With his absurdly out-of-whack blonde 'do and curiously flamboyant delivery, Bardem's character is weighted with innuendo. Creepy enough for the standards of the material, he faces down Bond on two drawn-out occasions before the explosive (yet oddly anti-climactic) finish. The movie staggers forward with episodic surges that may reflect an evolving commercial pressure to import television sensibilities in the feature-length form. The result is paradoxically enjoyable and tiresome (enjoyably tiresome?), but does the trick for a formula that needs only to stun, startle and titillate its audience to gain acceptance.

Even so, a fatigue hangs over the entire picture. "We're both played out," Bond tells M., and you can see why. By the time an end credit acknowledges the anniversary and promises further sequels, the very idea of more Bond movies arrives like a predetermined mandate. If we're lucky, that will yield further opportunities to use the franchise as an excuse to keep heating up the genre with unbridled energy. Let's hope so, because it will take more than a martini to shake Bond up.

That tosser has caused the RT score to drop a couple of points. I wouldn't mind if it was a worthwhile, credible read, but comparing it to Universal Soldier shows what kind of brain capacity the guy has upstairs.

It's true the movie is very bladderly paced.

Stamper wrote:

It's true the movie is very bladderly paced.

I think I'll trust the opinion of the majority of reviews I've read on Skyfall, rather than yours....no offence.

Whereas I find the Kohn review to match my expectations to a remarkable degree, which supports Stamper's position.

Going back an obscene number of years to the first example that leapt to mind, LADYHAWKE is a movie that just looked so lush and wonderful in the theater that you found yourself overlooking any number of obvious story, casting and technical faults, and not even feeling bad about it till you were on the way out to your car afterwards. You really CAN polish a turd, the only thing is that you still don't want to eat it.

Harmsway wrote:

Eric Kohn at Indiewire is a little less enamored of SKYFALL:

Even so, he hardly seems to loathe it. I've yet to read a flat-out negative review of SKYFALL.

Loomis wrote:

Harmsway wrote:

Eric Kohn at Indiewire is a little less enamored of SKYFALL:

Even so, he hardly seems to loathe it. I've yet to read a flat-out negative review of SKYFALL.

True, and the majority of the positive reviews are literally gushing with overwhelming praise on this movie, which far outweighs this crappy, meaningless review by Kohn.

So there is obviously something very good about this movie. 96% on RT (I expect it may go back up again) and even the 2 negative reviews cannot slate the film too much.

I think this is the Bond film we've all been waiting for all these years........ :cheers:

trevanian wrote:

Whereas I find the Kohn review to match my expectations to a remarkable degree, which supports Stamper's position.

So you would rather put 100% blind faith and trust in this one review, (which loves Universal Soldier by the same token) over Graham Rye's review, and 50-odd other overwhelming positive reviews currently out there, many from respected film critics.

Makes perfect sense......

To give Trev credit, he ain't exactly BJ. I can understand his skepticism given John Logan's involvement. Yeah, his script for STAR TREK NEMESIS was shit, but I'm willing to give him a chance with SKYFALL since there's better influence (Sam Mendes>Stuart Baird)

Loomis wrote:

Harmsway wrote:

Eric Kohn at Indiewire is a little less enamored of SKYFALL:

Even so, he hardly seems to loathe it. I've yet to read a flat-out negative review of SKYFALL.

For what it's worth, it registered as a negative review on Rotten Tomatoes.

Jack Wade wrote:

Loomis wrote:

Harmsway wrote:

Eric Kohn at Indiewire is a little less enamored of SKYFALL:

Even so, he hardly seems to loathe it. I've yet to read a flat-out negative review of SKYFALL.

For what it's worth, it registered as a negative review on Rotten Tomatoes.

Both the 2 negative reviews are debatable about being registered negative - 3/5 and B scoring for each review hardly makes them rotten, and both reviews still manage some positive comments around the film.

This is in stark contrast to some of the negative reviews launched for QoS, which were about as damning as you can get in their wording.

jet set willy wrote:

Jack Wade wrote:

Loomis wrote:

Harmsway wrote:

Eric Kohn at Indiewire is a little less enamored of SKYFALL:

Even so, he hardly seems to loathe it. I've yet to read a flat-out negative review of SKYFALL.

For what it's worth, it registered as a negative review on Rotten Tomatoes.

Both the 2 negative reviews are debatable about being registered negative - 3/5 and B scoring for each review hardly makes them rotten, and both reviews still manage some positive comments around the film.

This is in stark contrast to some of the negative reviews launched for QoS, which were about as damning as you can get in their wording.

From what I understand, the critic decides if they want their review to indicate fresh or rotten.

jet set willy wrote:

trevanian wrote:

Whereas I find the Kohn review to match my expectations to a remarkable degree, which supports Stamper's position.

So you would rather put 100% blind faith and trust in this one review, (which loves Universal Soldier by the same token) over Graham Rye's review, and 50-odd other overwhelming positive reviews currently out there, many from respected film critics.

Makes perfect sense......

I don't put faith in ANY reviewers (which does make perfect sense to me, since I'm not inclined to lemming-like behavior); I said this one was more in line with my expectations. I've never understood in the slightest the gushy love reviewers demonstrated for CR either, and I've stated in much greater detail on many occasions all of my objections in that regard.

I do enjoy reading film criticism from time to time, but my preference is for film essays rather than reviews. I'm much more partial to the kinds of writing Harlan Ellison does on film -- not exactly scholarly, but certainly well-informed in most instances -- than to most of the work of 'respected film critics.' For every time Pauline Kael might get it mostly right (the one that comes to mind is her positive assessment of Kaufman's INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS), there had to be ten that seemed like utter horseshit to me. David Thompson's writings are usually of interest, but his point of view is often something I cannot even come close to connecting with (his dismissal of THE CONVERSATION is my classic example, though I have to admit his comments about THE SHINING made me think a little.)

And the idea that Rex Reed has made a career out of being a movie reviewer has, more than anything else, made me think there are NO standards for the profession. I mean, Stuart Baird directed three movies and either gave up or stopped getting chances. Reed was able to go on doing whatever it is he did (which included giving a gushing positive review for a film he appeared in) for decades. I guess that's really just 'show biz.'

Jack Wade wrote:

jet set willy wrote:

Jack Wade wrote:

Loomis wrote:

Harmsway wrote:

Eric Kohn at Indiewire is a little less enamored of SKYFALL:

Even so, he hardly seems to loathe it. I've yet to read a flat-out negative review of SKYFALL.

For what it's worth, it registered as a negative review on Rotten Tomatoes.

Both the 2 negative reviews are debatable about being registered negative - 3/5 and B scoring for each review hardly makes them rotten, and both reviews still manage some positive comments around the film.

This is in stark contrast to some of the negative reviews launched for QoS, which were about as damning as you can get in their wording.

From what I understand, the critic decides if they want their review to indicate fresh or rotten.

Either way, still looking very good for SF right now. 55 reviews in, and only 2 negative (but even they still manage to mention positives). 96%, and it could still go up.

Are all of our reviews just gonna go in this thread? Or might it be worth setting up a separate section devoted to our reviews so that everyone gets to have their own headline title ("The best Bond film ever", "A big disappointment", etc) which, if MI6 Forums was anything to go by, is what will happen anyway?

Scashy is real (and he has a PhD). :shock:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100186617/skyfall-i-dont-want-a-dark-james-bond-film-i-want-snobbery-with-violence/

Quote :

I remain a Roger Moore partisan – and I’m convinced that he could still play the part. If anything, Roger looks better now that he did when he was still in work.

If anyone is curious, Skyfall is getting rave reviews in Russia. It was also released there on the 26th. Russia's equivalent of Rotten Tomatoes shows 17 out of 17 media reviews as "green" aka positive. http://www.kinopoisk.ru/level/63/film/408871/

It should easily earn $25 million there, maybe even cross the 1-billion ruble mark ($31 million).

The Commies get it before the Colonials?

Fleming would be pissed. :x