This is the thread for those who’ve seen Skyfall. Open spoilers hereafter.
I saw Skyfall last nigh. I thought it a very enjoyable movie.
The cinema was packed. It was a party atmosphere and many people had dressed up for the occasion. I just wish I’d had a seat with more legroom. Once the film started, everyone was held rapt.
There were some welcome blasts from the past, like Bond’s car, and nods to other films, like Bourne and Apocalypse Now. The product placements were just a little on the obnoxious side. The initial chase scene was fun and Moneypenny’s commentary gives just the right amount of humour.
This is a changing-of-the-guard movie. For the whole movie you’re set up to think that it’s going to be Craig’s last - it being Dench’s last is too obvious. But Craig will be back, and Dench won’t. Her death scene is well done, but too soon after the villain’s - throughout that scene I was expecting him to rise. Moneypenny’s reveal at the end casts their relationship in a whole new light. I like the new M. He’s an obvious shout-out to Robert Nairac. His reaction to finding out Q was laying a false trail was excellent, “Well, we’ll all be buggered.” Spot on for a man of his background. This is echoed in M’s legacy to Bond, a china bulldog, recalling Churchill.
The plot was the usual nonsense and really little more than an excuse for filming in exotic locations.
One scene I felt really missed the mark was the crash of the tube train - while it was spectacular, apart from the driver, the train was empty. Another problematic scene was the attack on Skyfall. It goes from day to night in a flashbang. A couple of shots showing the low sun .
There’s no stinger, but I spent the credits working life back into my leg.
I’d write more but I’m in dire need of another cup of tea. 
Sorry, dumb question, but: what’s the deal with Skyfall? Wiki says it was released on 10/23, but here I am on 10/27 and Rotten Tomatoes has no consensus rating and nobody seems to have seen it. Is it out, and if not when will it be? Thanks!
It opened here last night.
At 95% now. Reviews have been coming in over the past day or two. I suspect MGM made the reviewers who attended the early previews agreed to embargo any reviews until as late as possible. Hasn’t seemed to dampened the enthusiasm much.
But it has No Score Yet with Top Critics, and there are only 3 TC reviews. Any big movie has a bunch of newspaper, magazine, etc reviews the day it opens, but this one doesn’t.
Because the majority of those Rotten Tomato “top critics” are American, and, with some exceptions, their reviews won’t start appearing until a couple days before/the day of the movie opening in the US. That would be November 9.
I brought my son to see it this afternoon. Great movie.
I loved seeing the fully kitted out DB5 again, although I have no idea how Bond had that stashed away: was it part of his personal possessions put into storage after his presumed death? They seemed to be quite explicit that it wasn’t a “company car” because it wasn’t fitted with a tracker, yet it still had all the functional gadgetry.
I figured out who Eve was just before the reveal: it was the moment I saw the coat stand in M’s outer office. Great to have Miss Moneypenny back.
And I loved seeing it in action and it hurt to see it destroyed. I don’t know if there’s a 3D version, but the helicopter crash seemed to have been filmed with 3D in mind.
[pointing to my location, top-right of this post] Aha, that’s it. I didn’t know it hadn’t opened in the US. And the sites I visited didn’t make that clear (or I missed it I suppose). Thanks.
I liked the hints that M was Emma Peel (I thought Ralph Fiennes’ character was in league with the bad guy somehow). Nice to see a Moneypenny who’s not a joke.
Bardem is a scary mofo.
What were those hints? She was introduced to Tanner as ‘M’, and ‘Em’ is a common contraction of ‘Emma’.
She was never referred to as “Emma” before, she didn’t correct Tanner, she spoke at length about her late husband, LOEG: Century posited that she was Emma Peel earlier this year. It isn’t much, but there you are.
IMDB says her character’s name is Barbara Mawdsley, which means nothing to me. I like the idea of it being Emma Peel, though.
I really liked it, but there were a few points that took me out of the film …
Why did Tanner (the Skyfall ghilly) need a torch to get from the tunnel to the chapel - in fact, why did they leave the tunnel at all. In the dark, the exit would have been completely invisible.
How the hell did Silver see the torch on the moor with an exploding helicopter/burning house behind him - his night vision would have been completely shot.
I also contend that some of the DB5 shots did not have a Tax Disk on the windscreen (a couple did, but in the first view in the garage, I couldn’t see it). The car used for the interior driving shots did have a disk, and one scene of the car at Skyfall shows a reflected tax disk on the mirror. I now want the DVD to check…
Si
Loved it. Just loved it.
Though I did grow exasperated with Kincaid at the very end, what with the torch and the complete failure to hear Silva talking in the other room. And I was thinking “Skyfall” would be some major plot point technimajigg by the trailers about the psych check. Is it just me or did they reshoot that scene?
What was jarring to me is that in Craig’s first two movies he’s fresh off the academy, a rookie, while in the third he’s suddenly already an old relic. As the movie keeps hammering on Bond’s presumed obsolesence, it feels really weird to me. I still think of him as ‘the new guy’.
I like how Silva’s gay spiel leaves Bond completely unfazed; how to him potentially having had a gay experience is no big deal. (Other interpretations of his line are possible, but that’s how I saw it.)
“We need to go back in time” - and they drive to Scotland. The English will have loads of fun with that one.
Silva’s meticulous plans, him being a chessmaster fourteen steps ahead of everyone else, feels to me very much like the Dark Knight’s Joker. Like the Joker’s plans, it’s just too perfect:
[QUOTE=Silva’s schedule]
11:17:48 - M and Bond interrogate me, I will do my spiel for 4 minutes and 23 seconds, after which time they both will leave.
11:22:38 - The eggheads at MI6 will try to get information out of my computers, at which time the hacking program will activate. I will then escape, and for 12 minutes and 5 seconds Bond will follow me.
11:34:43 - I will blow a hole in the ceiling, allowing 17 seconds for a witty remark to Bond.
11:35:00 - Subway train crashes through ceiling, right on schedule.
[/quote]
With regard to the tube train thing, those run every minute or two.
That’s not even half of it. Before that, he plans the following:
- arrange theft of hard drive
- make sure Bond traces thief
- thief must run away
- during pursuit, Bond must be shot, but not die
- thief must escape and bring drive to me
- make sure Bond uses bullet fragments to trace Patrice the assassin
- Bond must kill, not capture, Patrice.
- Bond must find casino chip in Patrice’s kit.
- when Bond visits casino, be sure that he meets Sévérine
- Sévérine must ask Bond to kill me, Bond must agree
- Bond must come to my Island, where he will capture, but not kill me.
And if all of that works, then I will have my chance to get back at M,.
So? 
This is a Bond movie villain we’re discussing.