If Sam Mendes brings as much thought to future James Bond movies as he did to Skyfall — and if he brings Thomas Newman to score them — he should be the house director for the franchise. Mrs. Likko thought the opening sequence was a little long but I think that kind of set piece is why I like Bond films as much as I do. Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw are great additions, although by the end of the movie things were feeling a little heavy on the men in MI-6. And I loved the car and Javier Bardem as the heavy. More than made up for uneven pacing and gaps in the exposition.
What, you haven’t seen Skyfall yet? Go!
I saw it last night (about 11 hours ago). I’m really confusd about the time-line here. Are these supposed to take place before or after all the otherBond films? Or is timeline simply irrelevant?
This takes place after the last two Bond flicks. Other than that there really isn’t much of any continuity or timeline in Bond flicks. Don’t try to think about it too much. It will only hurt and won’t get anywhere.
FWIW Bond geeks like to theorize that James Bond is only a code name for a number of lethal secret agents over the last five decades. In that way there can be some sort of continuity if you don’t see Bond as just one person.
There is fodder both for and against this theory in Skyfall.
Yeah…i love me some bond but this idea doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. Spoilers ahead…………………………………………..Reintroducing Monypenny was funny with a slight dash of facepalm; it suggests more of a reboot. However troting out the old car, since it would be impossible for him to have personal memory of using it, suggests Bond is a code name which multiple people have held like M.
Well, he did win that type of Aston Martin in Casino Royale.
That explains the original Casino Royale.
Just saw it. Its actually an excellent film. Not even just a good Bond film but a good film in general. Bardem was good. The shout outs to past Bond flicks (in locations and gadgets and characters) worked well in general; they didn’t get too heavy handed. Good action scenes and characters that actually mattered and were worth caring about. It’s amazing its taken Bond flicks this long to go to the effort to develop interesting characters.
Part of the problem was the legacy of Cubby Broccoli. Too much cruft had built up around the core premise of Bond. With Sam Mendes in the director’s chair, characters are given a chance. I never got that feeling about QoS or CR.
Mrs. Frog and I enjoyed the movie very much. Although it would be nice if computer-centric action movies would use a piece of their pyrotechnics budget and apply it to hiring a computer security consultant. Or have the producers bring their kids in so the writing staff can talk to people who have used a computer before.