Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

I saw it this afternoon at one of the Arclight cinemas in LA and I immediately rate it in my all-time top four Bond movies (along with Doctor No, Goldfinger and Casino Royale).

I thought it was sensational - the writing, directing (Sam Mendes), great cast, great villain, great stunts - the lot!

I'd love to talk more about it but it would just go: spoiler, spoiler, spoiler and I don't want to ruin the experience for anybody, so I'll end talking about the movie here.

As an aside, I reckon the sound system in the cinema was better than the ones I've encountered in Australia. I literally jumped out of my seat twice when there were explosions. That never happens to me during action movies in Aussie cinemas. (Although I was only three seats away from the speakers, so that might have had something to do with it.)

Re: Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

If I'd been a baddie against Bond and seeing my comrades being shot and killed I'd be running. Other than that a great movie.

Re: Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

I only have had that feeling once and it was with "Munich", when Eric Bana had planted too much explosives and was waiting in the adjacent room for the bom to go off. The sound design was briljant in that scene and just after the bom went off there was a high pitching sound which almost made me believe my ears where damaged :) The explosion was so loud in the cinematheater it felt like a real one went off.

I"m planning to see Skyfall this week and Looper as well, always been a Bruce Willis fan.

Re: Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

So, given that we are heading towards a 4K world, and that most companies are now saying that 4K will be the standard for cinema; how did this 2K film do?

Was it lacking in resolution? If not then what does that say about the drive to 4K?

Re: Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

In my opinion, Simon, this one proved that content is king. Sure, I would have liked a bit more resolution. But, when it's this good a movie, it (resolution) gets relegated into a secondary consideration. I'd prefer to see a movie in 4K, as I personally always get a lot more out of it. But I'd go and see Skyfall again, even if it were in 1K.

Re: Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

Ah, just seen it, what a great movie, beautiful locations, a bond girl with a Baretta 70 strapped to her leg and with lots of attention to characters and plot and finally not a shaky cam all through the movie. The director of photography deserves an oscar. :) This was bond back to his roots. (Javier Bardem was also a worthy evil villain)

I have been quite disappointed lately with some movies I've seen, I didn't like the Avengers and I absolutely hated The Bourne Legacy and the amazing spiderman. Today I finally felt that my money was spend well.

Next up is looper :)

Oh, about the 2K thing, well, the Shanghai shot taken from a helicopter you could clearly see the city lacking in resolution, it was not pin sharp at all like many other wider angle shots throughout the movie, but it did not bother me at all.

One thing to note, not exactly a negative but I found the first half briljant but the second half a lot slower, and if I have to say one negative point, I wished their would have been a final battle at the end scene between Bardem and Craig, the way bardem dies is a bit silly now. :)

Re: Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

The Alexa isn't "2k" when shooting RAW it has a 2.9k sensor, the actual resolution will depend on how this is processed, There can be a number of reasons why a particular shot is softer than others.

From what people have said, much seems depend on the quality of the projectors. People don't watch a film just because it's shot 4k, if they did none of those feature films shot on DV or 16mm would ever have received distribution.

Re: Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

For me at least type of camera used or resolution the movie was shot in has never crossed my mind and doesn't interest me at all when I"m looking at a movie. I mean, now and then I like to see an over the top action movie that just entertains, nothing more and I enjoyed crank 2, high voltage. On a forum I found out afterwards that they used Canon xh-a1's and a bunch of hf10's and I thought it looked good on a big screen. So that's 1/3th inch sensor hdv resolution for cinema.

Re: Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

Indeed some film have been deliberately shoot on lower resolution because they though the extra detail could be distracting or work against the story. I understand this was the reasoning with "28 Days Later".

Re: Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

I think 28 Days later was an artistic choice for a number of reasons (they needed fast turnarounds for the scenes of deserted London Landmarks - the police would only hold the morning traffic for a short amount of time). They were also going for a grungy home video vibe; the cinematographer was involved in the early stages of the Dogme 95 movement which was very much focussed on handheld naturalistic camcorder style photography.

So whereas lack of resolution was an artistic choice for 28 days later, the same could not be said of Skyfall. Interesting to hear some people thought it lacked detail in some wide shots.

Re: Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

I understand that a RED was used on some aerial shots, although I gather Roger Deakins wasn't that happy with it because of clipping.

Re: Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

I was disappointed, to be frank. The cinematography and art work is simply top rate, and some of the stunts are breathtaking to watch. I feel what Roger Deakins was able to pull off with the Alexa will convince many others to abandon film for good.

But I felt the story and dialogs were unworthy of Bond - especially the one-liners. Somebody new to the franchise might find it interesting, but if you're a Bond fan who has seen every movie, as I have, it sounds lame. I prefer Casino Royale to this. Hell, I'll take Austin Powers over this.

And where are all the Bond girls? Please don't tell me M is a Bond girl.

Re: Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

Couldn't agree more.
It was poorly written, however, this is the first Bond movie I've watched, so I'm not sure if I was just lost during the movie and did not see any underlying themes. Regardless, a movie should be conclusive in itself, even if it does tie in with a series of movies.

Re: Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

I've been dying to have a good yak about this movie. Now that a few people have weighed in, I'm going to go into specifics and so I first have to give a ...

SPOILER ALERT (going into specifics of plot and characters)

This trilogy of Daniel Craig movies has been a prequel, in my opinion.

It all leads up to one thing and answers this question: How did Bond get to be the James Bond who walked into M's office at the beginning of Doctor No?

If you look at the final scene of Skyfall, Bond walks in to greet the new Moneypenny (who has been brilliantly set up by the script - she shoots and almost kills Bond in the opening scene, then saves his life as he is climbing out of the pit at that restaurant/casino), enters M's new office - which is almost identical to that which Sean Connery walked into at the start of Doctor No, totally retro with the padded door, etc. (because the villain had earlier blown up the ultra-modern offices of MI6) - and is greeted by his brand-new, male M (also set up really well by the script).

With the (Act 3) killing of (BIG SPOILER) Judi Dench's female M - she was his original M who recruited him as a young orphan and trained him to be a ruthless assassin (making him just as ruthless as she was) - I think this will free him up to relax a little more under his new M and be able to deliver those dry one-liners which we all know and love (from the early Bond movies). and perhaps, like Sean Connery, even end a movie in a life boat or a forest with a gorgeous Bond girl.

So I agree with Sareesh that this one lacked the "style" of earlier Bonds in the franchise (the great one-liners and the abundant Bond girls) - but I feel this is a prequel which shows how that style eventually gets developed. And I also understand Chris's comment about it being poorly written (and not stand-alone). As a newcomer to Bond, he has no context to relate it to and therefore doesn't see how well the writers have set up this prequel so that it develops into the James Bond that the world has been watching for the last 50 years. (Perhaps it is best to go into the movie with no expectations, as I did originally.)

The prequel trilogy has finished its arc, as far as I am concerned.
Casino Royale: Bond is a green, up-and-coming assassin/agent who is emotionally open, falls in love and she dies.
Quantum of Solace: Bond is out for revenge following her death (this is one that I thought was poorly written - afterwards I couldn't remember who the villain was or even what happened in the movie - it was just not memorable at all).
Skyfall: The M, who recruited him as an orphan and trained him, dies. And his ancestral home is blown up. This completes his character development/set-up. The new M (very similar to the original Bernard Lee), Moneypenny and Q are all now in place. And you can see him in the future having some great banter with Moneypenny, now that you've seen their history.

Some things I really liked about the movie:

The set-up of his new Quartermaster (Q): I like that they made him younger than Bond and also made IT part of his hat. It makes sense in today's world.

A memorable villain: Bardem's character, Silva. I thought that Mendes constructed a great introductory scene where he walks from the back of the room/hall right up to the camera (constantly talking). Good focus pulling, I thought. Bardem made an exceptional Bond villain.

The Aston Martin: Great to see it back in action and a bit of Bond humour (see, there was some!) where Bond's finger was hovering over the ejector seat button while M was upbraiding him about something.

Bond valuing his car above the girl:
Bardem's character, Silva, shoots the beautiful Bond girl through the head. Even though the Bond girl had earlier pleaded with Bond to kill Silva for her, Bond wasn't too upset. He simply brought Silva in for trial.
At Skyfall, Silva destroys Bond's Aston Martin. Okay, now he's done it! Bond's eyes narrowed into little slits and you knew then that Silva was toast. Murdering the girl was one thing, but touching Bond's car .... (Another little bit of Bond style entering in.)

Anyway, I saw it a week ago and I'm back home now and it's still another week until it's released here. So I've got no-one here to talk to about it (as I don't want to spoil it for them). So forgive me for using DV Info as my only outlet to have a good yak about it!

Re: Skyfall is a great Bond movie!
 

Enjoyed the movie, saw it in Imax theater. Yes, it looked soft but everything seems to look that way, speaking mainly to broadcast television, everything has gone to shallow depth of field, nothing sharp like the early HD Net broadcasts. Anyway...it didn't matter, cinematography was still beautiful, movie was good. Was it the best? Well I liked it the best of the Daniel Craig series, but I have liked them all, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, Roger Moore, Sean Connery...all different, all good. Favorite movie? You Only Live Twice. Favorite scene in a Bond movie? The climactic brawl with Robert Shaw on the train in, From Russia with Love.