Reviews & Ratings for
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1218 out of 1829 people found the following review useful:

So so so bad. Critics need replacing

Author: Vijay Dinanath from United Kingdom
31 October 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

My 1st review! I was so disgusted with this film&annoyed critics praised it I cracked and had a rant.

Numerous Plot holes, contrivances, poor storytelling, character logic&motivation;

1. The stolen agent list macguffin; Made famous in M:I then overused in films&TV shows; CharliesAngels2 etc - halfway through the film they just forgot about it

2. Hacking magic! Hacking can be done well; goldeneye,swordfish,diehard4...Not just an easy contrived plot device. Can we have a proper explanation &the rules&limitations of Silva's hacking ability in this fiction? For all I know Silva can make satellites fall on people.

3. The irony of the 'can Bond operate in an internet world' theme...he failed twice and got M killed...so he can't?

4. How out of place the above theme is; Bond is mature but always current. His a walking encyclopedia (watch the start of any Connery/Moore film). In the last 2 films he was using advanced mobile phone tracking systems...adding hacking does not suddenly make Bond take on the 'modern' age. Are economics or funding civilwars outdated?

There was hacking&computers in 1995's Goldeneye..all of a sudden, NOW, there are no more shadows? Did MI6 stop evolving in the late eighties?

5.They have a meeting to discuss MI6? This was relevant in Batman, a vigilante was trying to inspire people- It was intertwined in the narrative&theme. Skyfall enquiry was just Sam Mendes ripping off Batman

6. Silva's planned capture; Another overused device that was coincidently in Batman. So what did Silva achieve? A conversation with M? When this is revealed shouldn't we look back and have everything make sense? But, NO, I was left wondering why they tried to kill Bond twice in China.

7. Why was a hacker in a cell controlled by a computer? Why is Q so stupid he plugged in the laptop to the building? Why was the trap door on the inside of the first glass door? why was there a trap door? How did Silva evade an armed MI6 guard 20 meters from his cell?

8. Super calculating (hack crazy)Silva's plan at the end was a firefight? With a backup plan of another firefight?

9. So they figured out Silva was dressed as a cop and no-one told anyone? The irony of M defending herself (reading a poem) knowing her own ex agent was about to shoot up the place was lost on critics&writers alike.

10. Could Bond not take a Sim free phone or'radio' &call backup when Silva arrived at the end? Instead they had their Home Alone moment- even Macaulay Culkin eventually called the police

11. Silva is supposed to mirror Bond. But compare Bond's 'betrayal' to Silva being handed over for torture... Some forced connection is made considering they never met before. Silva tells a story of 2rats so we know what we are supposed to think.

12. Bond's betrayal is M ordering Naomi to take a risky shot. Bond later tell's M he heard the order... why didn't he get out the way then? he just kept fighting like an idiot. &did Naomi only have 1 bullet?

13.You can't make Bond survive 2 gun shots and a fall like that. His already an established character. The Punisher&Bourne are special BECAUSE they survive. It can't happen to them again mid film/ mid franchise..

14. Bond follows an assassin&lets him kill innocent people! How is this in his character?! The previous 2 films already rebooted Bond to show WHY he doesn't let innocents die.

15. Naomi is a forced character..appearing randomly to remind us she still exists so we can think it's 'clever' when she becomes Moneypenny. Money penny gets demoted from field agent to secretary?!! not even analyst. If she is that hopeless why is she on the most important mission ever? I think Sam Mendes hates women.

16. Bond doesn't even blink when the girl he just bedded a few hours ago gets shot in cold blood. He identifies Severine as being sex trafficked&abused- He then just jumps in her shower. I had little problem with Bond tricking a woman into bed in live and let die- but the sky-fall scene should land him in the S-offenders list.

17.They traced the shrapnel in Bond's chest to a 'special'bullet that only 3 people use? His a 'ghost'...but we have his full flight manifesto. This is how they advanced the plot? wait a minute....didn't that bad guy shoot up half of turkey..? A contrivance& a plot hole in one plot device, that takes some doing.

18. One minute he can't shoot...10 seconds later he shoots everyone in a 360 arc? so what happened? oh we are just abandoning that theme mid- se..

19. Quite a few instances of Bond just standing in front of a landscape shot with his legs apart 'being deep'. I thought he was urinating at first.

20. Q is both a quartermaster&a programmer for the sake of the illogical theme.. but these are completely different skill sets...?

21. Knowing all this...what is the list doing in Turkey? on a laptop hardrive? why are only 2-3 agents on the case? They couldn't even do the liberty of making something up for the audience. Imagine Thunderball didn't show how SPECTRE got the nukes...

Why couldn't Silva just hack the list? Oh because it isn't connected to the internet you say...but the MI6 heating system is?

The script makes no sense, the themes are inappropriate, Bond's character&decision making has been altered &they have confused mature with dinosaur. Die another Day was almost a Bond parody, but this one is simply a mess,&a betrayal of Bond.

Shame on critics too impatient to appreciate QoS for not spoon feeding them everything & praising sky-fall because of poorly scattered themes& metaphors on a plot that makes no sense, just because it makes them feel clever

500 out of 769 people found the following review useful:

So Disappointed

Author: Teddy KGB from United Kingdom
1 November 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I should preface this by saying that I absolutely loved QoS (more than most)and Casino Royale. I'll start from the top.

The Opening Credits:

Visually the opening sequence was absolutely brilliant. Perhaps the best yet. However the Adele song choice was a poor one in my opinion. It's pap. Neither sexy (Goldeneye, Goldfinger) nor adrenaline pumping (Casino Royale, QoS). Sure the girl can sing... but so can Madonna.

Friendly Fire:

He gets shot with an assault rifle, falls 100+ feet and ends up at the bottom of a 50ft+ waterfall. Of course Bond doesn't need to be realistic but let's at least have a far-fetched explanation for his survival please. A small Turkish boy with a first aid kit who happened to be fishing at the bottom of the waterfall. Anything!

Macau:

Why no proper shots of Macau? Even just a decent panned intro. It's such a perfect setting for bond scenes.

The Komodo Dragon Killing:

No need for an Attenborough lecture. As convincing as fanged unicorns.

The Bond Girl:

A sex slave who very quickly gets shot. What a big letdown after Casino Royale and QoS.

The London Feel

The film had very real shots of an overcast and murky looking London and the whole film felt inherently British. Really nice.

'Silva':

I'm all for a fruity bond villain but what an anti-climax. Great intro, cool teeth but otherwise fairly bland. Certainly no Ernst Blofield or 'Leshiffre'.

Weak Plot:

The biggest failing of this film was the plot. It went from a mission to recover a stolen hard-drive to a mission to protect an old dear (who could've easily been killed several times). As for the motive, fairly tenuous and uninteresting:

Blondie signed up for the Mi6 many years back, M sent him on a mission, things go wrong on the mission, Blondie gets captured (we don't get shown any of this) and years later Blondie feels as though he wants to kill an older, moodier and fairly unendearing M.

The House Siege:

This was cool. Easily on par with scenes from Shooter and The Bourne Identity (tall order).

The Chapel:

Be honest. When Silva walks into the chapel were you thinking:

'Please don't shoot moody old M!'

Or were you thinking:

'NOOOOOOO! Please don't shoot the cool old guy with a sawn-off shotgun who's been giving Bond some lip! He's the only new face that's been given a proper character!'

As for the axe to the back - not exactly bond-like.

Conclusion:

Ingredients for an epic film. But an extremely weak plot and an undeveloped villain made it difficult to care about the final outcome.

424 out of 664 people found the following review useful:

Weak plot and boring!

Author: will-338-33056
1 November 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

There were so many problems with the film that I felt let down. I feel that Casino Royale was the best film to date; Skyfall was just a disappointment.

The first 10 minutes or so were great, Bond's on a mission and there are some memorable scenes (digger coupling the trains), but there are major plot-holes. When Bond is fighting on top of the train for the hard- drive, Eve says that she has a shot.

Bond can hear the whole conversation between Eve and M, so why doesn't he get out of the way (or at least co-operate to provide an easy shot)?! M mentions that the choice was either possible success (taking the shot) or guaranteed failure (leaving Bond to fight). You'd have more chance with a TOP MI6 AGENT than a risky shot.

I must be missing something, because QOS shows Bond finishing his FIRST assignment, where Skyfall shows him to be old, out of shape, and at the end of his career; there's a MASSIVE gap between the two films. It's almost as if the last two films and the reboot have been ignored.

The Aston Martin from Goldfinger, Q's mentioning of the exploding pen (Goldeneye), and the appearance of Q (In the previous two films, Bond has not met Q) seem to make it clear that CR and QOS have been forgotten, and so Skyfall was used purely for a "50 year special", looking back at the previous bonds.

When Bond leaves a trail leading to his house, why on earth wouldn't he call back up to meet him there? If you have the Head of MI6 under protection, you would need some actual protection - the plot makes no sense!

Why did Silva want to get captured? He just escapes! If he wanted to kill M, he could have done that with the explosion in her office (with a delay), so what purpose did his capture possess? None!

Overall, I was disappointment with Skyfall; possibly the worst Bond film to date. I expect more from Bond, and I hope that the next film forgets Skyfall!

309 out of 486 people found the following review useful:

A Truly Awful Movie.

Author: ice man from United States
7 November 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

One of the worst films I have ever seen. Every single scene was flawed and had errors. From beginning to end the movie had mistake after mistake. Now most movies have one or two mistakes and you just over look it but when it happens in every scene of the movie, you can't just wave it to one side.

For example, when Bond leaves the London underground and starts running to save M. Here we have TWO errors. Firstly, M does not do MP's committee meetings and secondly, why does Bond run half way across London to get to her? Why not stop one of the police officer's to either drive him or to give him the car? There are so many errors, like I already said in EVERY single scene of the movie.

Few others that I still remember are such as the opening scene, why does Eve who just mistakenly shot Bond with an automatic rifle not then open fire on the bad guy? How did Bond even survive such a drop? How did he end up in the arms of a beautiful woman on a beach? How did Eve even miss shooting him jumping on the train earlier? Why did the bad guy who had an automatic pistol and had Bond pinned down behind a wooden market stall decide to jump on a motorbike rather than to kill him? Why did the police bikers even drive straight towards a man firing a weapon? How did Eve even turn up with a vehicle just as Bond left the building? So many errors and so many gaps and that's just the first 8 minutes! I can go on and on and on. EVERY scene had massive errors, Even the Aston Martin DB5 scene, how comes Bond has it? Why would he even run away with M and get her killed? Are the SAS on strike? How did Bond leave the casino in Macau after killing 3 bodyguards? Does a large casino only have 3 security guards? Why even would they fight? Surely they would have just shot him as soon as he enters the casino? Javier Bardem's baddie character was ridiculous and comical. It was totally unbelievable, even an 8 year old wouldn't believe the storyline. Poor acting and the camp/gay innuendos were painful to watch. I couldn't believe what I was watching.

This was an appalling movie. It relied on Judi Dench to hold it all together. Sadly I am not able to give it a 0 so I will give it 1/10. No action in the movie what so ever after the opening scene. Two men hugging on top of a train has been done so many times. Pathetic movie and the only people who will enjoy this are the brain dead. Shame on critics who were saying this was the best Bond movie ever, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

I used to like Daniel Craig as Bond but thanks to this movie I now dislike him too. Well done to Sam Mendes and Co, it takes a certain amount of talent or the lack of it to single handedly destroy Bond. The hero in this movie was the final credits, the real baddie in this movie was the man behind the camera.

398 out of 675 people found the following review useful:

Boring

Author: Phil Moore from Oxford, England
31 October 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I thought Skyfall was awful. Worst of all it was just boring, something I would never think I would say about any Bond film.

The movie starts off well enough, a good chase scene in an exotic location and it sets itself up for what could have been a good story. The trouble is after the first 15 mins the story seems to go nowhere.

MI6 is in trouble, a list of its agents goes missing and has to be recovered. Bond who everyone thought was dead comes back to save the day. All good so far. Now for some very thin reason Bond has to go to Shanghai. I wonder if this scene was added to boost box office figures in China because it was totally irrelevant to the story. Next scene Bond meets the 'baddie'. Not some master criminal but an ex MI6 agent out for some revenge. This plot had already been covered in Goldeneye with much better results. The Baddie looked more likely to Blow Bond than Blow up MI6 and there was even a joke along that line.

The story now moves to London. I applaud the decision to have a Bond movie in the UK, especially in the Jubilee/Olympic/50 year Bond year but frankly it just painted England like every foreigners stereotype. Cold, Wet, and miserable. Now it is about a plot to kill M, this has also been covered before in 'The World is not Enough' and the movie never returns to locating the missing list of agents.

Why didn't the bad guy just kill M at the beginning of the movie and spare me sitting through 2 hours of boredom? I gave this film 4/10 because it has an unexpected twist at the end that the production team have managed not to leek prior to release. If it were not for that then Id probably have given it only 3/10.

Craig is now showing his age and in my opinion there are many better suited actors to the part. People moaned about QOS but frankly this movie is the worst Bond film ever.

330 out of 548 people found the following review useful:

Again: This NOT Bond, Mrs. Broccoli...

Author: maddog-50 from Belgium
2 November 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

this time it's getting even worse than Quantum Of Solace. The story is lame and stupid, the nonsense plot is build around a melodramatic inside view of Bond's psyche. O.K., when Bond is no bigger than life daredevil anymore, it seems to be a logical consequence, to let the audience learn more about the "true" psyche of Bond. But this is completely crap in my eyes!

An other complacent try by Mrs. Broccoli to revitalize the dusty genre of spy movies. But the audience was always smarter and realized, of course, that Bond never was realistic. The audience does not need to be educated in the direction of a more temporary 21st. century Bond by some filmmakers who do not want become suspects of doing the same thing all over again. Bond WAS always the same for 40 years till Albert Broccoli died and his very very untalented daughter took over the franchise automatically. This happens when you bequeath a business,there is no warranty that your children are going to handle it well.

The real Bond is a classical archetype male and a chauvinistic, arrogant womanizer with a very dangerous job (secret agent), no woman can withstand although she knows what a heart breaker he is. This worked for 40 years and would have worked for another 40 years or so. The Bond we knew until Craig appeared might not be the type of man radical left-wing Eco-activist broads would like to welcome to their sit-in.

Fact is, the real Bond is dead!

This is a private version of Mrs. Broccoli's fantasy Bond 008, a guy who deeply comprehends women instead of bumping them before they can count to three (which might be a challenge for some real Bond girls...). Of course it's intended not to be "your dirty old father's" Bond. It's a Bond for the masses not for the classes, offering a bit of everything the average movie goer under 20 (Twilight-fans) might want to consume.

Craig's Bond has become a sissy, who has a complex oedipal relationship to elder women, especially to those he calls "M". Now, in Skyfall, we will learn that "M" is for "mother"...

There really was no need to change the Bond franchise so completely, except to squeeze out some dollars more out of the franchise. R.I.P. 007!

353 out of 607 people found the following review useful:

Dreadful. Possibly even worse than Quantum of Bondness.

Author: Chaarles from United Kingdom
31 October 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

***BEWARE - MAJOR SPOILERS - BEWARE - MAJOR SPOILERS - BEWARE - MAJOR SPOILERS***

Amongst the very worst of the Bond series. Surprisingly, after an action-packed pre-credit sequence it became so slow, plodding and tedious I wasn't sure it was actually supposed to be an action movie after all. Then a few unimaginative 'action-sequences' were thrown in and we were supposedly off, except that the dull, leaden script (except for a couple of sparkling moments) and badly contrived storyline (meandering between inanely pointless set pieces and sheer unbelievability) never actually let the film take off at any point. And there were so many plot-holes you could fire an Uzi a full 360 and not hit a thing. All this and what appears to be a complete aversion to many of the long-standing characteristics that always made Bond who he is (and made a Bond movie a Bond movie) and you have a dull, third-rate spy movie about some tough bloke employed by Whitehall.

If the central character's name was altered from Bond to, say, Jack Steel or something, there would be little if anything left in the movie to suggest you might be watching a Bond movie.

Yes, its tough and gritty, but gone is the suave, sophisticated, knowledgeable, utterly committed agent we are used to, now we have a stroppy, confused man moping about getting drunk instead of reporting for duty; who about a quarter way through the film remembers where he left his razor and even gets himself together enough to shave; who, after being felt-up by a homosexual villain, alludes to previous homosexual experiences he might have had; and who hatches a really stupid plan to use M as bait by taking her to a completely isolated manor house with hardly any firepower available, whilst inviting the baddies to come and get them, which they do with more men and more firepower than Bond thought to bring along; not surprisingly Bond's daft 'plan' to get the villain results in Bond getting his boss killed.

If the makers of the film want to revisit classic Bond, perhaps the theme song to this one should have been "Nobody Does It Worse."

Bond is dead.

256 out of 439 people found the following review useful:

Bond on a budget starring the old folks home

Author: phd_travel from United States
1 November 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

There are so many things wrong with this movie. Most of the elements of a good Bond movie aren't there.

The locations aren't well used. The Istanbul roof top & Bazaar chase has already been shown in "Taken 2" and the TV show "Missing". Dejavu. The way they showed 'Shanghai' and 'Macau' at night it could have been filmed anywhere. The Scottish countryside shown was so grim.

Where are the cars and gadgets? Nothing but the old Aston Martin. Just that pistol and tracker. The new Q is so ineffective.

The villain played by Javier Bardem. He is more comical than sinister. With the blond fright wig, the campy overtures and the most frightening of all, the dentures this must the most absurd bad guy in Bond history.

The climax feels cheap and conventional. They must have run out of money for the second half. Such a stupid idea to bring M to that run down Scottish house. With the home made defences and geriatric defenders, it felt like Home Alone meets the Golden Girls. Might as well have asked Betty White or grandma to join in.

The new Bond girl Berenice Marlohe is exotic and fascinating to look at. But why only one? Writing her out of the show so early and not having another was a mistake. The Bond girl is supposed to end up saved by Bond with a hook up at the end. Unless you consider M a Bond girl.

The focus of the movie is M. Judi Dench was always too provincial looking for MI6. The only good thing about this movie is that Ralph Fiennes is replacing her. Finally. There was no need to dedicate a whole movie to her farewell.

Daniel Craig is just so haggard he looks worse than the villain. It's time to replace him with someone younger and handsomer. Baffled by the good reviews. Be warned we are being short changed.

170 out of 279 people found the following review useful:

No glamour or escapism in this boring Bond movie

Author: slimsusie from United Kingdom
13 November 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

My first review on IMDb, couldn't resist offering some balance to the obvious early march of fanboy reviews! Always been abit of a Bond fan and I was looking forward to being taken away to some exotic locations, to escape for a few hours, and some edge of seat action but these things were missing from Skyfall.

Production standards have slipped terribly on Skyfall with stuntmen clearly visible (motorbike chase)and some of the worst sets I have ever seen. The Skyfall Lodge (Bond's family home) is especially appalling and some people even laughed in the cinema when they pulled up in the old Aston.

The Q character doesn't work at all, not convincing in any way with the fake glasses and daft hair...EON please rethink this for the next movie and also forget the Moneypenny actress because she cannot act, least not in this character anyway.

Some of the SFX were good but the opening chase scene was way to long and instead of building suspense most people just got bored.

The french actress Berenice was superb as was Rory Kinnear, though for me Craig struggled to capture my attention like he did in Casino Royale.

Bardem was underused or poorly directed and never intimidating as a true 'baddie' should be, and why oh why did they dye his hair? it was so so unconvincing.

I have yet to meet anybody who thinks this is a great movie let alone 'the best Bond ever!' I am staggered that some people like this Bond but I guess we are all different! I wonder how these figures are calculated as most of the last few thousand votes have been poor but I am new to IMDb (great site by the way)so maybe it takes awhile for the early enthusiast votes to be corrected by more 'normal' viewings?! And I suppose there will always be the fan element hell bent on 'talking a movie up' whereas someone who has watched a film they dislike generally will just want to forget about it!

119 out of 188 people found the following review useful:

Sucked in by the Bond hype - A boringly separatist movie

Author: risk-alan from United Kingdom
12 November 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Like thousands of others I am a Bond fan and although we all have differing views on what Bond should be, we all expect a good Bond movie to be an escape from our day to day lives. A glamorous life full of suspense and intrigue. Skyfall has no suspense, intrigue or glamour (save for Berenice) and as such is not escapism and not a 'Bond film'. Casino Royale was a Bond film and a very good one at that, so this mess isn't Craig's fault.

Like others I also saw terrible sets especially Skyfall Lodge which looked like something from a sixties TV series, crossroads or it's a knockout!

Also I noticed clear as day Craig's stuntman on several occasions, completely ruining for me the roof top motorbike chase. Continuity errors all over the place not worthy of a Bond film from any era.

Q was miscast and his specs were embarrassing, all wrong wrong wrong.

The new Moneypenny should never sleep with Bond and Naomie Harris cannot act to save herself.

Berenice Marlohe is amazing, an incredible actress and totally stunning. My one point out of ten is all for her!

Another weird thing about this Bond.....nobody mentions 'Britain' only 'England' - is this a future proofed Bond ready for Scottish independence?! England is mentioned several time but not Britain anymore even though we saw union jacks but no George flag. A small point to some but a major puzzle to some, what is this all about?

Never ever did I have all these concerns watching a Bourne movie or even the brilliant TV series Homeland, in these productions you never stop to think 'this isn't real' because it is all done so well that you just get wrapped up in it all. Not so this film for me, so so many errors that I couldn't wait to get out of the cinema. Above all this film bored me and depressed me, something I have never said about any Bond film before, not even Q of Solace.

The real puzzle for me is who likes it? My straw poll of 11 people has brought up 8 who disliked it and felt tricked, with the rest not bothered either way so how come all the hype? How come all the glowing professional reviews? It's almost 'the king has no clothes' situation isn't it? Or maybe all the pro UK stuff in our Olympic year of celebration has made everyone lose their objectiveness.

Either way I have yet to meet anyone who thought this was a great movie.

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