I don't remember Skyfall being criticized as a poor man's Dark Knight; I remember it being trumpeted as a triumphant 007 flick. I loved it, personally.
The way I remember it (and this is pure anecdotal), I remember CR being universally loved; a few naysayers did criticize his lack of humour, but mostly people loved it. QoS split the audience - about 50% thought it was a good, fast-paced action movie and the other half thought it was turning Bond into a Bourne knockoff that had lost its way. I'm in the latter camp. Skyfall was lauded as a return to form, and except Shane Black, people loved it. In fact, I daresay this is the most-loved of the Craig era Bonds, or was for a while (now I think CR challenges it; I prefer CR). The big critique against it is that it used the "captured on purpose" gimmick that TDK and Avengers also used, but I mostly remember it getting a great reception. Spectre arrived to a big, "Mmm...okay," and while I like the movie overall, I think it's got some big flaws. First, they try to make EVERYTHING in Bond's life be about Spectre; second, I think I can do this without spoilers... Blofeld's motivations are eye-rollingly bad. Overall, I think that Spectre was basically trying too hard. It was trying too hard to make this a momentous occasion, and they should have just focused on the story. With that said, there's a lot to love - the car chase, Monica Bellucci, skiing (again! - always fun for Bond!), the final set-piece, the opening Day of the Dead, Monica Bellucci, and of coure Monica Bellucci are all awesome!
But I think you're right: people have soured on Craig. The question for me is: why? I think it has to do with No Time to Die, and although I haven't seen it yet (I know, I know, I'm late to the party), I don't think I need to have seen it to know what was wrong with it: the marketing. I'm serious here. They let too much hints of "woke" creep into the marketing with Lashana Lynch and broadcasting "AGENT 007 WILL BE PLAYED BY A BLACK WOMAN!" loud and clear and then, whispered, "...but Bond himself is still a male..." Then they touted the re-writes by Phoebe Waller-Bridge and people were just so keyed up to hate the movie at the merest whiff of woke that the box office suffered and a lot of people pre-hated the movie. When I see it (and I intend to; I watched the '60s Casino Royale, for goodness' sake) I'm going in with an open mind. I'm not letting marketing and doomsayers wreck it for me.
But I think that's when people started finding Daniel Craig's comments about how the character was "toxic" and they retroactively decided that the whole Craig era was rubbish. Well, I still like Spectre a lot (despite its shortcomings) and I think CR and Skyfall are really terrific.
QoS is the worst of all Bonds, though. Screw that meandering Bourne junk.
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FootOfDavros (6670)
a year ago
I really couldn't stand Skyfall but that's just me - I won't deny it wasn't a great success. However it was definitely noted as something of a Dark Knight rip off at the time and not just retrospectively.
You can google Skyfall Dark Knight and find a lot of articles from 2012 making the point. But for me the biggest turn off was the faux Joker and Bardem's embarrassing playing of the part as such. Just terrible...
Do you really think that's true re Craig though? I thought the vast majority of people loved his tenure, even the stupid death ending. Sure you get a few idiots like me who don't like his era but I'm sure the majority still like his films.
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Ace_Spade (9334)
a year ago
I guess I just didn't see a lot of people calling it a Dark Knight ripoff. I believe you that people did draw comparisons at the time. With that said, I really don't see it as a Dark Knight ripoff. The only real parallel I see is Silva getting captured on purpose. He isn't an anarchist, he isn't a "Joker". Bruce isn't struggling with getting older and keeping up with modern tech like Bond is in Skyfall. Both characters have pasts they are dealing with psychologically, but their responses are very different. Is it that Silva and Joker both have convoluted schemes? Is that a copy of Dark Knight? Nolan didn't invent convoluted villain schemes for TDK - just watch The Game. I don't see a parallel between Bardem's performance and Ledger's.
Maybe I'm just reading a lot of flak on moviechat. I'd never think you were an idiot for not liking Craig's films. Everybody has their favourite Bond (Connery for me) and least favourite (Lazenby, although he was in one of the best movies, he kinda drags it down) so I'm never going to dump on somebody for having their own tastes. I might tease somebody or joke around with them ("Oh, so you don't mind being wrong about your Bond movies, then?") but I'm not going to seriously think you (or anybody else) are dumb for disliking Craig's films (or even Connery's).
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FootOfDavros (6670)
a year ago
Bruce isn't struggling with getting older and keeping up with modern tech like Bond is in Skyfall.
Ha - that's a great example of exactly why I dislike the Craig films! I don't care about Bond becoming melodrama and it only gets worse from what I read (Skyfall is the last one I watched).
It's funny though, I've just recently purchased the four non Craig films I didn't own on FootOfDavros Jnr's request that we complete our "set".
These were FRWL, TWINE and the two Dalton ones.
We just watched TWINE and you can see this is really the death of traditional Bond. I don't care for the expanded M role, which (the reason I brought this up) isn't too different from the TWINE storyline. Even although I don't really like the film, it's interesting to watch now - the cinematography was good and pretty similar to the classic Moore films. Still to rewatch but I remember TLD being much the same.
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Ace_Spade (9334)
a year ago
I think we've just got very different Bond tastes.
I liked them investigating Bond's reaction to the world of computers and how somebody in his position deals with getting older. Of course, I also loved that "dealing with it," had the answer of, "Screw you young punks, you don't know from spying!" And he got out his classic Astin Martin while classic Bond rifts played and he low-tech fed Silva's goons their teeth. You can't hack shotgun shell booby traps. This is the opposite response that seems to come up in a lot of films these days. Compare this message, "The old ways and the experienced vets have more value than you realized, Q!" with the, "Forget the past," stuff that comes up in other remakes. Skyfall at least didn't end its melodrama with, "Ok, Boomer."
The taste discrepancy continues! I have long touted TWINE as being vastly underrated. I'll grant naysayers their "Dr." Denise Richards (she does not pull this off one bit) but I loved Elektra King for Marceau's performance and for her role in the film. Coltrane is back and super fun. The action scenes are great. And Richards is at least really attractive.
Again: it's your taste, I'm not telling you to like this stuff, just why I do. I don't mind M being in it more, especially with Judi Dench's ability, but I get why you wouldn't and yeah: respect.
I'm curious what you think of Licence to Kill, which has long been one of my top 10 Bond films.
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