‹ All movies

The Rewatchables ·

Skyfall

year 2012decade 10sdirector Sam Mendesgenre Drama
host Chris Ryanhost Sean Fennesseyhost Amanda Dobbins
All 15 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 18:50

Silva's entrance: the rats-on-the-island speech to Bond

Five candidates are laid out, with an effort to keep scene distinct from sequence: the Shanghai skyscraper shootout, the new MI6 introduction in Churchill's tunnels with word association and sit-ups while Rory Kinnear briefs him on the state of the world, Silva and Bond's first meeting with the William Tell scene, the tube chase, and the church scene at the end; a Shanghai versus Macau mix-up is corrected along the way.

Smaller stuff is what connects one host to the movie: the first meeting with Q in front of the Turner painting, talking in metaphor and at cross purposes in really well-written dialogue, with Wishaw great as Q; it is not a sequence where a train bursts through the ground.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:26:26

"Mommy was very bad"

Candidates read aloud: Silva's lines about orphans making the best recruits and what is this if not betrayal, the evaluation line about not being approved for field duty, the coconut and rats speech ending with what she made us, called top shelf and Shakespeare, and Mallory's then we're all buggered, carry on, after Q worries about the PM.

The film

Skyfall (2012)

Directed by Sam Mendes · Drama

143 minutes

IMDbLetterboxdJustWatch
Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Cast credits have not been imported yet.

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

18:50

Most Rewatchable Scene

Silva's entrance: the rats-on-the-island speech to Bond

Silva's entrance: the rats-on-the-island speech to Bond

In the discussion (11)
Approx. transcript time · 00:18:50Read transcript
  • Five candidates are laid out, with an effort to keep scene distinct from sequence: the Shanghai skyscraper shootout, the new MI6 introduction in Churchill's tunnels with word association and sit-ups while Rory Kinnear briefs him on the state of the world, Silva and Bond's first meeting with the William Tell scene, the tube chase, and the church scene at the end; a Shanghai versus Macau mix-up is corrected along the way.
  • Smaller stuff is what connects one host to the movie: the first meeting with Q in front of the Turner painting, talking in metaphor and at cross purposes in really well-written dialogue, with Wishaw great as Q; it is not a sequence where a train bursts through the ground.
  • M reading Tennyson at the inquiry, cut against Daniel Craig sprinting through London with Big Ben behind him, lays it on thick but is moving every time; Craig is called a fantastic movie runner, maybe number two behind Cruise, and the film came out months after the London Olympics, which Bond kicked off in the Danny Boyle opening with the queen.
  • Mallory and M's philosophical conversation about whether the enemy is in the shadows is a favorite dialogue scene, read as metaphor about waging a war on terror and the rights of a government to exceed its power, reflected later in the court scene; nothing in Quantum of Solace, written during the writer's strike, has that crispness.
  • Two more suggestions: the planning conversation at Skyfall with Albert Finney's Kincaid, including the line about men coming to kill us and killing them first, which is right out of Eastwood, and the fight on top of the train with the excavator and the sleeve adjustment; the Istanbul opening with Moneypenny feels like typical Bond until M orders her to take the shot, and the motorcycle chase on the narrow walkway is illogical but shot beautifully.
  • The pick is called a category of one: the Silva intro, shot by Mendes and Deakins from right behind Bond's shoulder as the villain comes down in an elevator and starts talking from forty feet away, his face withheld until the rats story nears its conclusion; the filmmakers knew what they had and let it play, and the episode plays the rat speech from the film.
  • The scene inverts the Bond convention of saving the villain's big speech for the end, as parodied by Austin Powers, by putting it at the close of the first act; it is playwriting, one long metaphor monologue, spiced with the question of whether Silva is sexually attracted to Bond or something fraternal, and the hosts wonder whether the unbuttoning was in the script.
  • Bardem is called the greatest Bond girl, lighting Craig up more than anyone since Eva Green; the villain tilts the movie on its axis, funny and destabilizing and more unsettling than other Bond villains, while the backstory with M is brushed aside in one line about Hong Kong.
  • Silva hacking Bond and MI6 in 2012 is seen as prescient, a technocracy story rather than the money-and-power plots of villains like Mads Mikkelsen's; the abandoned island, shot off Macau but based on one off Nagasaki, is a faded ghost town that parallels Bond's own enjoying-death stretch.
  • The scorpion scene is loved, with a nitpick that a British guy doing scorpion tricks in a Turkish bar while keeping a low profile would go viral; Silva mirrors Bond as a lone wolf with mommy issues operating to his own ends.
  • After the action discussion, the answer is the rats speech, the Silva intro.
Share this discussion More Most Rewatchable Scene answers
41:24

What’s Aged the Best?

Adele's theme song

Adele's theme song

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 00:41:24Read transcript
  • Judi Dench literally has aged the best: seventy-seven when she gave a performance of just-enough British acting, with the stature and gravitas to make standing over six coffins feel important; Adele's song is an all-time jam.
  • The locations are sensible rather than volcano-and-Tokyo Bond locations: Istanbul and London, very London-centric, like a board of tourism; the fiftieth anniversary of the series and the Broccoli family's hubbub may have driven the reminder that this is a British spy from Scotland, and M's garage line about the car not being ostentatious is a favorite Dench moment.
  • Waning empire keeps waning, the ministers' hearings read as Brexit, and movies about washed-up middle-aged men are on trend for 2019; the cast has not a single error, and the Deakins photography would be cutting-edge if released today.
  • Casting a prestige director for a franchise has aged well: Mendes had just bricked with Away We Go after American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Jarhead and Revolutionary Road and retreated to theater, with the New Yorker covering him and Jez Butterworth; the Bond films had been a schlocky volume play that needed re-engineering into an event, and the move leads to Ryan Coogler doing Creed and Black Panther.
  • Tarantino was long rumored for a Bond film, Danny Boyle left the most recent one, and Nolan would be bank-breaking but only makes Warner Brothers movies; Mendes openly lifted the Dark Knight aesthetic, and Nolan's films are themselves a commentary on Bond, with the orphan avenging sins in common.
  • Costumes have aged well: Ben Whishaw's climactic Dries sweater and museum parka, the cut of Craig's suits, Moneypenny's business casual, the barber jackets (as transcribed), the final Skyfall look with boots, and the wool-looking training tracksuit with low-top Adidas that only Craig could wear; everyone's sweatpants should fit like that rather than like the Ad Astra moon base.
  • Albert Finney's last film performance has aged well: a perfect role for an actor of his age as a father figure to old Scotland, old England and Shakespearean movie acting.
  • The song has the highest approval rating and is chosen; an Oscar winner.
Share this discussion More What’s Aged the Best? answers
49:50

What’s Aged the Worst?

Severine's storyline and the shower scene

Severine's storyline and the shower scene

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:49:50Read transcript
  • The hacking is pretty stupid as a plot point, though the stylized Pac Man ghost animation is defended since HTML was further along; M at seventy-seven clicks a message that says click me on her laptop, Q boasts nobody can hack him and then plugs Silva's machine into the mainframe, and Hillary Clinton is invoked.
  • Computer plots are inherently un-cinematic; a vodka-soaked Bond reading opaque code, the unused subway station deduction and the red-lines map of London are weird, and Whishaw is trying hard with a script that is not there, though the headquarters screens and the sculptural servers on Silva's island are beautiful art made out of hacking, with jokes about 3G on the island.
  • Severine is a classic Bond girl who lives and dies quickly and naked; Bond responding to her account of being a Macau sex worker by sneaking up on her in the shower and discarding her at the villain's island is not a good look, as if two different writers handled the sex-trade thread and the seduction.
  • Because the film is so purposeful about stakes and emotion, making her a sex slave and then having Bond offer help, take her to Silva's island and watch her shot in the head is rough; Berenice Marlowe (as transcribed) is good in the bar scene and the hosts are surprised she had no bigger career; the film already has a sex scene in Turkey and Moneypenny tension, so a knock on the door would have been fine.
  • Imperialism is a second nominee; Naomi Harris's Moneypenny lacks chemistry and feels jaunty, doing girl-power line readings in a sedate movie where everyone is depressed, as if in a different film, though she is spared the overacting category since nobody is really overacting; the Moneypenny-as-action-hero idea ending in administrative work is totally weird.
  • Severine's plotline is the final answer, called a little tough.
Share this discussion More What’s Aged the Worst? answers
59:22

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Ben Whishaw

Ben Whishaw

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 00:59:22Read transcript
  • Bardem may not qualify, so Fiennes is one answer, with cases for Finney and Wishaw; Wishaw is a good reinvention of Q, novel for being younger than Bond, everyone in the cast is overqualified, and he was starring in the BBC show The Hour at the time, whose third season the hosts want made.
Share this discussion More The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance answers
1:00:02

Apex Mountain

Daniel Craig

Daniel Craig

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:00:02Read transcript
  • Daniel Craig is a yes: he opened the Olympics and starred in a billion-dollar Bond movie considered the best ever; Knives Out is great but not the same level of power, and he now does Southern accents and married Rachel Weisz.
  • Sam Mendes is a no; his peak was earlier, right after American Beauty made around four hundred million and won the Oscars, into Road to Perdition and Jarhead.
  • Javier Bardem is a no: 2012 did not feel like his moment any more than 2007, and objectively his peak is the No Country for Old Men Oscar; his run through Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Beautiful, Eat Pray Love, To the Wonder, The Counselor and Mother is admired, and he is married to Penelope Cruz.
Share this discussion More Apex Mountain answers
1:02:12

The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award

Helen McCrory

Helen McCrory

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:02:12Read transcript
  • The award is temporarily renamed for a British character actor, the Denholm Elliot award; nominees are Rory Kinnear, in every good English television show, Helen McCrory, who goes on to play Polly Shelby in Peaky Blinders, as the minister questioning Judi Dench, Nicholas Woodison from the word-association evaluation, Albert Finney behind the beard, and Ola Rapace, Noomi Rapace's ex-husband and a well-known Swedish actor, as Patrice.
  • Helen McRory (as transcribed) is the pick, recognizable by voice even without a straight close-up. — Amanda Dobbins
  • Most humans would pick Rory Kinnear, known for the pig on Black Mirror, while the Anglophile hosts know his shows; the show South Cliff (as transcribed) is recommended.
Share this discussion More The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award answers
1:03:51

The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award

Javier Bardem, overruled; the boat captain by compromise

Javier Bardem, overruled; the boat captain by compromise

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:03:51Read transcript
  • The award is now the Linda Partridge 'don't call me lady' award after Julianne Moore in Magnolia, having passed from Ruffalo to Saul Rubineck (as transcribed); the first answer is that nobody is overacting and Bardem is acting just right.
  • The award was named after Mark Ruffalo despite Zodiac and You Can Count on Me, so it is not a positive award, and the Bardem performance is called the performance of the decade; the boat captain who sticks his head in to say they should push off is offered instead.
  • The counter-case is that overacting is a skill, that Bardem seems outsized because everyone else is muted, and that he is doing a lot without ruining the movie; the Bardem voter admits being outvoted as always, and the award goes to the boat captain so everyone stays friends.
Share this discussion More The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award answers
1:27:55

Sequel, Prequel, Limited Series, or All-Black Remake

A Peter Morgan-written Bond series for Netflix, filmed on location at this production level; an MI6 show built around...

A Peter Morgan-written Bond series for Netflix, filmed on location at this production level; an MI6 show built around Judi Dench's M and Ralph Fiennes at Whitehall hearings

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 01:27:55Read transcript
  • One host would watch a Bond Netflix show if Peter Morgan made it, but only filmed on location at this production level, which no Netflix show including The Crown reaches; a self-described spy head would love an MI6 show centered on a reckless alcoholic; another says Bond going to Netflix is how we know movies are dead.
  • A spinoff around Judi Dench's M, with Ralph Fiennes, Whitehall hearings and backroom deals, plus an extended set piece every other episode, appeals to some, with M's line about running out of drink an A plus moment; the dissenter is a barker outside a marquee for the movies.
Share this discussion More Sequel, Prequel, Limited Series, or All-Black Remake answers
1:31:47

Who Won the Movie?

James Bond, the franchise

James Bond, the franchise

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:31:47Read transcript
  • The opening answers are Barbara Broccoli and Sam Mendes, whose career the film resets: he was nowhere after Away We Go, went on to Spectre and 1917 with Roger Deakins, and took a franchise property to more awards and more money.
  • The film also rejuvenates the Bond franchise, reminding people of its possibilities as the twenty-fifth film approaches amid franchise and spy overload, Brexit and an old conservative character; it is not the same movie without Bardem, with Jeffrey Rush (as transcribed), Johnny Depp and canceled actors imagined in his place.
  • One host initially sticks with Mendes, another names the Broccoli family and James Bond the franchise, and the Mendes voter switches, convinced: James Bond continuing as a powerful force for moviegoers.
Podcast choices
Speaker not identified
James Bond (the franchise)
Speaker not identified
James Bond (the franchise)
Share this discussion More Who Won the Movie? answers