SPECTRE Review (SPOILERS) (DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN SPECTRE AND WOULD REALLY LIKE TO) (1 Viewer)

Phantom

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Saw Spectre last night. Perhaps I should wait a while before penning a review, in case I change my mind. Nah. Sorry it is long. Actually, no I’m not. If you sat through Spectre, this will seem like a nano-second to read ;-).


Hmmm... as a Bond fan I can see what they were trying to do, but they continue to dance around the wonderful opportunities to really get this franchise going again. Craig is established as Bond, yet they just seem to wallow in this whole 'Bond's past/Bond goes rogue /MI6 under siege thing', which is getting tiresome. Believe me, I really wanted to love this movie, I really did. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t think it was as good as it could easily have been. Also, I know it is a movie and I am willing to suspend disbelief for less cerebral sequences like helicopter stunts and falling buildings. My beef is with what I believe is the producers/directors attempts to tell Bond’s story and they are just not hitting it.


I believe they spent far too long on issues of less importance (land, air, sea action sequences ala Quantum of Solace, or any of the Bourne movies you care to recall), and did not really build the character of Waltz enough, given the significance of his relationship to Bond and who he eventually turns out to be. I must say that they just really rushed the whole 'How I became a super-villain thing' and I was left unsatisfied with Waltzs' 'I was a neglected, jealous child because of 2 summers I shared my Dad with Bond, so I had to etc...'. A little lame really when one considers who he is and what the organisation stands for. I mean, this is SPECTRE. They are bad-ass beyond anything else Bond has ever tackled. They demand better development and perhaps display a little more resilience.


A recent interview with Bautista indicated he was glad of the opportunity to step out of his being type-cast as a blank, menacing bad guy who just hurts people - ummm, ok, Dave. You spent the whole time looking 'blank', intimidating people with your sheer size and 'menace', and bashing Bond to a pulp. The sum total of your lines was'Oh, shit'- in a bad Italian accent.


Bond's previous proclivity to sprint everywhere has been reduced to now staring at the bad guy/terrible situation and casually walking towards or from said identified threat. This probably explains the 2hrs 48min the movie needs to cover everything.


While on that point, I am nearly 40 and my bladder is not as willing to hold for that length of time. As a precaution, I did not drink fluids for 3 hours leading up. Some may say “that’s excessive”, or “too much information mate”, but that is how much I was looking forward to this movie and I hate having to duck out quickly and miss an important sequence or conversation. If you have the same issue, do not worry. Drink triple-shot espresso and pop caffeine tablets like they are candy/lollies, as you won’t miss too much.


Ahh, yes, and they do try to cover everything, except building a meaningful connection between Bond and Waltz. The latter was passable, but I believe was not given the room to flex his much-vaunted acting muscles. I feel his performance was a discount version of his Inglorious Basterds SS officer. His version of 'B' was somewhere between your Dad, and a teacher you really didn't get on with. Mildly menacing, but somehow ineffective. And what the hell was the whole sequence with 'that' machine? Short of giving socks with sandals he really acted a bit of a ‘duffer’. I mean, they gave away his two best lines in the previews, and they didn't really lead to any meaningful exchanges. Ho hum - missed opportunity.


When I heard the name ‘Oberhauser’ in the lead up to the release of the movie, I was tremendously excited. For those who have read the Bond short-story, ‘Octopussy’, Oberhauser is introduced and meets an untimely end in a Bavarian glacier shortly after WW2. It is during this story that we discover that after Bond’s parents are killed in a climbing accident when he was 8, that Hannes Oberhauser became a father-figure to him, “at a time when I really needed one”. This was one of the main reasons I thought this was going to be a great story. However, it too was glossed over a little too quickly and never really got traction or elicited the emotion it should have.


Ralph Fiennes should be a great 'M'. He is a great actor and yet, he just doesn't get beyond being 2-dimensional. Again, a victim of the producers/directors trying to do too much and include everyone in every possible facet of the movie. And what’s with Bond back-answering and being a smart-arse to him, in his office, without having his arse handed back to him? Perhaps they should read the books again and even watch a few of the older movies. 'M' is at the start, rarely in the body of the film, and may be there at the end, briefly.


'Q' is interesting enough and appears determined to break the mortician look, and was probably my favourite character in this one, but, he shouldn't be. However, Lea Seydoux has a really classical beauty and screen presence that I just couldn’t look away from. However, still a bit 2-dimensional on occasion.


Overall, my review may seem harsh, and there were a lot of entertaining parts, but my skirt was not blown up by any means. Not as much as I expected. I think they missed another opportunity to get back on line where Casino Royale started and tell Bond’s story (if that was their intention). Quantum of Solace (universally panned and the only Bond film I have seen only once, and almost walked out of) was a big step back. Skyfall was another meandering effort, but plenty of 'good parts', and they finally got rid of Judi Dench (3 movies too late).


I really wanted to love Spectre as it promised so much and was probably 'over-hyped' and 'over-spoiled'. Perhaps the expectation was too high. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t watch Bond for the great acting, but I do expect that they do tell a good story given that Ian Fleming did all the hard work for them. As a Bond-aficionado (books and movies) for nearly 3.5 decades I feel that Bond is in real danger of becoming the best player in our favourite sporting team that played one too many seasons, only to be remembered for that last, lack-lustre effort before ultimately, and inevitably, being cut prior to the last few games of the schedule.


I hope not, as I love Bond. But, as they often say, if you truly love something ...
 
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Thanks for your in-depth review, Adam. I imagine it's a tall order for producers to nail it for a super fan like yourself, with the level of insight you have into the Bond universe!

I find it's rare for movies to do justice to book adaptations or based on a good franchise, especially where the source material is so dense and the characters, organisations and back stories are so well established. To maximise ROI, movie producers have to make movies accessible to as wide an audience as possible, quite often cutting corners at the expense of characterisation and plot. If must be a fine line to tread, doing justice to the source while creating something that the masses can follow.

It used to bug the crap out of me, the half-assed job Hollywood does of comic book adaptations. Such rich source material to draw upon. And it's already frickin' storyboarded!!!! They seem to have gotten better at these in recent years - it helps when they have fans at the helm. Ever fancied trying your hand at directing..? ;)

Sorry you didn't like the flick more, mate.



PS Are your Blades chips here yet?
 
Hi Toby, I know, I know :), I am being unreasonable :). I guess I just expected a bit more from what the trailers and lead up seemed to promise. Without leaning too much on the specific Bond-lore, the fragmented approach would be just as annoying with any movie I reckon. I also think my rant extended over the last few Bond movies where all this could have been covered and not have such a last-minute rush feel. I mean, Blofeld just showed up, said his two lines, got his scar, had his entire plan blown up by a watch, got shot down by a PPK, at night, from a moving boat ;-), and gets captured by Amon Goethe. Where does the story go from there? If they were intending to use this movie to launch new stories between Bond/Blofeld, I guess we have to get used to the idea of a Lex Luthor-esque escape by Blofeld. I did direct a few plays at school - perhaps I missed my calling :) haha.

Thanks very much for your reply mate :).

Regarding the Blades chips - still in production. David indicated that they should be done by the end of this month. I hope so :).

Thanks again :)

Adam
 
@Phantom do you listen or have you listened to the podcast James Bonding?

It's on the Nerdist network and while few things irritate me more than Chris Hardwick, I do like Matt Gourley, so I checked it out, but it didn't really land with me as I'm not really very up on all things Bond.
 
@Phantom do you listen or have you listened to the podcast James Bonding?

It's on the Nerdist network and while few things irritate me more than Chris Hardwick, I do like Matt Gourley, so I checked it out, but it didn't really land with me as I'm not really very up on all things Bond.
Hey JB, no haven't listened to that, but will check it out this weekend. Cheers mate :)
 
Good review, I was underwhelmed by the movie myself. There were two different people that fell asleep during the movie and were snoring. I'd give it 5 out of 10
 
Good review, I was underwhelmed by the movie myself. There were two different people that fell asleep during the movie and were snoring. I'd give it 5 out of 10

Thanks mate. Seems fair given the snoring :). The bloke I went to see it with had a 10 minute kip as well, :).
 
@Phantom do you listen or have you listened to the podcast James Bonding?

It's on the Nerdist network and while few things irritate me more than Chris Hardwick, I do like Matt Gourley, so I checked it out, but it didn't really land with me as I'm not really very up on all things Bond.

Just checked out the site and will listen to the Spectre review tonight :)

I haven't scanned the net for reviews, but I saw this review on the Nerdist page. Seems many feel the same way about the 'mishandling' of the plot re spectre and blofeld.

"Reviews across the board are criticizing the mishandled plot. Consensus is that the producers could have done a better job at incorporating Spectre and Blofeld into the Craig era. They were probably a little trigger happy when they retained the rights in the McClory dispute. Some are touting Spectre as a "return to form", but form are we talking about? I do like some of the campy aspects in Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore eras, but it doesn't really fit with Craig's character."
 
@Phantom Did you see that Pierce Brosnan said in an interview that Spectre's plot was weak and that it was too long? Isn't that a bit like Mike Endy criticizing the roundness of CPC's inlays?

After a week or however long I still liked Spectre. I have to admit that I can't disagree with criticism of the plot, but maybe not in the way a lot of others have criticized it. I don't particularly mind the slightly un-Craig-era style of Blofeld and the Spectre organization. The franchise has to be free to move among styles even within an actor's era.

What bothered me a bit in retrospect was the failure of the script to communicate some of Bond's motivation. Basically he gets a 30 second message from Judi Dench's M telling him to kill a guy and go to his funeral. Okay, I get his devotion to her and therefore his willingness to blindly follow those orders. But from that point on, he's really got no direction at all.

The plot, as best I can recall is:
kill M's guy (and take his cool looking ring) ->
go to funeral ->
approach widow ->
bang widow (natch) ->
ask widow what's up with this ring ->
infiltrate criminal powerpoint presentation with bad lighting ->
escape said powerpoint presentation ->
go to meet a guy M's guy vaguely referenced before he died ->
get info from guy about guy's daughter who can tell him about poorly lit guy from powerpoint presentation ->
find daughter ->
go to hotel in Morocco because her mom and dad used to bang/spy there ->
find coordinates among hundreds of other pieces of info, but which of course relate to their specific mission ->
follow coordinates to desert base where poorly lit guy shows them a moon rock ->
pooly lit guy reveals that he was actually Bond's step(ish)brother and that he killed basically anyone Bond ever met ->
Bond and the preteen he's banging find out new head of intelligence works with poorly lit guy and they escape ->
Preteen girl breaks up with Bond at the most inopportune time possible ->
Preteen girl is tied up by poorly lit guy in building wired for demolition ->
Bond rescues preteen girl and jumps through a conveniently shaped hole into a conveniently placed circus net to escape demolition ->
Bond finds poorly lit guy ->
Bond remembers what happened at the end of Se7en (and also that the guy is Christoph Waltz and that there are sequels to plan) so lets him live.

Okay, I'm cool with all the leaps in logic and unlikely nonsense, but it is true that Bond has almost no reason to do anything after banging Monica Bellucci. M didn't say, "Go kill this guy, get his ring, go to his funeral, find out what's up with that ring and try to kill everyone else involved as well."

One of the criticisms I read that springs from that line of thinking is that the movie is too long and that its length only works further against it because the film fails to take advantage of that time to try to connect the plot points above. I don't necessarily feel that way. I wasn't bored or otherwise aware of the time when I was watching in the theater. But I do have to agree that the plot points could have used some better connection.
 
@jbutler A neat encapsulation of the main dis-jointed plot points mate :). Nice work.

[QUOTE="Okay, I'm cool with all the leaps in logic and unlikely nonsense, but it is true that Bond has almost no reason to do anything after banging Monica Bellucci. M didn't say, "Go kill this guy, get his ring, go to his funeral, find out what's up with that ring and try to kill everyone else involved as well."[/QUOTE]

^^^ I agree. This for me was the biggest let down. How did he know the ring was of any significance at that stage if this was the first MI6 had heard of SPECTRE? Perhaps less tommy-rot in the chopper, wingless plane, and Aston Martin and more explanation as to who SPECTRE are.

Also, I agree that they wanted to work with it their own way, but they didn't really address the major issues at all in any way that jelled. Their portrayal of Blofeld was not real flash. Also, Blofeld was not the disgruntled son of Hannes Oberhauser. His origin, and that of SPECTRE I might add, are neatly outlined in 'Thunderball' by Ian Fleming. However, after having obviously dispensed with that, the producers have settled on the 'cuckoo' story and a lame attempt at justifying Blofeld's decision to kill everyone related to Bond.

I think Blofeld summed it up nicely when he asked Bond, "What did you come here for James?" I was asking the same question. What was his plan after basically 'surrendering' to Blofeld? I am sure I heard Blofeld say that the second needle would basically wipe Bond's memory. What was that whole sequence really about. Again, no real explanation. How is that Blofeld (who is quite a capable chap), didn't think that removing all of Bond's effects would be a good idea? From his contacts in MI6, surely he would have known about the exploding watch.

This movie has also been universally panned for all the reasons I laid out in the OP. I think that for the millions these guys get paid, they should have done a better job. They took 4 movies to allude to SPECTRE/QUANTUM, and still didn't get it right. A fifth would just be painful.

Where do they go from here? Should they just re-boot with a fresh story? If there are sequels that involve Blofeld, I am not sure I could stand how they explain his escape/reason for being at large.

On a positive note, I have revisited the earlier Bonds with Sean Connery and also Timothy Dalton's rendition. Much more entertaining.

Cheers,
Adam
 
This movie has also been universally panned for all the reasons I laid out in the OP. I think that for the millions these guys get paid, they should have done a better job. They took 4 movies to allude to SPECTRE/QUANTUM, and still didn't get it right. A fifth would just be painful.

Where do they go from here? Should they just re-boot with a fresh story? If there are sequels that involve Blofeld, I am not sure I could stand how they explain his escape/reason for being at large.

On a positive note, I have revisited the earlier Bonds with Sean Connery and also Timothy Dalton's rendition. Much more entertaining.

Spectre certainly isn't as beloved by critics as Skyfall (for good reason imo as Skyfall was fantastic), but it certainly hasn't been universally panned. It's at 63% on RT. RT is near worthless for actually gauging the quality of the movie, but it's perfectly suited to tell you whether there is a general thumbs up/down consensus.

Where should they go from here? In general I think it's a bad idea to otherwise stay with the same cast if you're recasting Bond and Craig has made it clear that he doesn't care to return to the franchise. So it will likely be sad for the producers as they probably had their sites on Waltz returning for at least one more film if not two or three. But I still feel it would be better to recast Blofeld along with Bond if they want to keep going in this trajectory. I honestly couldn't care less whether they go one way or the other so long as the creative forces behind the movie are competent.

My Bonds in order of preference: Craig, Connery, Moore, Lazenby, Niven, Dalton, Brosnan. I've actually never seen Barry Nelson in the very first Casino Royale.
 
Perhaps universally was a bit much, but certainly not going on anyone's favourite-3 Bond movies list. :). I would have grave doubts as to the creative competence of this bunch. I think it is time to let it go, or, get a new Bond, and go back to basics. The stuff that makes Bond, Bond. Not Jason Bourne. People like retro clothes and clocks, why not take Bond back a few decades and set up the whole SPECTRE thing again. They rebooted Batman several times to get it right. While they're at it, get a new Moneypenny as well. I am sure she is a lovely girl, but if she is going to have more than one line/scene, get someone who can act.

My Bonds in order of preference: Connery/Dalton, Craig (Casino Royale, a little in Skyfall), Moore (The Spy Who Loved Me), Lazenby, Brosnan.
 
Saw it last night. Cannot get over Huge Goons letting Bond just waltz into Ultra Secret Meeting of Ultra Secret Organization of World Domination because he said he was Mickey Mouse. WTF.

Also the whole "story" about how Mega Supervillain Guy was jealous after Daddy took Bond in, so kills Daddy and dedicates the rest of his life to ruining Bond's - much better than just killing 8-year-old Bond and living happily ever after with Daddy if you're a psychopath obv. And yet somehow Bond still went from 8-year-old orphan to Worlds Finest Secret Agent. Quite possibly the lamest "backstory" evar.

Anybody else get a table boner from that freaking table at the meeting though??? Imagine slapping some felt and a rail on that thing... :D
 
Saw it last night. Cannot get over Huge Goons letting Bond just waltz into Ultra Secret Meeting of Ultra Secret Organization of World Domination because he said he was Mickey Mouse. WTF.

Also the whole "story" about how Mega Supervillain Guy was jealous after Daddy took Bond in, so kills Daddy and dedicates the rest of his life to ruining Bond's - much better than just killing 8-year-old Bond and living happily ever after with Daddy if you're a psychopath obv. And yet somehow Bond still went from 8-year-old orphan to Worlds Finest Secret Agent. Quite possibly the lamest "backstory" evar.

Anybody else get a table boner from that freaking table at the meeting though??? Imagine slapping some felt and a rail on that thing... :D

Exactly my point. Super lame. Blofeld's back story is much more interesting. I acknowledge that they are clearly not following the Fleming books, but Blofeld was not the son of Hannes Oberhauser. However, they have gone that route, but as you say, the attempt to draw this connection is ridiculously lame and detracts from the overall enjoyment of the film.
 

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