Rrrright OK this is an update of a post I recently did on the latest James Bond film, SPECTRE, which is the 24th film in the series. I gave it a bit of a hard time in my original review but having watched it again I thought I would amend my review a little bit as an update. So how do I think it fares now??? Well let's take a look.....
And yep the same old warning applies:
SPOILERS WILL BE AHEAD!!!
STORY
Right so the story kicks off with Bond (Daniel Craig) carrying out an unsanctioned mission in Mexico city (while he is supposed to be on leave) where he plans to take down three men looking to carry out a terrorist bombing on a stadium. Bond soon kills then men that include their leader who was wearing a ring that has an octopus emblazoned on it, which Bond steals. On Bond's return to London, M (Ralph Fiennes) having heard word of his actions, suspends Bond indefinitely from field duty. M is also having complications with a power struggle between MI6 and a new agency, the Joint Intelligence Service, lead by C (Andrew Scott) who are looking to disband the 00 section, which C believes to be out of date.
Bond with a little help from Q (Ben Wishaw) manages to evade M and ignore his orders as he travels to Rome to follow up leads on the terrorist leader he killed as he attends the man's funeral. At the funeral, Bond meets the leader's widow, Lucia (Monica Bellucci) whom he seduces and she tells him about the organisation that her husband belonged to (which we later find out to be Spectre).
Bond then attends a Spectre meeting (using the dead leader's ring for admittance) where he identifies the leader, Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz). Franz during the meeting suddenly notices that Bond is there and calls him by his first name causing Bond to flee from the scene as he is chased by Spectre agents lead by an assassin, Mr Hinx (Dave Bautista). During the chase, Bond calls Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) for information based on what he has gathered so far and Moneypenny tells Bond that the info leads to Mr White (Jesper Christensen) the former member of Quantum, which was a subsidiary of Spectre. White however has now fallen out with Spectre and Franz has him targeted for assassination.
Bond then pays White a visit in Austria, who is dying of Thallium poisoning and he tells Bond that he had become disenchanted with Quantum and he wants him to find and protect his daughter, Dr Madeline Swann (Lea Seydoux). Bond then offers his gun to White as form of a mercy killing, who takes it and shoots himself. Bond after then locates Swann and rescues her from Hinx and they both meet up with Q, who shown up to offer Bond help. Through the ring Bond acquired, Q manages to link Franz to previous missions that involved his former enemies such as Le Chiffre, Dominic Greene and Raoul Silva as Spectre agents. Swann also informs Bond that based on information that White had given him that the code name L'Americain is in fact a hotel based in Tangier, where Bond finds evidence that White had left showing the location of Spectre's base out in the desert.
While travelling enroute to the desert on train, Bond and Swann are attacked again by Hinx and Bond finally manages to kill him after this Bond and Swann get down and dirty (sorry couldn't resist!). Bond and Swann on arriving at the base are escorted to Franz where Bond is tortured by him and he tells him of his plans that include the Joint Intelligence Service, lead by C are also part of Spectre and he plans to use the JIS to counter-act against any attacks planned on Spectre and also that his adopted name is Ernst Stavro Blofeld. And its from here Bond must try and stop Blofeld from carrying out his nefarious plans and keep his promise to White by protecting Swann...
THOUGHTS
Well I initially said that SPECTRE was a disappointment and to a certain extent my opinion kind of remains the same but I have to admit there are definitely parts of the film I like better since my first viewing so I thought it was worth mentioning. And yes the film is far from perfect but I will get to the film's flaws a little later on but it for now I would say that given that Spectre had been a real staple of the villainous organisations in the Bond universe the overall film presented here could have been a bit stronger, regardless all its not lost and SPECTRE still has something going for it.
Craig had also even speculated in the press that this may be his last Bond film as he made comments that he would rather die than go through the process of making a Bond movie (although that might have been sarcastic! In fact it was as he said in a later interview that he talked alot of "bullshit" in interviews!). It was also later said that Craig was to appear in a new television series in the US and that he wouldn't have the time to commit to making another Bond film, which now potentially leaves the role open for casting.
PERFORMANCES (Please note this section may contain spoilers!)
OK as for the performances well they are actually all pretty good (mostly anyway).
And to start off there is of course Daniel Craig who reprises his role well again as James Bond and he continues to play the part with a ruthlessly calculated, logical approach although to be fair he has managed to scale back Bond's human terminator qualities (or non-qualities) from his earlier films. And to be fair Craig does depict Bond as more of a protector here as he takes on the oath to protect White's daughter, which he does to the fullest extent he can.
Craig also has some good moments in the film but I won't mention that many although I will mention the odd one or two. And to start off there is the scene where Bond goes to meet Swann and he takes her psychological test where she says to him "Why, given every other possible option, does a man choose the life of a paid assassin?" and Bond replies "Well, it was that or priesthood!".
Another is when Bond and Swann arrive at Blofeld's base and Blofeld asks Bond why did he come there and Bond says "I came here to kill you". And Blofeld retorts "And I thought you came here to die" and Bond smiles saying "Well, its all a matter of perspective". And this is followed by the scene where Bond is tortued by Blofeld as he is strapped to a chair and Blofeld uses a small drill to burrow into his skull. And in the scene Blofeld says to him the probe he will use will play with his sight, hearing and his balance "with the sublest of manipulations" prompting Bond to say "Well, get on with it then. Nothing can be as painful as listening to you talk!".
And lastly there is the scene when Bond, dressed in his tuxdeo has dinner with Swann (wearing a very nice dress) while on the train enroute to Blofeld's base. And in the scene Swann shows up in her dress and Bond looks stunned by her and Swann says "You shouldn't stare" and Bond retorts "well you shouldn't look like that!".
Christoph Waltz up next....well I initially wasn't very kind to Waltz in my original review as I felt his Blofeld was somewhat uninspiring and rather bland. However if you consider how mixed some of the previous Blofeld performances were in the series, particularly Charles Gray's campy one and Donald Plesance's creepy performance where he just ultimately sits behind a desk stroking his cat, Waltz's Blofeld is actually quite good. He presents him a ruthlessly cool and evil character who uses the media and digital world to his own advantage.
And Waltz still has some good moments now and then that include his first scene, which will is pretty protracted it still has the moment where Blofeld suddenly notices Bond is at the meeting above. And in the scene Blofeld speaks out to Bond "Welcome, James. It's been a long time... and, finally, here we are. What took you so long?!".
Then later there is the scene where Bond and Swann are taken to Blofeld who tells Bond that he was behind the tragedies in his life. And Blofeld says to Bond "It was all me, James. It's always been me. The author of all your pain!". And later as Bond is being tortued by Blofeld, he tells Bond the origin of his name "Franz Oberhauser died twenty years ago, James, in an avalanche alongside his father. A man you're talking to now, a man inside your head, is Ernst Stavro Blofeld!".
And lastly there is the scene later where Blofeld shows up at the old MI6 building, which is being readied for detonation and Bond approaches him, both of them separated by bullet proof glass and Blofeld stands next to a timer to set off the bombs to blow up the building. And Blofeld mocks Bond saying "I've really put you through a lot, haven't I? Well, that's brothers for you: they always know which buttons to press!" and he presses the timer button to activate the charges.
Lea Seydoux is also pretty good in her role as the main Bond girl of the film, Dr Madeline Swann, the daughter of Mr White, a former member of Quantum. Seydoux also shares a low key chemistry with Craig and the two of them make a slightly unusual pairing especially given that Seydoux herself is 14 years younger than Craig.
Seydoux has some good moments too but I will only quickly mention a couple such as when Swann first meets Bond and she gives him the test. And she says to Bond "Why, given every other possible option, does a man choose the life of a paid assassin?" and Bond glibly says "It was either that or priesthood". And later after Hinx kidnaps Swann and Bond manages to rescue her, she pushes him away yelling "Get away from me!! You lead them to me!".
And lastly there is the scene when Swann and Bond are on the train enroute to Blofeld's base and Swann asks Bond "Is this really what you want? Living in the shadows? Hunting, being hunted? Always alone?" and Bond replies "I don't stop to think about it". And after they defeat Hinx who shows up to kill them, they both sit exhausted and Swann says "What do we do now?" and it cuts to them getting it on.
Ben Wishaw is very good in his reprised role as Q, MI6's quartermaster who kits out Bond with hi-tech gadgets for work in the field.
Wishaw has some good moments in the film also and he seems be one of few members of the cast who is having fun with his role. And one of Wishaw's good scenes come when Q teasingly shows a new car to Bond at Q branch only to tell him its not for him but 009 instead and instead Q gives Bond a watch. And Bond asks Q what does it do and Q glibly says " It tells the time. Might help with your punctuality issues!" but then Q warns him "Oh, one word of warning, the alarm is rather loud... if you know what I mean" and Bond says "I think I do!".
And in the same scene Bond discreetly asks Q if he can give him some cover time despite being kept under surveillance via orders by M (using a tracking device implanted into Bond's arm). And Q says to Bond "May I remind you that I answer directly to M. I also have a mortgage and two cats to feed!" and Bond says quietly to him "Well, then I suggest you trust me, for the sake of the cats".
Ralph Fiennes also does well again in his role as M, taking over from Judi Dench's M in Skyfall who died at the end of the film.
Fiennes has some good scenes too that include when he M talks to C who (SPOILER!!!!) we find out is also in cahoots with Spectre. And M tries to make C aware that his data collection and intelligence isn't everything when it comes to spy work and says to him " Yes, you have information. You can find out all about a man, track him down, keep an eye on him. But you have to look him in the eye. All the tech you have can't help you with that. A license to kill also means a license NOT to kill".
And later there is the scene when M (SPOILER!!!) aims to stop C from launching the JIS system from taking control. And M tells C "I'm afraid you've got the wrong end of the stick, Max. We're going to stop this system going online, and then I'm going to bring you in" and C says "On what grounds exactly?" and M says "Poor taste in friends". And later as C manages to grab a gun and points it at M he says to him " But then isn't that what 'M' stands for... 'moron'?!" and he pulls the trigger but it just clicks and M holds up the chamber and the bullets in his hand saying "And now we know what 'C' stands for... 'careless'.
Naomie Harris also returns and reprises her role as Moneypenny and she does a fine job again and she plays the part very well and also looks pretty comfortable in the part.
Harris also has her good moments that include the scene when Moneypenny shows up at Bond's place (at his request) and she says to him "So what's going on, James? They say that Mexico was a step too far, that you're finished". And Bond says to her "And what do you think?" and Moneypenny says "I think you're just getting started!".
And lastly there is the scene where Moneypenny at her desk, receives a palmtop in the mail from Bond and she closes it over just as M walks in. And M asks her "What's that?" and Moneypenny says "Just a gift. From an admirer" and M asks her "Its not your birthday is it?" and Moneypenny says "No" and M walks into his office, closing the door and Moneypenny quietly says to herself "That was last week".
And the last two cast members I will mention are Dave Bautista who does well enough in his role as Mr Hinx, the burly, ruthless assassin who tries to kill Bond (several times no less!) even though he doesn't have much in the way of dialogue his large imposing figure makes him one of the more effective Bond heavies. In fact his only line in the film comes in Hinx's last moment where (SPOILER!!) Bond is about to kill him off and Hinx says "Shit!".
And last of all is Monica Bellucci who is actually wasted in her role as Lucia Sciarra, the widow of the assassin that Bond killed and she only appears in the film for about 10 minutes or so and after that is never seen or heard from again! Bellucci said she always wanted to play a Bond girl and even though she is 50 years old in the film (making her the oldest Bond girl by far) she still looks pretty good for her age! Its just a pity she only appears for such a short while in the film given how good she is as an actress.
DIRECTOR AND MUSIC
As for the director, Sam Mendes returns for another bash at the 007 franchise after his successful outing with Skyfall, but Mendes's fortunes a bit mixed this time. And it has to be said that Mendes has neglected to make this a well paced action film and here he let's too many scenes play for too long that actually have little interest of feel important to the story. Mendes however does well enough at handling the action scenes but overall he has paced the film so unevenly that it is to the film's detriment at times.
Another issue I had with Mendes was to do with his visual representation of the film as it has a rather dull colour palette of mostly yellows throughout (which is the most prevalent colour here!). And this may come down to the fact that the cinemaphotographer not being Roger Deakins and insted we got the Dutch Hoyte Van Hoytema who provides appealing visuals but unfortunately the colours of the film remain somewhat bland and dull.
And lastly getting onto the music, Thomas Newman returns also after his successful score for Skyfall but this time around but he seens to be offering up not as many new compositions as it sounds like he is re-using some of the music cues from Skyfall. Regardless of that, Newman's score still has some standout moments particularly the jungle type music played in the film's long opening sequence in Mexico.
And as for the film's theme song, "The Writing's on the wall" sung by Sam Smith, I was quite brutal about it in my original review also and I still have to say I'm not keen on it. However the song itself isn't too bad the real problem I have with it is Smith's voice which is just a bit too high pitched and grating at times. And if they got another singer to do the song I think it could have turned it into a better one, so suffice to say I still don't like it much but I don't hate it as much as I initially did.
FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)
As Spectre's flaws..... yep it definitely isn't perfect.
And to kick off one of the film's main problems is that it is simply too long at two and a half hours in length, the film would definitely have benefited from being trimmed down (in fact I think it is the longest Bond film ever made!). And that is one of the things that the underrated and much maligned (especially by fans) Craig Bond film, Quantum of Solace had going for it was it was the shortest Bond film and as such it taut and well paced but this film is the polar opposite.
And further to this the film has a few scenes that are really boring and feel long and drawn out, especially scene where Bond attends the Spectre meeting and the whole scene is filled with long silences before any dialogue is even heard! So when Blofeld finally looks up to Bond and calls him by his first name, half of the audience have probably nodded off! Also the film's intro scene is very drawn out too with Bond wearing a stupid skull mask and walking hand in hand with a masked woman through a busy crowded street in Mexico, it seems to go on forever before Bond get's down to carrying out his job.
Another problem is also to do with Blofeld's character as he is just a villain who is obssessed with monitoring the world via hi-tech gadgetry, which is hardly original and has been done in the series many times before (e.g. Tomorrow Never Dies). In fact the film in that respect just recycles the same plot elements of Skyfall but then again it tries to neatly tie up the previous films together by saying all of Bond's former main villains were all agents of Spectre.
Then there is the scene where Bond is tortured by Blofeld who uses a small drill to penetrate into his skull and Bond somehow while strapped to his chair manages to undo his watch (given to him by Q) and set off the timer for the bomb to it. And it makes you wonder did Q even show how he could use it?? Because we certainly don't see Q show Bond how to use it on screen so we then see Bond manage to work the watch without even looking at it! Not to mention that Bond has also just been tortured by a small probe so to even be able to do all that with his senses reeling he is doing very well!
And another issue I have with the story is the inclusion of some pop-up characters who are never heard from again, especially Lucia, who Bond seduces in order to get information out of her (well just the norm for him really!) and after they the spend the night together, she is never heard of again in the whole film!
And further to that I think her scene with Bond is as about as morally unscruplulous as Bond get's in the film (or maybe the whole series!) where Bond has killed Lucia's husband, he turns up at the funeral and later seduces her! What a bastard eh?! I mean that's a bit low even for Bond, not to mention he virtually forces himself on her during the "seduction" scene. And its things like this that make it difficult to root for Craig's Bond as it makes him a thoroughly unlikeable prick at times and even Craig himself said it in interviews that Bond is basically a real misogynist who doesn't know how to treat women properly (which let's face it, he doesn't!).
And then there is the scene with Mr White who all of a sudden is suffering from a form of poisoning but again its not really well explained as to how he got the condition (except he got it from his mobile phone, presumably on behalf of Blofeld). And the funny thing is Mr White actually even resembles the similar named Mr White from Breaking Bad and he looks just like Walter White does at the end of the 5th season of the show with the tousled hair and the beard. Its like the writers got a bit lazy with this one and decided to throw in White's appearance as some unintended homage to Walt! Not to mention in the 5th series you see Walt back on chemo for his cancer and he is administered the medicine privately. And this scene basically rips that whole section of the TV show off!
And lastly it has to be said the film's climax is definitely something of an anti-climax where Bond confronts Blofeld back in London. And in one of the daftest moments (SPOILER!!) in the film Bond turns up at the MI6 building looking for Blofeld, who has left all sorts of signs and arrows for which way to go to find him not to mention there targets set up with Bond's face on them! So this meant someone must have taken the time to photocopy pictures of Bond and tape them up on the paper targets for Bond to see! I mean its just really daft to say the least.
Anyways that's it for the flaws.
SUM UP
So to sum up, Spectre, in retrospect remains a mixed bag, it has some stuff in there which is pretty good, especially the action scenes (the one on the train with Bond, Madeline and Hinx is an example) and other scenes such as where Bond first meets with Madeline at the clinic, his meeting with Mr White and Bond's scenes with Q are also highlights. And Christophe Waltz's Blofeld is not too bad and its to Waltz's credit that he takes the character more seriously than in previous depictions in the series.
However the film itself is way too long and it has some scenes that are pretty boring and drawn out and they detract from what could have been a really good one rather than one that has good promise in places but fails to deliver on it.
So SPECTRE has its moments, is it a bad film??? Definitely not. Could it have been better?? Yes it could. However its a film I still kind of like and it has grown on me a bit more since my first viewing so to totally dismiss SPECTRE would be a mistake.
And I find it hard to guage if it is better than Quantum of Solace or not although to be fair I would have to say that it edges it and out of Craig's four films I would ranked as my third least favourite or the 3rd best on the list depending on your point of view.
So in retrospect SPECTRE is worth a second look and has just about enough in it to recommend it.
Right! So with that I shall be back again with another post soon.
Till then ciao for now!
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