Spectre is stale, it’s chauvinistic, it’s predictable and it’s really really bad. It is a Bond which has a very Roger Moore feel, not the Bond which Daniel Craig had carved and worked so hard to bring to the 21st Century. Spectre’s Bond has gone back to yee days of old, where he’s nothing more than a killing whore. The only thing that could have made it more historic and out of date, is if, at the end of the opening action sequence, Bond returned to the hotel room and ‘shagged’ the woman he had abandoned there previous.
Mendes has failed Bond here, he’s failed the ultimate Bond villain, Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) and he’s failed the world’s most enigmatic spy agency, MI6. Bond has been turned into nothing more than the world’s most famous assassin. He’s not a spy, he’s easily recognisable, he’s known to every villain out there. He’s really very inefficient.
As for the Bond women, they’re, well, typical. You have the useless random stranger who means nothing, the wife/girlfriend of the bad guy that he sleeps with, and finally, the one who helps him and is good. The formula of old is back and with it, my sense of being in 1975. I would have said, spoiler alert, but hey, this formula is so old and tired, there doesn’t seem any point in it at all.
I don’t know why Mendes wanted to go down this route, making Craig portray a Bond which is so reminiscent of the good old days, where Bond was sleazy and really didn’t give a damn about the women at all. After all, all women are disposable.
It angered me as a viewer that the Bond of old has returned. Daniel Craig’s previous Bond was not a chauvinistic pig whom I wanted to clobber over the head, he was a man I wished would cross my path. I now understand why some of Daniel Craig’s early press conferences were rather pissy. He was pissed at the final product, and rightly so. I would be too if this was my first producer credit for a big budget movie, and they’ve completely screwed it up. Daniel Craig is no chauvinistic pig, and here he’s portraying the epitome of chauvinism on film, for the world to praise and want to emulate.
The fun flirting which Daniel Craig had managed to pull off effortlessly is forced in Spectre, and seems really inappropriate. The woman, who is the closest to a mother in his life has just passed away, and yet, he’s flirting with Moneypenny to get her to help him with analytics? Come on… it’s been three years for us but not three years in Bond’s timeline. So, give us a break from the sex crazed, flirting obsession that is ripe throughout this movie. This is a damaged Bond who is seeking revenge. Why couldn’t you portray him as such, it’s not a reset as though M didn’t get killed. You even mention it in the movie, it’s a bloody continuation.
The score is sometimes annoying, and particularly so in the epic car chase. The centrepiece of action sequence is RUINED by an overbearing score. Let me ask you, what would make a car chase scene epic? You’d probably list the following:
- exotic pimped out sport cars;
- cool manoeuvring around tricky streets;
- beautiful melodic engines reeving;
- speed;
- epic dissolution of the chase;
- cool location;
along with a whole bunch of other criteria. Two beautiful sports cars go out for a crazy chase scene, and an over bearing graceful score is played over it, so loud in fact that the cars’ engines are reduced to soft background noise. Without the sound of the engine and tires screeching, we are just unable to tell how fast they were driving. Panning out to two cars drifting around a curved road with no scale and that deafening score, just makes it seem like two cars dancing, SLOWLY. Put some scale into it, people walking around, that will tell us how fast they’re going in relation to stationary objects which we are able to instantly recognise. Seriously, it was one of the most boring car chases to ever grace a Bond film. I get what you’re going after Mr. Mendes, but you’ve failed to deliver any excitement and wasted two of the most beautiful cars ever. I’d be pissed if I were the car company and had ‘sponsored’ those cars for the film. I couldn’t wait for the scene to be over and see what unoriginal blah blah was going to come up next.
There are so many things wrong with this movie, and the more I reflect on it, the more annoying it all becomes.
Yes, we get it, Monica Bellucci is the wife of a villain whom she despises, and she really couldn’t care less if he’s dead or not. But her whole encounter with a thuggish 007 leaves a very sour taste in my mouth.
Chrisoph Waltz is a wasted talent, as is often the case with the villains. Waltz is an amazing actor, with the ability to make you love or hate him. He’s a master of the art that he practices, and yet, he’s so boring in Spectre, I just wanted to go to sleep. There is very little in this movie which tells us why he’s the most spectacular villain of all time.
Spectre really doesn’t offer very much to the franchise. Bond has a license with the audience which other movies do not, good will of a beloved character who long ago has been out dated. Society’s shift in equality, technological advancement and constant surveillance makes a flamboyant spy nothing more than an obvious target by today’s standards. Seriously, if you saw a guy parachuting down in the middle of the street, wouldn’t you take a photo and post it online straight away? Bond is nothing more than a suave thug who works on the side of good.
The thug on the other side of the equation is the gigantically muscular Dave Bautista. Your first introduction to him is literally one of brute force. For a secret organisation that prides itself on its ability to infiltrate all levels of governments and corporations, brute force is not the number one trait in being on top. Brute force are the minions, henchmen, the ones that are sent out to perform the tasks, not the one commanding the forces. Yes, this thug does that action, but that should not have been his ‘proof’ that he should be given the all important task of heading the terrorist arm of Spectre.
Spectre has left a bitter taste in my mouth for Bond movies. It takes itself way to seriously for a movie which really should have been a crappy comedy with all the bad performances and lack of actual character development. If this had not been a Bond movie, it would have flopped in the way of Waterworld, derailing careers and forever be known as one of the most biggest fails of all time.
Why didn’t someone read the script and say, “Hold up, let’s bring this movie’s theme, basic human interaction and sexual transactions into the 21st century. It is time we leave this type of shite where it belongs, in the pre-Bosnan days.” Oh wait, they did. The Sony hacks did mention how bad this script was, and yet, they chose to not get someone in to fix it? There are plenty of good script writers out there, and I would assume, editors, so, get them to work on it. Stop ya bitching and do something about fixing it film executives. Time for you to earn your keep.
And another point, when you have a character who is the quintessential “bad pretending to be good” clique, get the actor to make eye contact, and doesn’t look like he’s a serial killer in the making (just a thought). Just to spice it up and add an element of surprise.
Spectre is predictable from beginning to end. The only element of unpredictability was how bad it actually was. So many little things that were done wrong have added to a this being the worst Bond film in a long time.
Shame on you for thinking that the audience are stupid and have the same expectations that film audiences had in 1970s. Bond movies are a suspension in reality, and with the annoyances piling up, forced flirtation, boring action sequences and stupid score, it just made me annoyed and wanting the movie to end so I could forget all about 007. Shame on you Sam Mendes, time for you to go back to making serious Oscar contenders where you are able to express your artistic penchant and leave action movies to others who have a flare for them. It may be unfair to blame the director, so, I’ll also blame the writers, music people, the editing staff as well as the actors. Lighting, you get off this time, because, well, the table scene was just a palm plant.
Did you hate it as much as I did, or did you not see what I saw and loved it instead?
Rating: 4/10, a lot of strong actors who for some reason, gave poor performances, it just irked me, and once my suspension of reality was cut, I was just annoyed.
See it again: No way, once was more than enough. I have watched a lot of bad movies in my time, but I expected them to be bad, I had not expected Spectre to be bad, a throwback to Bond of yore. I couldn’t manage my expectations, and hence, the movie disappointed, a lot.
Worth my time: Give me back my time biatch!
Take my mother: No, no, no. But sadly, both my parents loved Spectre. The plot was easy for them to grasp, and the it was a formula which they were familiar with, it met their expectation on what Bond is.
Talking points: Lack of originality in the plot. Every twist and turn in the plotline was well established and you can see it coming a mile away.
Annoyance factor: 9/10, I was expecting an intelligent man’s Bond. A continuation from Spectre, a Bond who was more real and determined. But what I got was a thug who basically is a pig dressed in Tom Ford. Yeah I get it, he saved the day, but the way he sometimes behave makes him a total pig.
Ranter & Banter 