“A cryptic message from James Bond’s past sends him on a trail to uncover the existence of a sinister organisation named SPECTRE. With a new threat dawning, Bond learns the terrible truth about the author of all his pain in his most recent missions.” – IMDb
Spectre
Starring: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Léa Seydoux
Directed by Sam Mendes
Box Office: $880,681,519 Gross Worldwide
Thoughts
“A Complete Bore” is not something I would want to have in the same sentence as “Bond”- it truly isn’t…
I won’t lie, I am not a die-hard fan of too many 007 films. Especially. the ones starring Daniel Craig. I know, I know, “He’s one of the best Bonds yet! How can you not like him? Casino Royale was so good!” The list of reactions I get when I say I fall asleep every time I try watching Casino Royale (2006) or Skyfall (2012) is endless.
Can I explain why I had such a bad reaction to Craig? No. I honestly can’t pinpoint which aspects of it all I dislike the most. Now, having said all of this, it may surprise many to know that I thought that Craig’s performance in Spectre may be one of the only things I enjoyed about this film. That alone is saying a LOT about what I think of the movie.
I did not want to see this film in the theatre. I know the large screen makes the effects seem better and whatnot. However, I did not want to be stuck in a room (unable to walk away) for 2.5 hours. Why couldn’t I watch it later in the comfort of my own home (where I wouldn’t feel bad for falling asleep)? Alas, relationships are about compromise and doing things for the other person, right? Right. This is the reason I found myself watching this film in the theatre this weekend, trying not to fall asleep, surrounded by strangers.
The opening scene was beautiful.
It starts by seeing a crowd celebrating Dia de Los Muertos in Mexico. The costumes are really fun to look at. Throughout the entire film, I found the scenery and location to be stunning. I will say that I appreciated the costume design and the cinematography.
As expected, this leads to a scene in which Bond is accompanied by a woman to a hotel room. Before he pulls out his “usual Bond moves”, he must take care of something first. With an “I won’t be long”, he leaves to start the first “good vs evil” scene.
I enjoyed the comedic break they inserted in the middle of the fight. It made several people in the theatre laugh. The witty and funny Bond quotes are something else that I did enjoy about Spectre. I laughed about four times within the 2.5 hours. Which, I suppose, isn’t too good of a statistic. It’s better than not laughing at all, though!
I won’t go into the details of every scene.
Seeing it once was enough and I don’t want to spend 6 hours writing about this. Overall, I was disappointed. I know I bashed it before even going into the movie. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t at least try to go in with an open mind. It was hard, but I did try to think that maybe this movie would be different. Maybe I’ll actually enjoy it! Nope, I’m sorry.
I love Christoph Waltz.
Having him as the villain of the film was a really lucky aspect for me. It made me stay awake long enough to see his first scene and to do a little dance in my seat because of my love for him.
His co-star from Inglorious Bastards, Lea Seydoux fit the role of a “Bond Woman” perfectly. She does a fine performance. The other woman in the film, Monica Belucci, was also fine. She was only in it for about 5-10 minutes, so the fact that she’s on so many of the movie posters is a mystery to me. She’s nothing to write home about, but Bond would know more about that than I would *wink wink nudge nudge*- my attempt at comedy is almost as bad as this movie. I’ll stop now.
I love the nerdy/tech guy in almost every film. Q, played by Ben Wishaw was a nice addition to the storyline. I like how his character had an important role, without needing to take up a bunch of screen time.
As a fan of WWE, it would be wrong of me not to mention Dave Bautista. He had his usual role of being the big, intimidating fighter and he did a good job of it. Although, my eyes rolled during his final scene for numerous reasons. I won’t spoil it for anyone though.
Ralph Fiennes is another one of my favorite actors and it was nice to see him again. While he does a decent job, I found his character to be quite lackluster. Which is a reoccurring theme of this movie apparently.
I know many Bond fans are upset about how awful I think this movie is, but I am not alone in disliking the film.
While discussing the film with friends, these are a few of the comments I received:
“It was the most old school bond to date but after the Craig ones, it’s less character driven, more formulaic. Which can be good or bad for the fans” – Sean
“Feel the same way! It just dragged on for so long, I kept hoping it was the end every 20 mins” – Caroline
“The purpose of this movie is to close the loop and tie any loose ends for all the Craig films. That way they can feel they did everything they wanted to, and explained everything they needed to. Was it the best way to end Craig’s run as 007? Probably not, but that’s basically all this movie was meant to be; a send-off.”– Thomas
If you would like to hear more opinions on Spectre, listen to the Podcast by my friends over at 2 Guys, Movies and a Mic, here: “On this week’s podcast our fearless and gunless heroes watch the latest 007 flick and fourth starring Daniel Craig: Spectre. In the end they’ll likely say it was a pain in the ass. (I have no joke. This movie sucked ass.)”
I was lucky enough to be a guest on their podcast a couple of times (we discussed The Martian and a News segment). Being part of 2gmm is always a lot of fun.
Craig gets a 4/5 for his final performance as Bond. I am glad I am able to start appreciating him as an actor more now. Enough so, that I may have to watch Casino Royale and Skyfall again.
I give Spectre 2.5 bad car chases out of 5, merely because it was 2.5 hours long. Kidding…. but not really. I did enjoy the cinematography and I think it deserves some sort of rating for the effort. The short-lived car chase scenes and predictability were unimpressive. I hated how many times it made me roll my eyes and say “This is so stupid”. Overall, I think Craig deserved a better send-off as 007 than this.
What did you think? Do you completely disagree with me? Who do you think will be the next Bond? I’d like to know! I respect everyone’s views of films and I want to hear from you so comment below or find me on Facebook!
The only thing I really liked about it was the opening long take (lasts ~7 mins) – thought it was executed exceptionally well. And then, the rest of this garbage movie happened …
I agree, I enjoyed that too. The rest of it made me want to cry at the fact that I was wasting so much time out of my life. I am also glad it was a Sam Smith song and not Adele (if I hear people rave over Hello one more time, I might go crazy).
I’m like you, I prefer watching a movie at home, unless it’s such a huge blockbuster movie that it must be seen on the big screen. I am very sensitive to sounds and being distracted by them, and lately I’ve had bad luck with people talking in the theater or crinkling candy wrappers or popcorn bags and it drives me crazy.
I’ll probably watch this Bond film at home. I’m not too excited for this one because I’ve heard so much negativity coming from Daniel Craig. It sounded like he was miserable making this film and is extremely happy to never make a Bond film again.
I personally love movies where you can tell that the cast had an absolute blast filming together. You can just feel the love come right through the movie screen. I also can feel it when an actor is doing the role just for money or has felt like they were forced into the role and they aren’t having fun.
I did really like Casino Royale and thought Craig was great… but the following movies have been very disappointing. I don’t expect to love Spectre and now that I know it’s 2.5 hours long, I’m dreading it even more. I hate any film that’s longer than 2 hours. In fact 1 hour and 45 min. is when I feel a movie is getting a little long winded! 😉
I’m a 80-90 min. movie kind of guy. If you can’t put out a coherent story in 90 min… then make a 90 min. movie with a 90 min. sequel. Good review!
I know exactly what you mean! I’ve had a few annoyances in theatres lately. A couple of weeks ago, we were sitting in a large theatre with only four other people who were spread out behind us when, two minutes before the movie started, two guys came and sat RIGHT in front of us. One guy had the man bun hair and he also took off his shoes and had his bare feet hanging on the chair in front of him. Out of all the places he could have sat, he just had to be directly in front of us. I felt like I was IN the movie at that point. I would definitely wait to watch Spectre at home and I also agree with you about the length of movies. The only times I don’t mind sitting through long films is if I’m having a Lord of the Rings marathon.
I hadn’t heard too much from Daniel Craig about this film, other than the fact that he did not want to return- which I completely understand. I love being able to see chemistry between the cast too- I can’t even think of a film that instantly comes to mind that portrays that though- I’m having a brain freeze or it has just been too long…. (or it was in a stupid comedy I didn’t enjoy).
Thanks for commenting and for the compliment of “Good Review”- coming from you, that means a lot!
I laughed out loud when I read “man bun hair” haha!
That’s pretty gross about the bare feet, talk about distracting in a terrible way. Why is it in an empty theater someone always sits directly in front or behind you? 🙂