Spectre

I feel like I’ve been apologizing a lot on this page recently just on my lack of posts. In case you didn’t know, I recently started a full time job and some other personal issues have come up and this blog has unfortunately taken a little bit of a backseat. I saw Spectre about a week or so ago and I feel like I had a window where releasing this review would have been perfect, especially with all the James Bond movies I watched leading up to it. I’m hoping to be more consistent and I’m flirting with the idea of more content, especially video reviews and more. So stay tuned please.

Well here it is guys. I can’t say I prepared for this movie as well as I probably could have. In a matter of days, I watched Goldfinger, Die Another Day, and Quantum of Solace… probably not the best movies to represent the James Bond franchise, let alone all together. Regardless, I wasn’t worried because I really do love the Bond franchise and I was excited for Spectre nonetheless.

The first thing that I have to say is that regardless of your thoughts on Sam Smith’s Bond song, I actually really loved the opening credits for this movie. I have been listening to the song Writings on the Wall a lot recently so that may have had a little bit to do with it, but I thought the visuals and the graphics used in that opening sequence were really good.

Spectre takes place not long after the events of Skyfall. I mentioned in my review of Quantum of Solace that I would have actually been interested in Bond going rouge and seeking revenge for what happened in Casino Royale apart from MI6 all together. Well it turns out, going rogue is pretty much what happens in Spectre as Bond receives a cryptic message from M (Judi Dench) from beyond the grave. Her message leads Bond on an investigation of the shadowy organization called Spectre. And eventually the key to uncovering Spectre is by protecting a woman (played by Lea Seydoux) connected to the organization and foiling their plot to gain more power over the world.

Now that’s a really tight and clean synopsis for a movie that is a little bit bloated and just full of plot holes.  But I wanna talk about the good things about this movie first because truth be told, I did like it. I’m realizing I may say some things about this movie that will make you think that I did not like this movie, I definitely did. I just think it could have been better.

First off, I think it was a smart move for the new Bond franchise to bring in Spectre. I’m not a huge Bond buff so I really only figured out a lot of the lore behind the franchise in the past few weeks, but Spectre is a secret evil organization that has become the main antithesis of Bond’s existence. And this movie does a pretty good job at setting up Spectre as a future threat to Bond, MI6, and the characters I’m starting to really enjoy.

The one thing I’m worried about is the consideration that perhaps Spectre doesn’t really fit in the universe of the new Daniel Craig Bond, but I don’t necessarily agree with that. I just think it could potentially be an issue in future movies, and that has a little bit to do with the execution done in this movie… however, I’ll talk about that after I start talking about the good things.

I think one of the first things that I want to mention about this movie as a whole is that I didn’t see anything wrong with the performances. I will talk a little bit more about Daniel Craig, but beyond that, I thought that all the performance, even Daniel Craig’s were good. I liked Lea Seydoux, I liked her character and I thought she gave a good performance. It was great to see Raph Finnes return as M and he had his opportunity to shine and work into his new position. I liked Ben Whishaw as Q, I liked Moneypenny. And then when you get into the bad guys, again, I thought the performances were very good. I really liked Dave Bautista a lot and what they did with his character.

And then there was Christoph Waltz. Now before I say anything more, I thought Waltz’s performance was good. He was a great choice for the main villain. I personally have figured out that it doesn’t matter if it’s a movie like Django Unchained which I did like or a movie like Inglorious Basterds that I actually (to some people’s dismay) could have done without, you’re not going to get a bad performance from Christoph Waltz. There are probably movies out there that he hasn’t done a very good job, I just haven’t seen those movies.

And I’m not gonna beat around the bush with this one because you should know who Walt’z character is. If you’re well versed in the Bond franchise, the big reveal of who he is shouldn’t come as any surprise. And if you’re not versed in the Bond franchise, the reveal of who he is won’t mean anything to you.

He’s Blofeld. There I ripped that band aid off.

And performance-wise, I think they chose a very good actor to portray Blofeld. Blofeld is arguably the most iconic Bond villain and if you’re going to have anybody be that character, why not Christoph Waltz. My problem with it is, they really don’t utilize him as much as they should have. I will Waltz credit for utilizing every single scene he was in very well. But it was almost bitter sweet because even though he was only in about 3 scenes in the movie, he really did a good job and I wanted to see more. More that I probably won’t get for another 3-4 years till the next Bond movie comes out. I just think they could have done more with him in this movie.

I think the best example of what they did with Blofeld in this movie can be akin to what they did with Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness. They really banked on the fact that people knew who Blofeld was and because of that, didn’t show as much of what was so great about that character. When they reveal that he is in fact Blofeld, I was half expecting Christoph Waltz to look over at the audience and say, did you get that? Because it was the same reveal that they did in Star Trek: Into Darkness. And the issues I had with that movie stand with this one, they were more basing his character off of his reputation as opposed to what he actually does in the movie.

The other performance worth talking about of course is Daniel Craig. Now, I’m not gonna say that Daniel Craig didn’t give a good performance. Every time he is Bond, I’m entertained. He just fits in the role that its just down right entertaining.

But I almost feel like he’s a little bit past this franchise at this point.

Craig’s Bond has always been stoic but I’ve never gotten more of a feeling that he was bored than I do in Spectre. And again, I don’t want to bash too much into Craig because some of this movie didn’t give him much to work with script-wise. But there were a couple moments where I was looking for something more from Craig and he just didn’t give it.

Last thing that I’ll mention is the fact that this movie is shot very well. The action sequences are a lot of fun, there are a lot of cool tracking shots, it’s a well produced movie… almost too well.

Sam Mendes, the director, prior to Skyfall was really only known for American Beauty. He didn’t have much of a background in action films and that’s why I think some people were surprised when Skyfall was so good.

With Spectre however, the movie while shot well, almost felt like an art project more than it felt like a James Bond action movie. A good example is the very beginning. There’s a strange opening sentence printed on the screen before the movie actually starts. Its like The Dead are all alive, or Dead Men Tell no Tales, or something stupid like that. Then the movie begins. That opening line about death has nothing to do with the rest of the film and if I wasn’t so confused by it the first time I saw it, I probably would have forgotten about it.

And the cinematography wouldn’t have been something I’d be commenting on, if the script didn’t seem like it was trying to be more than it actually was as well.

I tell you, this movie has a lot of plot holes. And I don’t know if the movie was trying to be artsy, or meaningful, or what, but it was just uneven and fell flat in many crucial moments. The humor, while not the worst thing ever, was kind of stupid and almost goofy in a series of movies that have traditionally been pretty dark with some dry humor sprinkled in. This one had jokes and they were bad. I had a lot of moments where I wondered why I was laughing at a particular spot. It just didn’t seem like the right humor for a Bond film.

But on top of all of that, there were just too many moments that didn’t make a lick of sense outside of, this is what the plot needs. There’s a part where Lea Seydoux’s character says she’s leaving because she can’t be apart of James’s life and she can’t expect him to change for her. Bond just kind of looks at her, and then they go about their business like nothing happened. And yeah, it’s a horribly acted scene but it was also obvious that she was going to be captured. Its moments like this that make the movie a little bit too on the nose and take away from the performances of the actors because their characters are doing stupid things for the sake of the plot.

And while we’re on the topic of Bond and his new girlfriend, while I liked both these two’s performances, I was not totally sold on their romance being anything more than a usual Bond girl tift. And damn they really tried. They really tried to make it so this relationship was different, and these two are in love. But the truth is, there was nothing about their relationship that we haven’t seen before in previous Bond relationships that went nowhere. Why is this any different?

And unfortunately, I know why I wasn’t as susceptible to this relationship, and its because of Vesper Lynd.

Now Eva Green’s character has haunted this iteration of James Bond since her death in Casino Royale. And it becomes even more of a thing in this movie. And yet, they really push this new relationship Bond has with Lea Seydoux’s character and it doesn’t lift off the ground nearly as well as his relationship with Vesper.

And you may say, Connor you’re probably just biased because you liked that relationship more. And that is true, but its because I’m comparing how those two actually came together and created a meaningful relationship. They had pretty much the entire movie to develop that relationship and refine it to something that I and many people really liked. This movie just has them share a train ride together and suddenly they’re in love.

Also, this movie has a little bit of a pacing issue. There are a couple moments that if I was watching on Netflix, I probably would have paused at those moments to go get a snack or something.

But I will give this movie a little bit of slack because while it does have a lot of problems of its own, a lot of us were comparing this movie to its betters that came before (mainly Casino Royale and Skyfall).

James Bond is falling into a little bit of a pattern that the Star Trek movie did back in the day. One movie would be good, then the next one would be bad. And it would go back and forth, good bad, good bad.

I don’t think that Spectre is at all a bad movie, I just think that it didn’t quite live up to the hype that Skyfall created for it. Furthermore, the weird utilization of characters, the plot holes and sometimes awful screen writing made the movie quite lackluster in the end and while I'm a little bit disappointed by it, I think that this is probably the last outing as Bond for Daniel Craig, especially if you see the end of this movie. And that's a little bit of a shame. While I didn't hate the ending of this movie, I thought that it could have been better and I don't know if I want it to be the last goodbye for Craig.

But the question must be asked, who will take his spot for the next Bond movie?

Now the big name that I've heard in every conversation about this has been Idris Elba as they try to revitalize the image of James Bond. The question of course is, could James Bond be played by a black man when the character has traditionally been white? Does it matter?

Really, I don't think its that big of a deal. While I don't think we absolutely need to revitalize the character, I definitely think it would be an interesting choice, especially since I enjoy Idris Elba as an actor. I can't really think of any black man who I would rather see in the role.

The issue that I have with Idris Elba is not that he is black, it is instead that he is 43 right now whereas Daniel Craig was 37 when he first started. By the time this movie actually gets made, Elba will be 45 or 46, at the earliest. Still not impossible to do but I just see him as a little bit too old.

There two other actors I wouldn't mind seeing in the role and that would be Henry Cavill and Michael Fassbender.

I'm actually at this moment watching Man from UNCLE and since he is a little bit of an American James Bond in that movie, I like the idea of him actually utilizing his British accent and becoming the new James Bond. On top of that Michael Fassbender would kill it as James Bond. While Cavill would probably fall into the more luxorious and posh James Bond like Brosnan and the classic Bond, I feel like Fassbender would be more in the vein of Daniel Craig.

Unfortunately, the issue is that these two actors are both already figureheads in large franchises that are only getting bigger, Fassbender in the X-men franchise and Cavill in the Man of Steel Justice League franchise that I'm sure is only going to get better, especially from what I've seen from Batman v Superman.

I think in the end, it probably won't be any of the actors mentioned above, they probably have someone totally unknown or not as well known as you would think in mind to replace Craig and who knows who it will be. I of course am looking forward to playing the game of figuring out who will replace Craig.

Again, I'm a little bummed that this might be the last outing of Craig but don't get me wrong, I did enjoy Spectre. It had a lot of good acting, good action, good camera work and what probably could have been an interesting story. But it falls in the trap of poor writing, plot holes, and following the act of a movie that was really darn good before it.

But what do you think of Spectre? Did you like it? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 and send me your requests for movies I should review in the future. If you subscribe, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews that I post on my blog as well as live tweets from movies I'm watching and much more.

I'll leave you with this. I feel dirty doing this as I am a Vikings fan but here is Aaron Rogers Screen test for James Bond. Enjoy!