Review of Spectral (2016) by Threeboxindoors — 22 Dec 2016

Spectral starts off very promising with its amazing cinematography and interesting story, but that story soon becomes trite and cliche. The action just doesn't succeed at being suspenseful-horror and instead comes off as entertaining, due to not caring about any of the characters. For the premise that the movie had, this was a huge missed opportunity. There are two characters during the second act who were litterally just plot devices, and only one of them was really even needed. Both characters stick around for over twenty minutes, and their last scenes in the movie felt forced and abrupt. But those aren't the only forced moments in the film.

The most interesting thing to me is that when the movie starts, we are interested in the questions the characters are trying to answer. But when we find out the answers, we already don't care anymore because the movie hasn't been focusing on that question enough. I was loving this movie up until the very first action scene; There was mystery, suspense, but the action doesn't keep that up. The main character was interesting and just so cool, but he doesn't even take part upfront in the first action scene, and we slowly lose interest in him. The movie loses its mysterious feel somehow, and the solution is not surprising or jaw-dropping or satisfying, instead just uninteresting, imagination-lacking and cliche. Spectral could've been something special but instead it is a below-average-movie and gets a 4 out of 10.