Review of Spectre (2015) by Thequietgamer — 09 May 2016

Watching Bond at the very beginning of the movie in Mexico City during the Day of the Dead with a beautiful woman on his arm and wearing a striking skeleton mask makes one thing very clear from the get go; that this is going to be a gorgeous film. It even capitalizes on that with some surprising destruction that makes you think that the rest of the movie is going to be just as exciting as those opening minutes. However as soon as that surprisingly, yet appreciated, comedic ending to the scene happens it's straight to formula.

This is very much a case of been there, done that, and seen it all before. Formulaic to a T, there's almost no sense of excitement as I found myself predicting everything that would happen next. The plot tries hard to be something bigger than the average Bond affair by having a sense of connectivity to the previous Daniel Craig movies, but it follows the exact same formula the series has been using for years. Christoph Waltz plays a potentially cool villain who has some real ties to our hero. However a painful lack of screen time renders that moot.

Outside of a surprise fight between Craig and Bautista that literally comes out of nowhere the action suffers from the same problem; predictability. That's really the issue with everything in the movie. It's the same stuff we've seen over and over again in this very series making it's return once again. There are moments where it looks they wanted to add more depth to everything, but ultimately just ended up delivering the same old, same old. The perfect example of this is with the new "Bond girl.".

There's a point in the movie where it becomes clear that they are setting up Léa Seydoux's character to be more meaningful to Bond than the typical one night stand. Someone he can actually end up settling down with. This however does not occur to the audience until the movie outright says it. Why? Because there's literally nothing to distinguish her from any of the more generic Bond girls that have come before her. Any chemistry between Seydoux and Craig is unnoticeable as Seydoux is playing the most generic of Bond girl stereotypes. She feels exactly as important to the plot as Monica Bellucci was earlier in the film. Basically just nothing more than a pretty face for Bond to have sex with. I was literally baffled when the movie tried to convince me there was any sort of actual connection between the two, much less love.

To be honest "SPECTRE" is a lot like the majority of Bond girls. Gorgeous to look at, but lacking any sort of originality or substance to back up those good looks. It actually ends up being worth less to the audience than a Bond girl is to Bond. At least Bond can get an afternoon of pleasure from a Bond girl before he casts her aside. The audience won't be able to even get that from this movie. It's an exercise in familiarity. A few bits of humor scattered throughout and dazzling views keep things from getting too dull, but they can't save the entire thing from being boring. I think it's time to revoke 007's license to kill.

4.