Review of Spectre (2015) by Mustang8 — 23 Nov 2015

Okay, so I will try to write a full review of this horrendous "Bond film" without giving any spoilers, but I doubt that you will want to watch this movie after reading this review.

First of all, the rating you will give to this film will change dramatically if you have seen the previous films of Sam Mendes & Daniel Craig, the perfect combination that bring the elegant, charismatic and cool yet fragile Bond to life. Spectre's Bond, however, does not display these qualities as much as the previous Bonds do.

Story: Right before I entered the cinema I read online that Pierce Brosnan, the previous Bond as you may know, says that Specte has a weak story and is too long. I sincerely hoped that he was solely jealous of Craig's brilliance on the role, but that was not the case. Not that Craig is anything short of great as James Bond, but Spectre actually does have quite a weak story and is unnecessarily long. Do not worry, I will not spoil anything but I will say this: the story is extremely shallow compared to Skyfall and Casino Royale, moreover gives absurd roles and qualities to iconic characters we are used to always see on screen with Bond. Also it leaves quite a lot, and by that I mean really a lot of plot holes behind to make you wonder if they actually deleted part of the script. Overall, story is one of the most important aspects of a Bond movie and it is mainly what makes CR and Skyfall great, while bringing Quantum of Solace and Spectre very much below the standard we expect from Sam Mendes.

Cinematography: Remember the "Take the bloody shot" sequence at the beginning of Skyfall that gave every one of goosebumps? What about the beautiful shot of Bond with colorful Chinese decoration that reminded us that films are forms of art? Yes? Well you get none of that in Spectre. Spectre is all about fast sequences with big explosions, cause who doesn't love explosions, right? I'd classify this movie as quick entertainment like "fast food", rather than a form of art.

Bond: As I said in the beginning, Spectre's Bond is like a Chinese replica: it tries to be elegant and cool but does not get it quite right. I totally agree with Brosnan in saying that Spectre is not Bond-ish, since THE factor that makes a Bond film a Bond film is James Bond himself. Bond strips himself from being a smart and wise MI6 agent who actually has reason behind his actions, while taking more of a mindless action-movie hero-role, making stupid decisions without thinking about consequences and creating dialogue that is nothing but a reason to display 2 characters together on-screen. I also mentioned that Bond was not at all invincible in previous movies, remember Casino Royale and the beginning of Skyfall. However, Spectre's Bond is a man that even Iron Man himself will be jealous of. You will see what I mean.

Supporting Cast: Supporting cast are just there to, as you may have guessed from their role, "support" Bond. Yep, that's it. They do not really have stories of their own, they are just there when need be and gone when Bond is to take the spotlight. Extremely shallow characters. We get no backstory on what happened to them, why they are doing what they are doing, and what they want from Bond.

That sums up my opinion on Spectre. I'd love to write even more but I have other stuff to do, unfortunately. I hope my review gave you another point of view, apart from all those 10/10 and 9/10 reviews which I'm sure have reasons of their own to give such high ratings.

I don't know about you, but I will reconsider twice, maybe thrice before watching the next Bond.