Review of Spectre (2015) by Mrmoviebuff — 06 Nov 2015

Sorry Bond fans, I didn't want to do this but I did not enjoy this movie enough for it to be more than a 5/10 score...

...'Spectre' sees Daniel Craig in his fourth outing as the iconic British spy, James Bond and is the return for director Sam Mendes ('American Beauty' and 'Skyfall'). The screenplay is also written by the usual gang which includes John Logan ('Gladiator' and 'Hugo').

The movie opens with an impressive tracking shot with Bond in Mexico City which proves to be rewarding for some filmmakers. But just because a movie is impressively shot doesn't save its mediocrity. We then see the opening sequence which includes the Sam Smith song "Writing on the Wall" which is instantly forgettable, but we don't go to Bond films looking for a good opening song.

The story mostly involves Bond trying to protect the daughter of Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) who is played by French actress Lea Seydoux ('Inglourious Basterds' and 'Blue is the Warmest Color') who seems reluctant to trust Bond at first, but needs his protection anyway. The usual crew including M (Ralph Fiennes), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Q (Ben Winshaw) return, and the chemistry between Craig and those actors are comedic which is great to see. But unfortunately, they are hardly together throughout the duration of the movie.

My biggest disappointments come from the following actors including; Monical Belucci, Dave Bautista and Christoph Waltz. They didn't have as much screen time as the trailers made it seem they have.

It just seems rather pointless to have these characters appear and they abruptly don't come back for the rest of the movie. Belucci and Bautista only have roughly 20 - 30 minutes of screen time each.

But the disappointment mainly comes from Christoph Waltz, who played such an iconic villain in 'Inglourious Basterds' (2009) and won his first Academy Award for it. So when I heard he was going to play a Bond villain, I thought he'd be perfect.

Waltz was wasted as the villain, I'm not sure if it's because of the screenplay, but he did not seem as menacing or intimidating as the ones played by Mads Mikkelsen ('Casino Royale') or Javier Bardem ('Skyfall'). We only get one scene of him torturing Bond, slightly, but that's it.

Ralph Fiennes as M has a few action scenes here and there, we see him handling a gun and defending everything he can, but this does not seem like something the M we know would do. The action should only be left to Bond only.

I am not sure if it's because 'Skyfall' (2012) had heightened my expectations, but this was just mediocre Bond fare almost made to the quality of 'Quantum of Solace' (2008). There are some scenes that happen for almost no reason, characters appear, then disappear, and other characters are wasted. It seemed like this was an unfinished product, but I wouldn't rank this as high as 'Casino Royale' (2006) or 'Skyfall' (2012), however, Daniel Craig is still convincing as Bond.

Great acting, just an underwhelming movie.