James Bond’s latest globe-trotting adventure, Spectre, hit theaters last weekend to fairly solid reviews. American Sam Mendes directed the film.
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Otherwise, there are plenty of goodies for longtime James Bond fans to notice, from Bond finally ordering a martini shaken not stirred (I wonder why he suddenly cares) to a henchman (Dave Bautista) who just won’t die. Secretly recruiting fellow secret agents Q (Ben Whishaw) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), Bond travels from foreign countries such as Mexico, Italy and Austria to fight the antagonists and romance Lucia Sciarra (Monica Bellucci) and Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), a widow and a daughter of former SPECTRE allies. After the full experience that was Skyfall, Spectre feels incomplete and shallow. Ironically, this is nearly also the case for its three of the four lowest grossing films of the franchise all set in the 1980s: “The Living Daylights”, “License To Kill” and “A View To Kill”. There is a good level of brooding, the typical suave nature of a Bond, but there was also a level of enjoyment to Craig’s performance. And the ultimate bad guy, played by Christoph Waltz, makes these efforts worth Bond’s time, energy and disobedience.
Throughout the film, there’s a pervading feeling that Craig is getting a little exhausted of the Bond shtick. I prefer him to all the others – apart from Sean Connery, obviously. Newer stories based on the famous character have been written for the screen and the stories are more compelling, somehow. In Spectre, although Bond is working on his own, he’s still only doing his job. What was so refreshing about “Skyfall” was how it dealt with the dangerousness of Bond’s life and the consequences many Bond girls face due to their involvement with him.
At 148 minutes long, with a price tag in the $250 million range, we’re looking at a major case of bloat with Spectre.
In the end, what “Spectre” does is give audiences a Bond movie.
The action sequences are pretty good. It is really sad that the follow up to Skyfall was a complete 180-degree flip from what the Bond films have been building up to over the past few years. The past the film paints is a completely unnecessary one.
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Spectre proves that maybe they’re already running out of ideas which is extremely disappointing. This movie is a return to the typical role of a female in a Bond movie as the sidekick and love interest.
