Spectre - Review Thread

After three movies that took the traditional Bond formula and either ignored it or played around with it, it's back to tradition with Spectre, and after the awesome success that was Skyfall, Spectre is...good.

What's almost immediately obvious about it once you start watching the movie is that returning director Sam Mendes has decided to more fully embrace the tropes of the franchise this time around, but at the same time, still try to retain some of the stylistic and tonal touches that made the previous film so great. It's a mixture that's...interesting, to say the least, and not always in the movie's favor. Honestly, if Spectre has one main problem, it's that it can never seem to decide whether it wants to be a traditional Bond movie or a Daniel Craig Bond movie. There are a few times when each of those tones are at odds with each other, almost as if Mendes was trying to appease to the traditionalists upset over the previous three entries while also trying to keep fans of the more serious Craig era onboard. Spectre really could've benefitted from Mendes and the screenwriters deciding on and fully committing to what kind of movie they wanted to make. Because of that sort of tonal imbalance, it took me a while to get into the story. Also, the film doesn't really have the kind of story to support a near 2 1/2 hour running time this time around.

The movie itself is still entertaining and interesting, however, and I have to say that this is one of the better uses of Bond formula I've seen from the franchise -- keep in mind that I've never been big on that formula to begin with. There are a number of good scenes throughout, and while none of it ever wowed me like Skyfall did, I can't deny I enjoyed myself. Daniel Craig is still ice-cool in the role, and even he embraces a few Bond-isms in terms of the character personality that a lot of fans enjoy. Lea Seydoux is a pretty good Bond girl, and Dave Bautista makes for a nicely imposing Bond henchman. Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw return as M and Q, respectively, and each do solid work. This brings us to Christoph Waltz as the villain. Of course, Waltz makes the most of his screentime and is fun to watch, but the script underutilizes him perhaps a bit TOO much, and there's always the feeling of potential for more whenever we see him. One thing Spectre does that I have to admire is that it attempts t tie together the events of all the previous Craig outings in a nice, neat bow...but at the same time, it feels a bit thin.

Like most, my thoughts on Spectre are kind of all over the place, but when I take a step back and weigh both the positives and negatives, I still have to say this was a pretty good use of Bond formula as well as a solid-enough, enjoyable movie. I think that's primarily due to the efforts of Mendes and co., but I've seen more blah efforts than this with a lot of the same elements, so I'll take what I can get.

***/****