Spectre

(Movie Reviews)

Negative Points
* That opening scene (with the collapsing buildings and the helicopter fight) was so over-the-top it was practically self-parody

* Related to the above point: This movie was  tonally inconsistent--it couldn't decide if it wanted to be the dark and gritty Bond, or the over-the-top fun Bond.

* Although I share the concern, films about excessive government  surveillance are rapidly becoming over-done. I mean, we just had this in Captain America: Winter Soldier.

* Speaking of over-done plotlines--the B-plotline about the government bureaucrats who are trying to shut down the intelligence agency?  This was the exact same B-plotline Mission Impossible 5 used.  It was even used in the previous James Bond film, Skyfall.  It was never that interesting of a storyline to begin with, but I've officially lost all patience with it now.

* There wasn't really much of a plot to this movie.  James Bond just got incredibly lucky stumbling onto clue after clue.  (Although, granted, this is not the first James Bond movie to have this particular failing.)

* I think because of the lack of interesting story in this movie, I was completely bored for most of the run time of this movie.  I mean, don't get me wrong, whenever there was a fist-fight or a car chase going on, that was alright.  But all that ridiculous story in between?  That was just dumb and boring.

* So, if you're going to have a movie this long (2 and a half hours) you need to keep increasing the momentum of the movie to keep the audience entertained.  This movie did the opposite.  All of the biggest action sequences were all at the beginning of the movie, and the final show-down with the villain was really anti-climatic and just plain boring.

* I got really bored with this movie at about the 2 hour mark, and just wanted it to be over.  And apparently I wasn't the only one.  (In my theater, people were even leaving early.)

* So, Blofeld is now James Bond's adopted brother?  That's a retcon to the original source material, but whatever, it could potentially have been interesting if they had done something with it.  But they didn't.  It came out of nowhere, it was never used in any potentially interesting way, and it didn't seem to effect Bond's reactions in any way at all.

* So, Blofeld's whole reason for turning evil and creating Spectre was...he was jealous of his adopted brother?

The Review
Bond movies can often be quite bad, but usually they're bad in an entertaining way.  This...this was just boring.

Rating :
2 out of 10

Things I Would Talk About if I Wasn't Limiting Myself to 100 Words
* As someone who is a big fan of the 1960s era James Bond, I did think it was kind of cool that they're bringing back Spectre and Blofeld.  That Spectre meeting at the table was a perfect nod to the 1960s James Bond, for example.  As was Blofeld's secret lair out in the desert.
...Or, I don't know, should I be happy that they're bringing Blofeld and Spectre back, or is this just yet another example of how Hollywood is so bankrupt on original ideas these days?

Links
* In my opinion, this filmdrunk review is a bit too kind to this movie.  But they still had a number of good points.  I particularly liked this little jab:

it’s also compelling to watch old-school security apparatus folks bemoaning the “unfairness” of computer spying, sort of like when basketball purists saw their first behind-the-back pass. When C presents his proposal for his “cooperative” intelligence coalition, Ralph Fiennes’ M snipes “unelected” under his breath. Right, because shadowy teams of extra-governmental assassins driving cool cars had so much democratic oversight. “[Sigh.] Doesn’t anyone kill third-world dictators with itching powder anymore?”

Yeah, I was pretty much thinking the same thing while I watched the movie.   That's why the whole excessive government surveillance topicality thing didn't really work in this movie.

* I mentioned above that this movie had tonal inconsistency problems.  Whisky Prajer, in a review several years ago on Quantum of Solace, does a very good job of articulating what a fine tightrope these bond movies need to walk to get the tone exactly right, and why so many of them get it wrong.

From Russia With Love may have established James Bond as a movie franchise, but You Only Live Twice became the standard for it. When Dahl's absurdities were puffed up beyond what the cartoon could bear, we got Moonraker and Live And Let Die. Just the right amount of gas, and we got Octopussy and For Your Eyes Only. Too little, and we got Timothy Dalton.
Thus James Bond became the movie equivalent of Kraft Dinner — garnish it with a little too much of this or that, cook it a little too long, and it was a mess; follow the instructions on the box and it was surprisingly comforting fare.

Link of  the Day 
Noam Chomsky & Abby Martin: Electing The President of an Empire