SPECTRE

SPECTRE (2015)

62% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 207 reviews)

Runtime: 148 minutes

Directed by: Sam Mendes

Starring: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Lea Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Dave Bautista

From: MGM/Columbia

I saw this movie late yesterday afternoon and I understand the mixed reviews. It's no Skyfall or Casino Royale but I still enjoyed it, although it does have various script and story issues, which I only allude to in my Letterboxd review below but I still recommend reading what will at least be another financially successful Bond picture: 

I do not know if it's true that this is the last Bond film Daniel Craig is going to do. I know he made angry comments about being 007 but I never read that interview in full and knowing the media, I do not know if he was taken out of context or not. For all I know, he was playing things up as an aspect of this movie is whether Bond should still keep on being Bond or not. In any case, it may be time for a change anyhow and I won't even get into the speculating of who should be 007 next; just bringing up the name “Idris Elba” causes a lot of yelling and shouting no matter if you think he should have the role or not. But for now I'll just talk about this movie, without revealing any spoilers as at least in the United States it's brand new.

In fact I'll just state the basic plot and that's that SPECTRE returns; due to legal reasons that lasted a few decades and were not resolved until about 2 years ago, that is why they haven't been in a Bond picture since '71's Diamonds Are Forever. Christoph Waltz is the leader of that organization, and they have a techno-based scheme to control the world. There are various references to older movies here, some more recent than others.

Even before seeing this I had heard that it was the most old-school of the Craig films and that is definitely true. For the most part it does manage to use those elements and have it work in a modern style. The movie surprised me-usually in a good way-and I am glad it cleared up what I thought were some loose ends. The music score is pretty cool and there are some great scenes, especially the opening one. I did not know what countries would be visited aside from Mexico; I won't reveal what the others are except that they were countries visited before... which I was fine with. I am a pro wrestling fan-even though I haven't regularly watched it for a long while-so I was amused by Dave Bautista being in the cast; he actually did well in his role and he was as memorable as the other “big tough guys” the franchise has had.

Regrettably, there are some story issues I had; of course I can't get into it without giving big spoilers but at times I wish it would have been different or would have played out better, or at least would have followed the “less is more” idea. That is a shame as while this is the longest movie in the franchise at 148 minutes, it did not seem that long... which is usually a good sign. This is not something that affected my grade but while the opening credits were fine, that Sam Smith song... I don't listen to modern music so I had only heard of that chap and did not care to listen to his tunes. When that song was first realized, I heard quite the backlash about it. I was surprised. I then listened to the song and I agreed with those people by thinking his singing voice was atrocious. I tend to think that plenty of singers in this modern time have grating singing voices but at least this time I have plenty of people who would agree with me. The song itself sounds like a Bond tune, and I suppose it's better than having someone truly God-awful like Lana Del Rey or-shudder-Katy Perry do it-and yet I still think it's bad.

Anyway, if you generally enjoy the Craig films or the franchise in general, this is still worth seeing. The last film in the run for a particular Bond tend not to be so good; thankfully that wasn't the case here at least. I do understand those who disagree and the wide variety of ratings for this are not a surprise to me. Who knows where they go from here; all I hope is that the franchise continues for many more entries to come, as this era shows that the series can continue to exist without being antiquated or old hat.