Bond #24: SPECTRE

It's easy to enjoy but hard to care about.

James Bond is ridiculous again in this disappointing (but still fun) outing.

Bond's 24th outing delivers handsomely in action set pieces and crowd-pleasing moments, but is let down by a weird mix of tone, a lack of plot and poorly defined characters.

All three of these statements could be applied to basically every Bond movie, just change the number in the last one.

and Bowie albums

apparently it starts in Mexico City w/ a 5-min unbroken shot

mayb Captain Quinlan will cameo

Found via HOOS on Twitter: http://www.redbulletin.com/us/us/culture/daniel-craig-tells-us-what-he-really-thinks-of-bond

Speaking of women, many men admire Bond for his way with the ladies …

But let’s not forget that he’s actually a misogynist. A lot of women are drawn to him chiefly because he embodies
a certain kind of danger and never sticks around for too long.

What about you? Are you the kind of guy who sticks around?

Well, I’ve been married for four years.

. . . And this time you’ve gone one better, showing 007 succumbing to the charms of an older woman.

I think you mean the charms of a woman his own age.

niiice

<3 u DC

that "well, i've been married for four years" sounds kind of ominous in reply, coming from a man in his late 40s

prob similar to what W Beatty wd've said 4 years into his marriage

I still feel bad for Darren Aronofsky tbh

lol, i was coming here to post LITERALLY the same pull quote.
anyway, score one for Daniel Craig

SPOILER ALERT

Just saw it. First half was p bad - Mexico, Rome, what even happened? Who cares. The moment he finds White it gets great. Who knew that what the world needed was slow, fever-dream Bond? But it did. Scene with the plane in the mountains satisfyingly awkward and physical and I loved how they didn't explain how Bond even got it. Scene with the mouse is all time. FANTASTIC fight on the train, every move utterly legible, held me so tight in its grip I didn't even see the classic twist coming which had been telegraphed from a mile away. I love that she got drunk and didn't fuck him. I loved the old spy shit locked away in the hidden room. I loved the villain's lair. But then, well, we get Waltz Waltzin it up. The drill sequence somehow both too much and not enough. Everything after had a slightly dutiful feeling, that the plot had set these plates spinning and now they had to be taken down, or, well, exploded dramatically, one by one. So sick of Q hacking into things. Was a bit shit that Bond's like "I'll protect her I promise" and then is like "o well lates", then appears surprised that she's in danger. Also there was a distinct lack of Bellucci. She's in the movie for like 40 seconds.

SPOILER ALERT CONCLUDED

lalalalala unbookmark

S.P.O.I.L.E.R.E

sorry dudes :/

trace did you like skyfall?

Not that much

oh cool then I will probably love this like I've loved all the other Craig Bond movies

fwiw I liked this almost as much as Casino Royale!

nice!

we have beaten this into the ground of course but it's beyond me how the world came to the consensus that quantum of solace was bad and skyfall was good.

QoS was... not good

they were both good

one was good, one was bad.

poll.

I would love to be a contrarian on this one but Morbs is correct

QoS is much better if you watch it immediately after Casino Royale imo

but i am quite alone in this opinion

nah goole otm.

i was sort of surprised at how bad people thought QoS was, since though it's clearly not nearly as good as CR, it's still watchable enough. it still doesn't make any sense but it's also a little less unoriginal and misogynist than skyfall though i'm not sure it's better or anything. interesting that in the first two craig bonds we don't see the villain die, nor is he killed by bond.

Skyfall isn't much better on a screenplay level, it's just really great to look at and features nice lucid action sequences where QoS' action is choppy and impossible to follow

but i am quite alone in this opinion

you are not alone in this opinion at all

I still feel bad for Darren Aronofsky tbh

― the naive cockney chorus (Simon H.), Thursday, October 22, 2015 1:49 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i dunno, i kind of feel like that pretentious asshole got what he deserved.

rachel weisz defies nature, btw. she is 45!

http://cdn.yournextshoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Rachel-Weisz-Face.jpg

photographed at the premiere for the new almond milk iced coffee i guess?

maybe it's what she rubs on her face to give her skin that lustrous glow

that signature blend of vitamin E, lactose, and caffeine

daniel craig seems alot cooler than aronofsky

<-- understatement.

Most of the way through I was thinking it could be a tie withheld CS for best Craig Bond - great, crisp action, wonderful atmosphere, gorgeous cinematography. But they really botched the third act. I in no way ever again need to see James Bond pilot a motorboat down the Thames, or bring down a helicopter with a single shot.

I need to stop reading this thread til SPECTRE's out here in the US haha

This is going to sound wanky but I thought the photography in a lot of the first part was wack. there was one particular clanger I thought in the gorgeous and underlit dream-villa of Belucci's where she's in focus in the foreground and Craig is out of focus in the bg, and Craig walks right up next to her, dramatically, as she's talking, and... he stays out of focus! Your eye's like oh, sorry, thought you wanted me to pay attention to BOND JAMES BOND who just came WALKING UP.

Not only the photography but everything about the first helicopter scene was dreadful. Ohh it's a helicopter doing a slow barrel roll! Oh, and again! Oh man, and AGAIN!! Good plan Bond, immediately incapacitate the PILOT of the copter because that'll totally help. Really playing the angles there. FFS!

But but but... I kid because I love. Somehow it turned into a legit good movie somewhere in there. Which seemed to coincide exactly with the length of time Lea Seydoux was an active presence in it..

I want to say I saw maybe 15 minutes of QoS, but it was incoherent, almost to a Michael Bay degree. Enjoyed Skyfall, though. Don't remember a lick of Casino Royale.

SPOILERS
it's fantastic. and tense! a few mis-steps but as Tracer says soon as he meets Mr White.. showtime. weird the extent to which this is kinda 'wrapping up' all 4 of the Craig Bonds isn't it? especially seeing as Skyfall never seemed especially 'sequel-y' but this one is all suddenly 'hey remember this freaky dude from 2 films back?' etc
Moneypenny kinda.. vanished in all that A Team style hoo-ha with the gang running around near the end. seemed a little ungallant.

And v ungallant of me not to even notice :(

So like, what was up with the dress on the bed (and why ffs did she wear it???) Seemed significant, but.. no

I liked how when Bond was asked what he was doing there he's like "well I'm here to kill YOU." Shades of Luke inside Jabba's lair with the startling confidence inside the heart of darkness. Like - "what's he planning?" Was he planning anything, by the way?

mm i dunno you know.. after he gave the gun up to the butler, i expected him to at least have an extra hidden gun in his sock. and the torture seemed to have no effect whatsoever! originally he killed him at the end too, according to leaked early script drafts which the studio execs hated supposedly
http://defamer.gawker.com/new-bond-script-leaks-execs-scrambling-to-fix-awful-en-1670479885

Seydoux gonna be proper megastar huge IMO.

Haha yeah there was just no consequence to the drilling. Bit cheap to make us wonder - "will he really get drilled? or won't he??" and then have the answer not matter.

Still properly horrible and ball-tightening so job done I guess..

Was he even trying to find anything out, I can't remember?? It seemed like just sadism

Bad guy was trying to get Bond to forget who Seydoux was before he died for some reason but Bond was just like 'I can never forget... you are... too... hot' or whatever so it didn't work

basically he was an amateur neurologist on the side? "Bond... I'd like to talk to you about computational aspects of neurological modeling"

60% on RT is pretty pathetic... but it won't matter.

i choose to take the critic who says "Craig's boredom is contagious" at his word.

i get a real sense of the 2nd wave of reviews reviewing-the-earlier-reviews with this tbh. i forget what that phenomenon is known as.
the disparity btw the uk and the us reviews a week later is.. quite something.

I haven't paid attention. What's the disparity?