Bond #24: SPECTRE

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

Saw this yesterday. Opinions, I have them.

Was he planning anything, by the way?

He expected.. TO DIE! No but seriously it's a suicide mission, he warns Scarlett Johansson off in pretty much exactly those terms, all he has is a watch that goes boom and a hope that the villain will explain his whole plan.

I am surprised that I'm surprised that after she does one thing in character and walks away, she becomes the damsel to save - half of me feels I have been let down, and the other half has no idea why the first half thinks that.

I fairly certain that no-one has ever said "I do like the action scenes and the sexy ladies and the cocktail tip, but what I really return to the Bond films for is the tightly-bound mythos": watching them continuity-wank the Craig reboot with one hand and the 50-year history with the other, I couldn't help wondering who really cared.

One of the effects of trying even the short-term continuity is that there's probably some people watching the film thinking "WTF is a picture of Hannibal doing in that cell?"

Always terrible: a Mocking Maze of Memories, also all hacking, ever.

A fucking waste of Andrew Scott, though: "Did you see, from my first scene, that I was the baddie? Did you spot that? Hmm?"

I was surprised by there only being M and Q and C (big laugh at the line before "Careless") in that room, because I'd just been thinking that Rory Kinnear had been growing into an actor who'd be at home in LeCarre, a deft hand from housekeeping, dependable if you needed a gun kept on someone. Of course he's also growing into Roy Kinnear, which he may not be as happy about.

Whatever about the second drill and the ability to remember faces (Blofeld says "Oh, if you get it in the right place"), I'm more struck by how the first drill was meant to make Bond woozy - cut to a presumably concussed Bond dead-eyeing a half dozen goons five minutes later.

The IMDB page talks a lot about how this was going to be filmed back to back with Bond 25, which Craig is apparently still contracted for - but the ending seems very much like a sign-off, even not counting Craig feeling free to say he'd rather slash his wrists than do another. I mean, I'm not befuddled how they'd do it, it'd be a bullet in the head of Madeleine Swann before the opening credits, because Bond.

I did largely enjoy it though - like chap, I think it's only the last reel that goes off the rails. One thing we're sleeping on though is Dave Bautista, who is great in every scene he's in and clearly enjoying himself immensely. His one line is great - I keep thinking that I've seen the method of his departure before but nothing comes to mind - a tight and tense fight scene that ends in slapstick is something that I think of as a Bond staple, and indeed not a bad simile for the film.

He really deserves to become a meme, popping up in a car, leering at you, never actually hurting you but never going away

And then I guess hurting you quite a lot in a train. Hard to put all that into one image macro though

This just wasn't much fun at all (not for lack of supercars or pyrotechnics). Needed more Moneypenny! Needed more jokes.

Agreed. I heard some bellyaching about how Skyfall was humorless, but that was fun and colorful while this one was beige FPS Bond all around w/the exception of the introduction, maybe. Entertaining enough, I suppose. Waltz is as wasted as Bardem was, and his villain backstory was much more nonsense.

I guess at least Davebomb Batista got some work out of it

It wasn't stolid or self-serious, it just wasn't funny, ever.

I thought this was a gigantic amount of fun.

Kind of a mixed bag, but so much better than Skyfall that I'm not mad or anything.

I REALLY dug Batista here, kinda hoping the character somehow isn't dead and randomly pops up in, whatever, the next reboot or iteration, Craig or no Craig.

There were at least two moments where I wished VegemiteGrrl was in the theater next to me so I could jokingly elbow her after some of her earlier insistences about the plot :)

chekov's cat -- if Q mentions a cat in the first act...

so someone strokes a cat in this?

no comment

this was great! I caught myself being disappointed she didnt get offed at the end, i was feeling the OHMSS nods lol

love a train fight, bautista was so good!!!

the sheer physicality of that fight was amazing, just brutal

might have just been the large screen nature but the 'romance' seemed more intense, lots of close shots of almost-kissing, heavy breathing

i don't know. that scene where Bond "seduces" Monica Bellucci was classic Bond nonsense cheese

I felt like Bellucci was kinda wasted in this, she deserved a bigger role imo

also the Bautista eyeball popping - did he have metal thumbnails? i didnt quite catch them

Fell asleep :(. Was enjoying but just was exhausted. Gonna try again

in the UK they shaved some seconds from 2 scenes to get a 12A, i'm thinking one musta been the eyeball-popper.

This movie kinda convinced me that I'm ready for a return to batshit, balls out Bond movies.

Remember when these movies had tons of random agents and characters, and when they were overtly funny and witty?

but everyone moans when they get too silly, and this is the essential Bond quandary! the lows of the Moore era (Jaws running in slo-mo with his girlfriend at the end of Moonraker, "Hiss off" to a snake in Octopussy etc etc) and the windsurfing Brosnan.. oh man.

i think the Craig 4 have been as good a 'linked' run of popcorn movies as i've ever seen and i hope they do no more in case they spoil it.

i could handle one more

def needed more Belucci but I feel that way about most films

anyone else wonder during the entire last section if he was, in fact, face-blind and the portraits he encountered meant to mock him all looked the same? everyone else either spoke to him first or was very recognizable via voice/smell/size

First three Craig bonds took my money and had their way with me over a cumulative ten hours or so of fun-free overly-expositioned SRS BZNESS griefy mummy issues thug but srsly u gotta get wise sometime and fuck the nolanisation of bond

ps its been done by Dalton, and it didn't take all fucking day either.

xpost i kinda wondered

tell you what's odd.. Skyfall had zero connection to the previous 2 (aside from the characters) mainly i guess because they wanted to have no obvious link to Quantum. but this one has all kinds of .. elements that tie up loose ends from *all 3* of the Dan Craig films. it's weird. soon as you see Vesper *and* Javier in the credits it's like 'woaah WTF'. i wonder if the writing guys had originally wanted the new Mr White scenes and suchlike, in Skyfall but someone poo-pooed it.

At least White was in Casino Royale and a dangling loose end from Quantum's introduction. Feel like they deliberately ignored Quantum as much as possible because, well, it was awful

Also I suspect you're right about Skyfall, they seemingly intentionally cut ties to Quantum, which was annoying considering how the movie ended so open

But what do they even tie up from the other three films, really? Kind felt like the villain in Scream 3 - the guy YOU NEVER KNEW was there from BEFORE the beginning and it turns out he was responsible for EVERYTHING!

I must be the only person who couldn't stand Skyfall, in large part because of the Adele song (sorry).

Really though, no more backstory please, no more connective tissue between episodes, etc. ENOUGH. Spectre "tying together the loose ends" felt super perfunctory.

Also I would dig a movie entirely about Mr White's life more than Spectre itself

Like I saw the movie Friday and was on the fence about it, some good and some bad, but then when I sat down to write a review today all my bile came up

idk, it had most of the things I wanted from a Bond movie & for a Craig joint it was pretty fun. Not giddy but more enjoyable than the usual grim tone

Exotic cold open!
Car chase through Rome!
Imposing henchman!
Alps & a plane chase!
Train fight!
Villain + ACTUAL lair
Cat!

etc

I am more than happy with it & def bump this well above Skyfall

Mr. White all radiation-poisoned, paranoid, and hiding in a basement in the middle of snowy nowhere was a nice scene

Helicopter scene made me wince whenever the copter started looking like it was going to take out hundreds of civilians

$73 M in North America this weekend to Peanuts' $45 M

Why It’s Time to Retire James Bond (As We Know Him)

The 24th Bond film, ‘Spectre,’ is in theaters this Friday. And it’s very, very lame.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/07/why-it-s-time-to-retire-james-bond-as-we-know-it.html

Saw this Friday – that Daily Beast review is pretty much spot-on.

isnt mgm's bond contract up? pretty sure its all gonna get rebooted once that happens.

he warns Scarlett Johansson off in pretty much exactly those terms

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I almost mentioned that, but wondered if that was supposed to be funny.

Much prettier than ScarJo imo

Opinion duly weighted.

thought she looked a lot like naomi watts in the train scene

minus 50% in N America this weekend

will likely be outgrossed by The Martian

Sounds good.

Saw it yesterday. About 40 minutes of fun rattling around inside 2 1/2 hours of pointlessness. When Bond says "It's not over" to Girl, as they're walking out of the Villain's Lair, my wife and I both groaned out loud. Then later, when he's creeping through the abandoned HQ from Skyfall and passes a boat, I immediately thought, "Fuck, there's still a boat chase coming?"

at least they didn't jump over j.w. pepper

mendes's two movies seem determined to resurrect every element of the old format, which i consider a mistake, but it's keeping in line with recent blockbusters (star trek, star wars, terminator, jurassic x, etc.)

I think you can rest assured that these are not films where the director makes all the decisions

yeah, this is probably stating the obvious but there's some funky self-referentiality going on between new movie and old movies and media coverage and audience interaction etc. that made me think baudrillard could have written a hilarious essay on spectre