Bond #24: SPECTRE

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

was hyped for this, but it never quite hit its stride until the scenes with lea sedoux. the self referential stuff never quite added up to much, dont think i needed ANOTHER film (or have there been less than i think?) where bond is going rogue - cant he just have normal missions? and belluci was in it for like 5 mins, which was weird (also her performance seemed quite terrible). it was a fun watch, but i would like a bond film that sort of feels like it coheres a bit more, the first 30 mins or so seemed to be quite choppy.

also, chris waltz was underused. he was more villainous in tim burtons big eyes!

As I said above, I'm not sure that the canon-wanking (including a lot of Waltz's character - based on not one but two book characters!) is for any actual audience.

saw thus yesterday, thought it was poor enough. waltz is basically austin powers level. the actual evil plot and the james bond solo run didn't really combine that well - it felt weird for bond to just arrive at a base and get captured and tortured. what did he think would happen? he just walked in.

there were some good scenes, agree thay lea sedoux was great - the train scene was really good. most of the action sequences were good too. there were a few ludicrous and/or camp bits but i guess they felt in the spirit of the classic bond movies.

also felt like there were a lot of dumb parts, like i realise suspension of disbelief is important for all blockbusters, but just silly moments, eg lea sedoux just removed her own gag off her head at the end.

lastly, dunno if it was the cinema i saw this in, but loads of the dialogue was really garbled i thought.

also i know its not a serious political movie or anything, but they could have fleshed out the motive for the plot just a bit...

daniel craig should give it a break now though - he looks genuinely tired of it, or maybe just tired...

haha I was reminded of Austin Powers too once they got to the volcano lair and Waltz dressed as dr. Evil (makes sense since Evil was 70s Blofeld spoof, again I wish there was an idiosyncratix Baudrillard riff on this)

how about the boat chasing a helicopter
or the evil trafficking/medicine/terrorist conglomerate meeting eyes wide shut style etc etc lots of silliness idd

the monica bellucci sex scene was pretty stupid too - i'd need to see the script cos i can't remember it exactly, but i remember feeling it was maybe one line away from descending into total farce.