Bond #24: SPECTRE

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.

"lots of silliness"

yet not nearly enough really.

true, if they'd really committed to being over the top, it'd have made some scenes make more sense

you have christoph waltz and he's torturing james bond for pure spite, he could have really cut loose and gone all the way

i started rewatching 'on her majesty's secret service' last night and it's full of ridiculous moments but the editing during the fights is excellent, especially for the time. someone really put some work into the cuts. and telly savalas is both menacing and ridiculous, just such a charismatic dude

I don't think turning this movie into a Moore-era flick would improve it.

That was the Lazenby film!

never go full Moore-era

I don't think turning this movie into a Moore-era flick would improve it.

It might, only because the Moore-era movies were 15-20 minutes shorter than the Craig-era ones (except for Quantum, which is one of the shortest movies in the series).

this was just a middle of the road bond movie really. the last one was clearly some sort of high water mark for 00s bond.

no

turning james bond into nolan-era batman isn't a high water mark

the last one was clearly some sort of high water mark for 00s bond.

Ha ha, no. The series has been tumbling downhill since Casino Royale.

xp It totally was, dawg

"turning james bond into nolan-era batman isn't a high water mark"

it adapted the nolan era batman approach in a way that was better, less po-faced, and more fun than actual nolan era batman

"Laughable" is not the same thing as "fun."

it was never laughable, nor was it as funny as some of the pre release interviews made out. that would have made it more entertaining to be honest. it never seemed to quite excel in any one area, it just did a little bit of all the things bond should do, without doing them esp amazingly.

The bit with the rat was quite funny.

It was amazing how similar the Blofeld "reveal" was to the way they treated Khan in Into Darkness. The whole pre-release strategy of "oh he's definitely not who you think he is" followed by the utterly anticlimactic scene where the villain utters his name and 90% of the audience goes "huh?"

Surprised that so many people are saying it picks up with Sedoux's introduction as well. Even by Bond standards her instant transformation from takes no shit independent woman to goo goo eyed love slave ("James, I'm scared") was pretty cringeworthy

Anybody else notice at her weirdo psychiatric retreat centre where Bond has just met her and it's clear the scene's been written as classic on-the-pull Bond filrt fest, and she says something like "enjoy the view?" referring to the stunning alpine vista behind her and Bond is CLEARLY meant to subtextually say "PHWOAAARRRR" on his next line but just mumbles through it. I thought that was shocking. Fair enough if Craig doesn't like the dialogue but it's up to the director to either make that moment happen that way it's supposed to, or change the line

that said the whole middle section was hugely enjoyable despite the worst intentions of all involved and fuiud

HEY IF WALTZ WEARS A BALD WIG I MIGHT SEE THIS EVENTUALLY

He wears a little tiny bald wig on one of his eyeballs, that totally counts.

I didn't think about it but the psychiatric center is almost a callback to OHMSS too -- Blofeld was using an allergy research center w/hypnosis as cover to create brainwashed agents

the aspects of Blofeld: white cat, scar over eye, bald, nehru collar jacket

guess they covered most of them

00's high water mark bond (I would watch a mark bond movie) is casino royale as far as the poker game. Downwards sharply after that.

Felt like a perfectly anonymous Brosnan-era movie. Maybe The World Is Not Enough? I never ever want to see a super-hacker in a Bond movie - especially if it's Q.

ur insane

Nah, super hackers are always terrible. Exception that proves the rule: Nathalie Emmanuel in Fast & Furious 7.

Mr Robot is a whole show about a super hacker which manages to be not terrible.

Only just, tbrr

Fair point (tho I haven't watched it) - super hackers in a film where they're just an adjunct to a filling progress bar are terrible.

At least we didn't get stupid cackling-skull graphics this time like in Skyfall.

(minor spoilers for Sherlock and Spectre) Kinda funny/sad that Andrew Scott pretends to be a superhacker in Sherlock when he's really got moles everywhere, but in this "spy" movie he actually manages to hack into every private camera.

very disappointed that all possible spa hijinks were reduced to one juicing joke.

also, the anti-privacy villain should have been nathan barley, not moriarty.

haven't seen that actor in anything lately, that would have been good

honestly was disappointed that he didn't use the moriarty voice