Director: Sam Mendes
Cast Headliners: Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes, Christoph Waltz, Lea Sydoux
Original Release Date : November 6th, 2015
The time has come for another James
Bond film. And while Spectre delivers the staples of a new entry, it
also brings in some cool connections as well. This is the fourth
incarnation of Craig, and the second by director Sam Mendes so coming
off the excellent Skyfall hopes were high. It lives up to a good
amount but not all of those hopes but is overall pretty
recommendable. But who can hate a Bond film, Quantum of Solace
aside....
The movie picks up with a amazingly
cool looking sequence in Mexico during a Day of the Dead festival.
James Bond (Daniel Craig)'s world has been shaken up after the events
of the last film and he's on a mission to track evil to its source.
Scenes like this , with its colorful locale and skeleton costumes,
really showcase Mendes' skills from a cinematic aspect. There's some
greatly shot pieces from a visual aspect, whether its the pop of the
unique scenery, sweeping vistas, crazy car chases, or following
people through facilities. His touch has definitely been evident and
one would hope he can return again. The one who also brings back good
form is Craig with his ever great balance of charisma and coolness.
Q (Ben Whishaw), Ms.Moneypenny (Naomi Harris), and the new M (Ralph
Fiennes) also bring back their great supporting presence and actually
get to be a bit more in on the action this time.
On that action specifically there are
some quality things. Sequences like the finale and various encounters
with Hinx (Dave Bautista who is all too undeveloped) are intense and
exciting. Action makes sense and is visceral (with a couple
exaggerated moments up to variable enjoyment depending on how crazy
one likes to see their Bond films get) but that's when it happens.
A problem with the film is its pacing
. A bit too long is spent in some sequences that could have been
spent in others. While everything makes sense there is just some
meandering moments in parts of the plot and repeated themes both from
within the film and from Skyfall.
However once the plot gets going to
its best beats its great. This comes from meeting characters like
new head of British Intelligence C (Andrew Scott) who is shaking up
Bond's organization, main “Bond girl” Dr.Swann (a great Lea
Seydoux), and of course from the villian in Franz Oberhauser
(Christoph Waltz). Waltz, and his character's syndicate SPECTRE
(brought from classic franchise films) are presented wonderfully.
Their evil operation and objectives leads to some great scenes and
really ties into all of the Craig films in some cool ways. And as
for the man himself, his performances are so good. His villain is
deliciously, diabolically evil. The problem is that there's not
enough of him. Due to various circumstances, he gets sidelined to
happenings. Between this and the sparse action the film does not use
enough of its strong suits.
But though those good moments make up
for any plodding. They keep one going through the film which arguably
nearly matches the best of the franchise but falls short through
little innovation. That doesn't mean its not a overall entertaining
showdown, and perhaps says that sometimes all that a good James Bond
film needs is just another adventure done mostly solidly. 8.3 out of
10
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