Spectre Review

     I have seen a lot of movies during my life from a lot of different franchises I love, but the one I love more than any other would be the "James Bond" franchise. If I remember correctly the first "Bond" movie I saw was "The Spy Who Loved Me," starring the longest serving Bond Roger Moore. The action, the characters, the women, I fell in love immediately and continued to love the series for years to come. Now let's be honest, a lot of the "Bond" movies aren't very good; more than a few are bad. And to this day I still believe "Octopussy" isn't just the worst movie in the franchise, but one of the worst movies I've ever seen. But there are a few great "Bond" movies: Dr. No, Goldfinger, Casino Royale, and Skyfall are all fantastic and are easily some of my all time favorite movies. Over the years though the series has gotten some flak for being ridiculous and downright cartoony, but in 2006 the series was given reboot with Daniel Craig as the title character. Taking a cue from the "Bourne" series, the new movies were darker and more series and even touched on a few deep thematic elements. The initial reboot was a huge success with "Casino Royal" receiving critical acclaim, with particular praise going to Craig. While the next movie "Quantum of Solace" was met with some harsh criticism, 2012's "Skyfall" was the series biggest hit and grossed over one billion dollars at the box office. Being such a success, the property owner Sony actually asked the director of "Skyfall" to return one more time for the 24th film in the franchise, "Spectre." But alas, with such a promising movie there is heart break. "Spectre" is likely Daniel Craig's last movie as Bond, which is a shame because he has become the definite Bond actor in the eyes of many fans. So while all great things must come to an end, one question still remains; "how good is Craig's last Bond movie."

     Not long after the events of Skyfall, MI6 agent James Bond receives a message from his recently deceased boss asking him to kill an assassin and track his associates. By doing so Bond accidentally causes an international indecent in Mexico when he practically blows up a city block. While all this is going on, the government has decided to merge MI6 with MI5. The boss of MI5, C, believes that the double O program is obsolete and thinks that the future of surveillance is in technology. While investigating the assassin he learns that he was part of a secret organization of criminals called SPECTRE. So Bond sets out to discover who is behind this organization and what their goal is, but in the end he might not like the answer to either of those questions. 

     "Spectre" was one of my most anticipated movies of the year, not just because I love the series but in the wake of some of the other recent "Bond" movies I was sure that I would love it. In reality though, I only liked it. Now let's get this out of the way, Daniel Craig as James Bond. When I think of Bond, I think of Craig. He has become the definitive Bond of the modern age; and as always he is great as the character in "Spectre." But he isn't alone in this movie; the entire cast does a good job, new and old. Especially Lea Seydoux, who played the leading lady. She did a great job, and I really liked her character; Seydoux and Craig had good chemistry together, and I can see their characters working together and riding off into the sunset. So while I liked her character, some of the other new characters were less impressive; especially the villains. To be honest the villains were just lackluster and unmemorable. Coming off of "Skyfall" which had one of the best villains in the entire series, none of the villains in this movie stood out. Christoph Waltz played the lead antagonist in "Spectre," and while he did a good job his character was not up to par. For a series known for its memorable villains, "Spectre" disappoints in that regard. One thing that the series always gets right though is the action, and "Spectre" has some of the best action scenes in the entire series. What helped with that would be the great production value and huge set pieces. Apparently this is one of the most expensive movies of all time, and you can definitely see it. And just like "Skyfall," "Spectre" is a gorgeous movie to watch. The cinematography is beautiful and some of the best I've seen this year, particularly the opening scene which is mostly one long shot. I would not be surprised if this movie were nominated for best cinematography at the Oscars. And like almost every "Bond" movie, "Spectre" features a great soundtrack. The new songs work great and the classic pieces are always a joy to hear; I didn't love the opening song by Sam Smith, but the accompanying sequence was absolutely beautiful. There were a lot of things about this movie that I really liked, but there is one major flaw that takes almost all the steam out of it; the story is just not good. "Skyfall" had one of the best premises and some of the best writing in the entire series. It was deep and showed a new side of the title character; "Spectre" didn't have any of that. The story was often messy, confusing, and all over the place. There were a few times where I had no idea what was happening and why the characters were doing something. And the whole side plot about how the new boss wants to cancel the double O program was rather uninteresting. There is also so much happening in this movie that it feels bloated at times, which contributed to how unnecessarily long it is. Clocking in at almost two and a half hours, towards the end you are just ready for it wrap up. There were a couple scenes that felt unnecessary all together, and could have been cut. On top of that, some of the dialogwas rather cheesy and sounded stupid when it came out of the characters mouth. That might have worked for the older films, but they can't get away with that in the modern ones. "Spectre" could have been great, it could have been one of the best in the series; but somewhere along the line the people behind it took a wrong turn, and plunged it into mediocrity. It‘s a shame, if this is Craig's last movies as Bond he deserved to retire the character with a better movie. While it shined in some areas, the story, villains, and writing really do drag it down. It's not a bad movie, and overall I did enjoy it. But if asked to list the best "Bond" movies, "Spectre" would not rank that high. 

Pros: Daniel Craig has become the definitive bond, awesome action scenes, great production value and set pieces, good performances from the cast, beautifully shot, great soundtrack, beautiful introduction sequence.

Cons: Much longer than needed, lackluster villains, some bad dialog, issues with the story.

3.5/5 Stars