64% on Rotten Tomatoes
Chloe's thoughts: Low-energy entertainment
Watch this if you: Want to be disappointed in a James Bond film; have nothing better to do; have friends over and aren't sure what is a good film to watch while everyone is talking over it; want to watch beautiful cars but not beautiful chase scenes; want to be let down by a villain who was hyped up quite a lot
Man I was pretty keen on seeing Spectre since I was having exams when it came out, but then I heard all these negative reviews about it! People were comparing it to the god forsaken Quantum of Solace, and I suddenly became terrified. I still had hope for it though, because the trailers looked amazing.
In the end, it was still pretty decent. The main issue was that it was super super long, with a total run time of 2.5 hours.
On top of that, the villain was terrible. Don't get me wrong, Christoph Waltz as per usual was great, but they seriously wasted his talent. His character didn't do ANYTHING and his part of the story was completely unconvincing. We all saw that menacing shot of him in the trailer; they hyped it up heaps for us and all for what? Nothing! His character was pathetic.
Another thing is that they tried to tie in some events of the other three films, but they did this so sloppily; the script was terribly unconvincing, and then on top of that you add the villain's unconvincing backstory and you get a waste of a great talent.
But okay, surely it wasn't as bad as Quantum of Solace, right?!
Well, there were actually some good points about this film.
Firstly, Daniel Craig is sexier than ever here. He's just so suave in this! Yeh, okay, maybe the rough and careless Daniel Craig Bond we all know and love now does care that his martinis should be shaken and not stirred (I'm not kidding, this was actually a point that a movie critic brought up), but you can tell that the whole film is still continuing with his rule-breaking, impulsive and unpredictable legacy.
David Bautista (Drax the Destroyer himself) was great in this, and made any fight scene he was involved in great.
Unfortunately, though, the first car chase scene was really nothing special. But, luckily the cars are beautiful enough for you to be distracted for the overly tame nature of the car chase.
The best thing I loved about this film though...the open sequence. My absolute love for long takes made me fall in love with this film right at the beginning. That single tracking shot in the Day of the Dead parade was so fantastically done, it made me so happy.
Then we get to the title sequence, and it just goes downhill. Like, it wasn't bad but it was just really weird for a bond film. It had a lot more realistic imagery in it, rather than cartoons and graphics overlaid on top of one another. It was also weird because it sort of alluded to things that were going to happen in the film, thus the title sequence even acted as a mild spoiler. It also kind of refreshed your memory of the first three films, which made it more obvious and less fun when you 'discovered' how this movie linked to the first three films.
So overall, I went in to this with a really low expectation, but honestly, it was alright. It's not as great as Casino Royale or Skyfall, but it's definitely better than Quantum of Solace. If anything, just watch it for the opening Day of the Dead sequence; that one long take, as well as all the costumes... simply amazing. The entire cast still does a great job, the cars are beautiful, and some of the action scenes were great. The only issues are that it was (and, more importantly, felt) super long, and the way they wrote the villain was terrible unconvincing. Apart from that, I still think it's worth the watch.
A few side notes:
No comments:
Post a Comment