Apologies that my review of the film is this late, but I just saw the film this weekend.
After the first draft of the script had been made available, I had seen enough of different bits of it from different sites to have and idea of what was going to happen in all the acts. This was not a problem for me as I knew that they would be changing it though further drafts and also because I knew what I would actually end up seeing visually would further improve my experience. Knowing a recipe is one thing but seeing it and tasting it is something else.
The PTS from a cinematic POV was really well done. It almost seemed as if Hitchcock had storyboarded it. It really was a great way to open a Bond - in the middle of a festival celebrating the dead with skull icons everywhere. I loved the building facade collapse and Craig ending up on the sofa, then walking out and seeing the villain and each being surprised they ended up facing each other.
The initial chase through the crowds started to give me a bit of visual disturbance, but once they got to the square and into the helicopter stunt I was fine. The whole stunt was good and brutal and it was a good segue into the ring and the credits sequence, though I still can't figure out why Bond took the ring during the fight. Did he see the villain use that as a calling card in the room meeting?
The credit visuals were Ian Fleming creepy (sex/mystery/violence) though they seemed to be copying some of the ideas from SF (broken glass, mirrors, shadows,etc). They did help distract a bit from the song, though not enough. It would not have been as bad had there been no falsetto bits in the bridge and the bridge itself been cut down to fewer lines. As it stands, those parts for me damage it enough to make it one of another of those I will chose not to own on a soundtrack (along with DAD and QOS).
I enjoyed all of Craig's London sequences in the first act. You could tell he's really into the character (his confidence, his wry humor and his attitude in getting a job done). I enjoyed Q even more in this film and he's been made a more human character since a lot of people have cats and mortgages. I liked how Bond was to be deprived of the new AM and ended up "borrowing it" even though it wasn't quite field ready yet (referenced in a nice amusing way in the Rome chase later). I had a hard time accepting they were putting the DB5 back together as it was so demolished in the last film - though the joke about getting only one piece back was good.
The funeral scene was a pleasure to watch - cinematically well designed and staged. I enjoyed the dialogue - Bond saying he was in life insurance and the little - lets face it - thumb nosing wave at the goon shadowing her. It's one of things I enjoy about the Bond character - he is so sure of himself and has such dislike for the bad guys he will find any excuse, even a small one like this, to basically "poke the bear" and annoy it.
The following scene at the villa was okay, though I don't think Bond would have waited for the two killers to get in place and begin to raise their weapons before taking them out. He would have dispatched them upon arrival (and they could have shown him doing it that way and left a little more time to interact with her in this scene. However, these scenes (as with many in the film) are handled and shot with a presence of design and style that give the Bond series that extra polish of class that sets it apart from other action films.
The SPECTRE meeting was nice and eerie and I like how they kept Blofeld in shadow and you could not here him talking to his assistants. The car chase was fun and even though the bit with the Fiat was a nice joke I could have done without it - it just lengthened the film and had too much of a Roger Moore feeling to it. The parachute escape was fine for the old EON series but seemed a bit out of place in Craig's reboot. If this had been in QOS, he would have bailed out of the car and the villain would have also ended up in the river.
The Austrian scenes were entertaining - I liked that the weather was overcast which gave it a more realistic and oppressive feeling. The total lack of skiing to me was an obvious choice because it had already been done so many times in the series and they wanted this to bit different in the execution. Though I always hated Q being in the field in the past I didn't this time as he actually had a good reason to be there. It also gave him and Bond more screen time to interact and display there professional relationship. My biggest gripe with this sequence is that Bond didn't make sure Hinx was dead. They could have written this in a different way so he could show up later in the train fight, but this didn't seem very logical to me for Bond not to be certain Hinx was a corpse on that truck hood.
Originally I could not understand why Bond and her would have packed formal clothing for a desert train ride, but when I finally saw the scenes in the hotel room I realized they believed there was a large chance they would not survive the trip so they figured they would at least make the best of it (sort of a condemned's last meal or a last cigarette before being executed). They may have also figured if they did succeed why not have a first class celebratory meal at a formal place afterward?
The fight was great - really brutal and it looked real and I liked Hinx's reaction when he realized he was about to go out the door. Some have had a problem with Bond and her diving into bed right after that, but it was a life affirming release from the near death experience and perhaps a last chance to ever do this in their life again giving the possibility their final destination could be their final destination.
Now, here is where I wish they would have fixed the final draft. They should have had Bond and her spend more time with Blofeld (in the first draft I think he had dinner with them and that's when they escaped). I didn't like the torture scene only because it was a bit too cliche for me (just a high tech version of tying the hero in front of the table buzz saw). Yes they were trying to show how cruel Blofeld was but it was lazy way to do it and the only thing that helped was the quality of the acting. I would have preferred the original dinner/escape and a lengthier battle/escape. They could have combined this with Q and M defeating C back in London, then having Bond go off with her and for the final scene reveal the disfigured Blofeld somewhere briefly having escaped the destruction of his HQ then the end credits.
Instead we have them escape from the HQ without a lot of trouble (sort of like Brosnan would have done) with lot of well placed shots. The entire last act in London now seems anti-climatic and overdrawn. The whole bit with the photos of the characters from Craigs previous missions too Joker like - then he miraculously finds her just in time to escape the building (though the fall to the net was fine and made sense).
Shooting down the helicopter with the pistol. Why not have had the boat equipped with a automatic weapon or rifle? I could have bought him taking it out with that. Granted he had to make many shots to get it right, but it still looked a bit silly to me.
The final was handled fine for me though. I liked that he chose to not kill Blofeld (echoing M's line about knowing when not to kill) but instead go off with her. Leaving in the DB5 was a nice touch as well, though I would have shown it outside a cabin back in Austria with the two smiling at each other just before skiing off down the mountain.
Great review! you nailed it. I specially loved your ending. Please, contact EON and help them with Bond 25. Really, I mean it.
Without getting too forensic about the various elements of the movie, here's the Cliffnotes:
1. If you're over 35 and find absolutely no flaws in the campy nature of some of the latter Moore films, you will enjoy Spectre
2. If you prefer the Connery and initial Craig films and maintain a solid understanding that Flemming's Bond would have been former SAS and at least quazi-psychotic (thereby self-medicated by alcohol), you'll hate Spectre and how unrealistic and unimaginative it was. Barbara Broccoli said it herself in Everything or Nothing: Bond has an inner dialogue, he can't have a family. There's no walking off into the sunset holding hands for this breed of man. The cheddar unleashed by Mendes was way too difficult to take. Bond fanboys remind me of iPhone disciples. Tie their hands and they're happy to be controlled.
1. If you're over 35 and find absolutely no flaws in the campy nature of some of the latter Moore films, you will enjoy Spectre
2. If you prefer the Connery and initial Craig films and maintain a solid understanding that Flemming's Bond would have been former SAS and at least quazi-psychotic (thereby self-medicated by alcohol), you'll hate Spectre.
Your emoticon responses have been wildly inspirational..
Which finishing school did you say you attended again?
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,998Quartermasters
Fleming himself had Bond get married. As this is rebooted Bond, perhaps things are about to be reimagined?
And I'm over 35, aren't particularly enamoured with Moore, love Craig and Connery---and quite enjoyed SP while acknowledging its flaws. No Bond, not even Craig---or perhaps especially Craig---should stay one-note for his entire run..because God knows people will complain about that as well 8-) If you feel SP is the worst Bond of all time, then fine. Revel in that; roll around in it. And then congratulate yourself on your erudition.
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
No Bond, not even Craig---or perhaps especially Craig---should stay one-note for his entire run..because God knows people will complain about that as well 8-)
{[]
"Hostile takeovers. Shall we?"
New 2020 ranking (for now DAF and FYEO keep their previous placements)
1. TLD 2. TND 3. GF 4. TSWLM 5. TWINE 6. OHMSS 7. LtK 8. TMWTGG 9. L&LD 10. YOLT 11. DAD 12. QoS 13. DN 14. GE 15. SF 16. OP 17. MR 18. AVTAK 19. TB 20. FRWL 21. CR 22. FYEO 23. DAF (SP to be included later)
Bond actors to be re-ranked later
Spectre, all my life I've been in love with it's chacters, its divine campiness. I welcome
any review that will increase my enjoyment. Which is considerable !
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
2. If you prefer the Connery and initial Craig films and maintain a solid understanding that Flemming's Bond
Fleming 's Bond
would have been former SAS
which he wasn't - he was former RN during wartime and RNVR thereafter
and at least quazi-psychotic (thereby self-medicated by alcohol)
which he wasn't - his alcohol consumption echoed Fleming's and many of his contemporaries and was for enjoyment rather than medication; plus there is no evidence of psychosis in the novels (or the Connery or early Craig films) or it would have been mentioned for sure by M or Sir James Molony;
Barbara Broccoli said it herself in Everything or Nothing: Bond has an inner dialogue, he can't have a family. There's no walking off into the sunset holding hands for this breed of man.
yet Fleming's Bond was married, and it ended in tragedy through enemy action, rather than some character flaw or psychosis in Bond.
Bond fanboys remind me of iPhone disciples. Tie their hands and they're happy to be controlled.
Ouch! We might need some self-medication for that burn
Your emoticon responses have been wildly inspirational..
Which finishing school did you say you attended again?
@frost - can you please change your attitude a bit?
You are entiteled to have your own opinion and to voice it - but that ends when you (and I am being polite) behave condescending or worse against others.
Age, school education etc don't matter in that sort of discussion but I am confident that chris ranks higher in both criteria compared to yourself. You're even not able to spell Fleming right!
President of the 'Misty Eyes Club'.
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
Absolutely nothing wrong with coming across as smug and superior -{ most
people on AJB,, try and be nice and inoffensive to others. So it's a breath of
fresh air to read posts from someone who doesn't care about the feelings of others.
keep it up.
Chrisisall, needed to be taken down a peg ot two, whith all his being cool and funny,
informative, polite, and a really nice guy.
So long live the condescending posts.
Still your opinion is just as valid as anyone else's, if it's noy your cup of tea
fine, I'm certain many others are, and look forward to your reviews and opinions
of them.
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
Chrisisall, needed to be taken down a peg ot two, whith all his being cool and funny,
informative, polite, and a really nice guy.
So long live the condescending posts.
No, he needed to receive a smack or two for being a Timboy - and a bad one so X-(
President of the 'Misty Eyes Club'.
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
Spectre is probably the worst Bond film I've ever seen. I'll watch QoS a dozen times before watching that garbage again,
Probably just above AVTAK and OP for me but I totally agree.
I have some quibbles with it, mainly that it could have been so very very good indeed. But the worst? really, have you seen...( titles omitted as I really don't want to start a war or offend but please feel free to insert your own choices) BTW it's a rhetorical device and not an assumption that your knowledge is incomplete
Of that of which we cannot speak we must pass over in silence- Ludwig Wittgenstein.
You are entiteled to have your own opinion and to voice it - but that ends when you (and I am being polite) behave condescending or worse against others.
Since you made it a point to harp on my typo, I'd like to educate you as to the proper spelling of "entitled." You're welcome.
Age, school education etc don't matter in that sort of discussion but I am confident that chris ranks higher in both criteria compared to yourself. You're even not able to spell Fleming right!
frost, this IS a James Bond site- spelling "Fleming" incorrectly is a bigger faux pas than someone whose native language isn't English making an odd slip. How's your German?
And do please try to be a little more pleasant in tone- your opinion is of course a valid one.
This is why I think Blofeld should've had a back story as the killer of Bond's parents.
First, the "Daddy loved you more than me" motivation has come in for a lot of (I believe justified) criticism.
First, it's just lame. Every family has sibling rivalries but people don't become mega-criminals because of it. There are people losing their entire families to war and terrorism and they don't become mega-criminals. The fact that Bond was a foster child could make it worse (or maybe not), but this raises the second problem, what exactly happened that caused Blofeld to become the epitome of evil?
In Skyfall we understood Silva's beef with M (turned over to the Chinese, horribly tortured, permanantly disfigured) and we could even sympathize. Yet we never got any details as to what happened Blofeld. Was he horribly humiliated by Bond and his father? Or maybe Blofeld's just overly sensitive. No way to tell.
Finally, this whole back story makes Blofeld look pathetic. He turned to a life of crime because he had "daddy issues?"
Please, Blofeld can be a num er of things, but he can't be pathetic.
Blofeld's whole back story could have been left out entirely but then the film would've felt even more like a generic action-adventure film.
So, I say, make Blofeld the killer of Bond's parents. It would've fit in with Flemings novels as well as Skyfall. Bond's father worked as an executive for Vickers Defense Systems so there would be an angle to have him killed by the KGB if he was about to discover the sale of secrets to the Soviets, say. Murder could be covered up to look like a climbing accident.
It would make sense that a guy who was a KGB killer in the Eighties could end up being an enormously wealthy tycoon (like Putin) after the Wall fell.
Most importantly, this would transfer the emotional center of the film back to the character we care about - Bond. The formative event of his life laid bare (at least as far as Craig's Bond is concerned). Plus I could see Waltz having a great time describing how he killed Bond's parents, all the steps and precautions he took, so it would look like an accident. This would be a truly memorable scene-the torture for Bond would be worse than the silly dentist's chair. If Bond said anything, Blofeld could ask him "And how many widows and orphans have you created, Mr. Bond?" which gets back to the film's central story of a guy who doesn't want to be a hit man anymore.
Finally, I got the feeling this was supposed to be a "Big Bond." If so, you needed big motivations and big emotions. If Blofeld was the killer of Bond's parents, it would've really meant something when Bond throws the gun away at the end.
I suppose the complaint would be "it's too much like Batman." First, the killer of Wayne's parents was a minor league hoodlum ("Joe Chill") so there's no comparison to Blofeld. Second, writers have been making good use of orphans for centuries, everyone from Dickens and Twain to JK Rowling, so there's no reason why EON shouldn't exploit Bond's backstory as an orphan.
Every family has sibling rivalries but people don't become mega-criminals because of it. There are people losing their entire families to war and terrorism and they don't become mega-criminals. The fact that Bond was a foster child could make it worse (or maybe not), but this raises the second problem, what exactly happened that caused Blofeld to become the epitome of evil?
I don't know and I really don't have to. He was a bad seed that was destined for that level of evil. That he had Bond in his life for a very short time just gave his river of psychosis an additional eddy.
Fleming himself had Bond get married. As this is rebooted Bond, perhaps things are about to be reimagined?
And I'm over 35, aren't particularly enamoured with Moore, love Craig and Connery---and quite enjoyed SP while acknowledging its flaws. No Bond, not even Craig---or perhaps especially Craig---should stay one-note for his entire run..because God knows people will complain about that as well 8-) If you feel SP is the worst Bond of all time, then fine. Revel in that; roll around in it. And then congratulate yourself on your erudition.
So, I say, make Blofeld the killer of Bond's parents. It would've fit in with Flemings novels as well as Skyfall. Bond's father worked as an executive for Vickers Defense Systems so there would be an angle to have him killed by the KGB if he was about to discover the sale of secrets to the Soviets, say. Murder could be covered up to look like a climbing accident.
Most importantly, this would transfer the emotional center of the film back to the character we care about - Bond. The formative event of his life laid bare (at least as far as Craig's Bond is concerned). Plus I could see Waltz having a great time describing how he killed Bond's parents, all the steps and precautions he took, so it would look like an accident. This would be a truly memorable scene-the torture for Bond would be worse than the silly dentist's chair. If Bond said anything, Blofeld could ask him "And how many widows and orphans have you created, Mr. Bond?" which gets back to the film's central story of a guy who doesn't want to be a hit man anymore.
Without getting too forensic about the various elements of the movie, here's the Cliffnotes:
1. If you're over 35 and find absolutely no flaws in the campy nature of some of the latter Moore films, you will enjoy Spectre
2. If you prefer the Connery and initial Craig films and maintain a solid understanding that Flemming's Bond would have been former SAS and at least quazi-psychotic (thereby self-medicated by alcohol), you'll hate Spectre and how unrealistic and unimaginative it was. Barbara Broccoli said it herself in Everything or Nothing: Bond has an inner dialogue, he can't have a family. There's no walking off into the sunset holding hands for this breed of man. The cheddar unleashed by Mendes was way too difficult to take. Bond fanboys remind me of iPhone disciples. Tie their hands and they're happy to be controlled.
I'm well over 35 and love all the Moore films, but that doesn't make me enjoy Spectre just as much. Moore put his campy signature in his movies. Craig is just badly copying Moore, and all that after trying NOT to copy Moore in his previous movies. The lack of continuity disappoints me. Having said that, Spectre is WAY better than QoS. Not sure if it is because or despite the camp elements. Then again... which Bond movie is NOT better than QoS??? ) ) )
Yes, I know Fleming had Bond married in OHMSS. The subsequent murder of his wife further illustrates my point in that marriage was something he could never truly have. Tossing the Walther off a bridge and walking away hand-in-hand to disavow a lifelong career as an assassin is just insulting the intelligence of the viewer. The emotionally sensitive Bond is not the one Craig set sail with, and frankly I find the attempts to continuously nod at the old films rather pathetic.
While most of QoS was regrettable for a number of reasons, I still enjoyed it much more than I could ever enjoy Spectre. I had hoped this would be a more intellectual script that attempted to modernize the franchise and focus on how spies remain relevant today (Uh.. Homeland anyone?). Perhaps something a little deeper that built on where we left off with Skyfall. Nope. We get a giant disorganized brain fart from Sam Mendes culminating in the oft-used overly elaborate enemy base that tumbled into ruin after a few shots from a machine gun, a comically engineered torture device that would quickly draw an eye-roll from Le Chiffre, and boring unnecessary chase scenes that left me staring at my watch. I personally had no interest in seeing the Bond films take a step backward into a gentler, more sensitive anti-hero film. Nope, it reeks of contradiction.
I personally had no interest in seeing the Bond films take a step backward into a gentler, more sensitive anti-hero film. Nope, it reeks of contradiction.
Not for me. But. We all have our expectations & desires for the films. In MY case, Dalton's two are the pinnacle of Bond. Any other newer films I groove to (like QOS or SP) are icing on the franchise IMO. To top TLD or LTK would be like proof there is a cinematic God or something. )
Anything's possible.
Comments
Great review! you nailed it. I specially loved your ending. Please, contact EON and help them with Bond 25. Really, I mean it.
1. If you're over 35 and find absolutely no flaws in the campy nature of some of the latter Moore films, you will enjoy Spectre
2. If you prefer the Connery and initial Craig films and maintain a solid understanding that Flemming's Bond would have been former SAS and at least quazi-psychotic (thereby self-medicated by alcohol), you'll hate Spectre and how unrealistic and unimaginative it was. Barbara Broccoli said it herself in Everything or Nothing: Bond has an inner dialogue, he can't have a family. There's no walking off into the sunset holding hands for this breed of man. The cheddar unleashed by Mendes was way too difficult to take. Bond fanboys remind me of iPhone disciples. Tie their hands and they're happy to be controlled.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Cheddar is easy to diagnose. Watch Everything or Nothing.
Spectre is probably the worst Bond film I've ever seen. I'll watch QoS a dozen times before watching that garbage again,
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Your emoticon responses have been wildly inspirational..
Which finishing school did you say you attended again?
And I'm over 35, aren't particularly enamoured with Moore, love Craig and Connery---and quite enjoyed SP while acknowledging its flaws. No Bond, not even Craig---or perhaps especially Craig---should stay one-note for his entire run..because God knows people will complain about that as well 8-) If you feel SP is the worst Bond of all time, then fine. Revel in that; roll around in it. And then congratulate yourself on your erudition.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
New 2020 ranking (for now DAF and FYEO keep their previous placements)
1. TLD 2. TND 3. GF 4. TSWLM 5. TWINE 6. OHMSS 7. LtK 8. TMWTGG 9. L&LD 10. YOLT 11. DAD 12. QoS 13. DN 14. GE 15. SF 16. OP 17. MR 18. AVTAK 19. TB 20. FRWL 21. CR 22. FYEO 23. DAF (SP to be included later)
Bond actors to be re-ranked later
any review that will increase my enjoyment. Which is considerable !
Fleming 's Bond
which he wasn't - his alcohol consumption echoed Fleming's and many of his contemporaries and was for enjoyment rather than medication; plus there is no evidence of psychosis in the novels (or the Connery or early Craig films) or it would have been mentioned for sure by M or Sir James Molony;
yet Fleming's Bond was married, and it ended in tragedy through enemy action, rather than some character flaw or psychosis in Bond.
Ouch! We might need some self-medication for that burn
@frost - can you please change your attitude a bit?
You are entiteled to have your own opinion and to voice it - but that ends when you (and I am being polite) behave condescending or worse against others.
Age, school education etc don't matter in that sort of discussion but I am confident that chris ranks higher in both criteria compared to yourself. You're even not able to spell Fleming right!
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
people on AJB,, try and be nice and inoffensive to others. So it's a breath of
fresh air to read posts from someone who doesn't care about the feelings of others.
keep it up.
Chrisisall, needed to be taken down a peg ot two, whith all his being cool and funny,
informative, polite, and a really nice guy.
So long live the condescending posts.
Still your opinion is just as valid as anyone else's, if it's noy your cup of tea
fine, I'm certain many others are, and look forward to your reviews and opinions
of them.
No, he needed to receive a smack or two for being a Timboy - and a bad one so X-(
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
Probably just above AVTAK and OP for me but I totally agree.
I have some quibbles with it, mainly that it could have been so very very good indeed. But the worst? really, have you seen...( titles omitted as I really don't want to start a war or offend but please feel free to insert your own choices) BTW it's a rhetorical device and not an assumption that your knowledge is incomplete
Perhaps my tone, but not my attitude.
Since you made it a point to harp on my typo, I'd like to educate you as to the proper spelling of "entitled." You're welcome.
And do please try to be a little more pleasant in tone- your opinion is of course a valid one.
And I meant attitude when I've said it 8-)
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
Yeah, I mean, worse than QOS?
{[]
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
First, the "Daddy loved you more than me" motivation has come in for a lot of (I believe justified) criticism.
First, it's just lame. Every family has sibling rivalries but people don't become mega-criminals because of it. There are people losing their entire families to war and terrorism and they don't become mega-criminals. The fact that Bond was a foster child could make it worse (or maybe not), but this raises the second problem, what exactly happened that caused Blofeld to become the epitome of evil?
In Skyfall we understood Silva's beef with M (turned over to the Chinese, horribly tortured, permanantly disfigured) and we could even sympathize. Yet we never got any details as to what happened Blofeld. Was he horribly humiliated by Bond and his father? Or maybe Blofeld's just overly sensitive. No way to tell.
Finally, this whole back story makes Blofeld look pathetic. He turned to a life of crime because he had "daddy issues?"
Please, Blofeld can be a num er of things, but he can't be pathetic.
Blofeld's whole back story could have been left out entirely but then the film would've felt even more like a generic action-adventure film.
So, I say, make Blofeld the killer of Bond's parents. It would've fit in with Flemings novels as well as Skyfall. Bond's father worked as an executive for Vickers Defense Systems so there would be an angle to have him killed by the KGB if he was about to discover the sale of secrets to the Soviets, say. Murder could be covered up to look like a climbing accident.
It would make sense that a guy who was a KGB killer in the Eighties could end up being an enormously wealthy tycoon (like Putin) after the Wall fell.
Most importantly, this would transfer the emotional center of the film back to the character we care about - Bond. The formative event of his life laid bare (at least as far as Craig's Bond is concerned). Plus I could see Waltz having a great time describing how he killed Bond's parents, all the steps and precautions he took, so it would look like an accident. This would be a truly memorable scene-the torture for Bond would be worse than the silly dentist's chair. If Bond said anything, Blofeld could ask him "And how many widows and orphans have you created, Mr. Bond?" which gets back to the film's central story of a guy who doesn't want to be a hit man anymore.
Finally, I got the feeling this was supposed to be a "Big Bond." If so, you needed big motivations and big emotions. If Blofeld was the killer of Bond's parents, it would've really meant something when Bond throws the gun away at the end.
I suppose the complaint would be "it's too much like Batman." First, the killer of Wayne's parents was a minor league hoodlum ("Joe Chill") so there's no comparison to Blofeld. Second, writers have been making good use of orphans for centuries, everyone from Dickens and Twain to JK Rowling, so there's no reason why EON shouldn't exploit Bond's backstory as an orphan.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
{[]
Excellent suggestion. {[]
I'm well over 35 and love all the Moore films, but that doesn't make me enjoy Spectre just as much. Moore put his campy signature in his movies. Craig is just badly copying Moore, and all that after trying NOT to copy Moore in his previous movies. The lack of continuity disappoints me. Having said that, Spectre is WAY better than QoS. Not sure if it is because or despite the camp elements. Then again... which Bond movie is NOT better than QoS???
Yes, I know Fleming had Bond married in OHMSS. The subsequent murder of his wife further illustrates my point in that marriage was something he could never truly have. Tossing the Walther off a bridge and walking away hand-in-hand to disavow a lifelong career as an assassin is just insulting the intelligence of the viewer. The emotionally sensitive Bond is not the one Craig set sail with, and frankly I find the attempts to continuously nod at the old films rather pathetic.
While most of QoS was regrettable for a number of reasons, I still enjoyed it much more than I could ever enjoy Spectre. I had hoped this would be a more intellectual script that attempted to modernize the franchise and focus on how spies remain relevant today (Uh.. Homeland anyone?). Perhaps something a little deeper that built on where we left off with Skyfall. Nope. We get a giant disorganized brain fart from Sam Mendes culminating in the oft-used overly elaborate enemy base that tumbled into ruin after a few shots from a machine gun, a comically engineered torture device that would quickly draw an eye-roll from Le Chiffre, and boring unnecessary chase scenes that left me staring at my watch. I personally had no interest in seeing the Bond films take a step backward into a gentler, more sensitive anti-hero film. Nope, it reeks of contradiction.
Anything's possible.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS