Some random thoughts on this film:
* If you're going to break the habit of an entire series and not have the audience know everything that James Bond knows, to have him keep secrets from us, then make sure the secrets are decent ones and not stuff that actually ones that, if we'd known them up front, would have made watching the action more enjoyable (not to mention made more sense) and have more emotional resonance. For instance, why not tell us why Bond was in Mexico City before his mission? Watching it his actions felt incredibly irresponsible and dangerous. (I know you could say that about Bond all the time, but it felt particularly so here, especially as it was him, and no one else, who was responsibly for a building collapsing and the helicopter crashing into crowd.) And why not reveal Bond had a foster brother instead of stringing it out? It would've meant his meeting with Blofeld/Chris Waltz would've actually met something.
* If you're going to have Bond fall in love with his leading lady, then introduce her earlier than one hour into the film and please have her played by someone age appropriate. Lea Seydoux is a beautiful and capable and does a decent job, and yes her love scene in Blue is the Warmest Color was very hot, but she's young enough to be his child. They introduce a great Bond girl in Monica Belluci, age appropriate, mysterious, sexy and all that, the sort of person you'd believe he might retire with, but then they discount the character and repeat the whole "come with me if you want to live" thing with Seydoux.
*It's too long - I think in part because so much of the action was cuttable and/or repetitive: as mentioned, there were two "come with me if you want to live" moments, the whole Belluci sequence could've been removed, Moneypenny and Bond have an exchange which consists of "come over to my house" then she's over and his house. There are a lot of scenes which felt as though they could've been cut and/or trimmed.
*The story feels familiar too - another big bad secretive organisation, another person with an ages old resentment against Bond, another threat to the double O regime, another traitor within MI6, another top secret meeting that Bond crashes.
*Judi Dench's appearance from beyond the grave only serves to make us realise how badly she's missed and how Ralph Fiennes' replacement isn't nearly as good. And how bland Moneypenny is. Q is great though.
*James Bond movies shouldn't try to make a real life political point. Us small l liberals have an unwritten rule enjoying these films - we ignore the fact they glorify a paid assassin who never questions the jobs he's given provided we are given non stop escapist action and villains who deserve to be killed. We don't want shades of grey in a Bond film. We definitely don't want lectures on how lots of survelliance is bad. Bad compared to what? A top secret assassination program?
*I really wish they'd actually plotted this as a series instead of awkwardly trying to retcon Spectre's powers. It felt shoved in.
*Is it so hard to have a decent theme song?
*I hated the way Bond let Blofeld live at the end. I felt it was false to character and also inadvertently offered as propaganda for on the spot executions, just like The Dark Knight did when Batman didn't kill the Joker and humanity suffered for it.
Okay now lets have a walk on the sunny side: photography and production design is stunning, there are some typically excellent action machines, some awesome moments such as Blofeld revealing he knows Bond is watching, Bond has his sense of humour back. I liked a lot of it I just wish it had been better and hope that Craig decides to come back for another one to go out on a higher note.
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