Spectre (2015)

Plot: Set not long after the events of Skyfall, Bond has been going on off-the-book missions given to him via a posthumous message from the previous M. The current M suspends him from field duty, but naturally Bond ignores it, and investigates further until he discovers the secret organization, SPECTRE and its mysterious leader, Franz Oberhauser. Meanwhile, the current M is going through a power struggle with MI5 and MI6 merging as C, the head of the privately-backed Joint Intelligence Service convinces Britain to join this global surveillance and intelligence co-operation initiative.

My first thought about this movie, is that it is basically a modernized version of your standard James Bond film. Throughout the film, you're seeing the more familiar beats in what happens in a Bond film: the deadly trap(s), sleeping with at least two women, the love interest that gets involved because of some connection with the enemy that puts her in danger, the chases in a city or the mountains, a supporting villain that's a big brawny guy that he defeats halfway through (basically sort of the new Jaws) and so on and so forth. I know some of this is in the other Daniel Craig films, being that they are Bond films and everything, but with the first three films (albeit at a small extent with Quantum of Solace), they were breaking the mold with the basic structure of the James Bond story. This film on the other hand, makes me feel like I'm watching a Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan Bond film, except it's a Daniel Craig film and all the big CGI effects and great cinematography that goes with it. And even though I admit that it was a little distracting for me, I'm not saying that it really hurts the movie. It is done well. The action is good, the story is investing, the cinematography, again, is great, and all around, I would much rather prefer a Roger Moore-like Bond film with Daniel Craig than an actual Roger Moore Bond film. But if you wish they kept breaking the mold like they did with the last three, I understand.

Daniel Craig was great as Bond as per usual - I honestly would be down with him being Bond long enough to have made more Bond films than Moore did. (Man, I need to calm down a little with the Moore hate.) Léa Seydoux was a good Bond girl. She was well acted and she and Craig developed good chemistry with their characters. The supporting cast had their moments too - I personally liked how Moneypenny was part of the team to stop the villain at the climax. But speaking of the villain, part of what held this movie back was the lack of time with Christoph Waltz as Oberhauser. When I saw his name in the beginning credits sequence, I started to become more invested in the film then when I came into the theater. But after his brief mysterious introduction, we do not see him again for a really long time. It got to the point where I was growing restless and thinking to myself "Yes this fight/romance development/dramatic scene are all well and good, but where the dickens is Waltz?" And when we finally do get him, he's great. He was dark, he was charming, he was a ton of fun...but man do I wish there was more. I mean come on, it's freaking Christoph Waltz as a Bond villain. As Jeremy Jahns put it in his own review, "that should be a home run right there, but it's really not." It's great when he's there, but what they do with him is an almost complete waste of oppertunity, and it's really sad.

The other problem I have with this movie is the subplot with the global surveillance and intelligence thing that C is working on. While it did lead to some suspenseful moments during the climax, the story itself has been done already. I've seen other reviewers name a couple of film that this story line is similar to, but for me, this sounded a little like the last third or so of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

And that's my review for Spectre. It has a weak subplot and may as basically wasted the potential for the villain, but that aside, it's well shot, the action is good, the actors are enjoyable and the story works well enough as an updated version of your everyday Bond film. It's not as good as Casino Royale or Skyfall, but you can be darn well sure that it's better than Quantum of Solace.

Rating: 70%