Finally, after a 3 year wait, we get another Bond movie…
Spectre. As often happens with Bond movies, my initial determination to
critique this movie faded as soon as the gun barrel sequence began, instantly
turning me into the hopeless fanboy that I often am. This continued throughout
the opening sequence, possibly the most electrifying in the entire series, and
ended only when the movie actually began. Why am I telling you all this?
Because I need an opening paragraph.
So anyway, Spectre opens with one of the greatest
introductions in Bond history, and slowly descends into mediocrity. Then, we
get more pulse-pounding action and it’s great again. Then it descends into
mediocrity again, and then it’s great again. This is largely what the movie is
like up until its fantastic third act. As it turns out, you’ll enjoy Spectre
most if you don’t view it as a stand-alone movie, but as the conclusion to a
story that has spanned four movies. This may be one reason the movie was
despised by so many people, but loved by so many others. Much of the emotion in
this movie is implied rather than directly stated, and for me this worked. For
others, though, it won’t.
This is absolutely not a traditional Bond film, but if
you’ve watched any of Craig’s Bond movies, then you’ll expect that. However,
towards the end, (spoiler-ish-ish-ish stuff) Bond finally makes the transition
from the cold-hearted, damaged assassin that we’ve come to love to the more
traditional character that older audiences will be more familiar with. For some
people, this was simply a lazy transition and a lame attempt to please both
crowds. For me, it was an excellent completion of the character development
that Bond has been slowly going through over the course of these movies. Now,
I’m not simply giving its faults a stamp of approval just because it’s a Bond
movie. I don’t deny that is certainly has flaws, even a lot of them. The pacing
is a bit off in some places, the romance is forced, the second act is all over
the place, and several situations are resolved too easily. But ultimately,
these flaws are overcome by many rewarding moments. Also, I feel that I should
mention that Thomas Newman’s score, while not perfect, is a vast improvement
over Skyfall’s, and certainly helps escalate the tension in many scenes. While
the movie is, in the end, not as good as Skyfall, it is a worthy successor and
an excellent ending chapter for Craig’s Bond, who has been, in my opinion, the
best Bond by far. 3.7/5 stars.
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