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SPECTRE - Press reviews and personal reviews (BEWARE! Spoiler reviews allowed)
There will always be big number crunching films like The Avengers, and other spy competitors like Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation out there, but Bond stands apart from them all because it is event cinema. New Bond films are always a massive feature of the year in which they are released (see 2012 for the best proof imaginable), their premieres and lead ups to release are unmatched, and their traditions in style and formula (PTS, opening titles, classic Bond tropes/elements) offer up untold fruits for enjoyment.
But of course, we all know this, otherwise we wouldn't be here. ;)
And sadly, "Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier" was a very good film, that deserved more to be a $1 Billion Dollar hit than "Transformers 4" and "Avengers 2". Sadly it 'only' grossed $714,421,503 globally.
Actually, if you do look at some high-quality, non-3d, non-sci-fi films that end up very high in the all-time box office charts, then I can only think of "Skyfall" (#13, $1,108,561,013), "The Dark Knight Rises" (#15, $1,084,939,099) and "The Dark Knight" (#23, $1,004,558,444).
By the way, "SPECTRE" actually closes in on "The Dark Knight Rises" foreign box office gross: $607,500,000 vs. $636,800,000.
Apart from that, the popularity of this topic perhaps shows that not a lot of people feel to highlight the good parts of the film. Let alone appreciating them :-).
True, I've only seen the film once in the theater so I can't recall everything I loved about it but once it's out on Bluray I'll be so happy to relive it again and further elaborate. :)
I'll be glued to this thread once it's finally out, ooh-ing and aah-ing over all of the amazing little tidbits in the film that I missed in theaters.
You're a funny man Mr Creasy47 :P!
"Will you yield...in time?"
You loved SP as much as I did so you know you'll be doing the same thing! It'll be a blast, I'm sure.
By the way, @Gustav_Graves, that MediaMarkt Dutch version of the SP steelbook seems to have the bonus disc listed as a DVD instead of a blu-ray; even still, it's cool that it'll now be possible to get both the steelbook and the special features disc in one purchase, if one wanted.
Which brings me to my gripes about certain opinions that I have read here. As with Quantum of Solace, we seem to have a small but very vocal minority on this board and on other Bond boards who seem to have hijacked almost every thread in order to trash every little thing wrong that they could find with Spectre. I bring up QOS because we had a lot of the same revisionist history with that film as we are seeing now with Spectre. While QOS did have a legitimate fundamental flaw with the editing, and that editing deserved to be trashed, the revisionists came on these boards and basically proclaimed that QOS was a "universally loathed Bond film". Well nothing could be further from the truth! QOS had similar Rottentomatoes scores as Spectre had, and probably while very few people really loved that film (though there are a decent amount of people who still to this day rank it very high), it was certainly far from universally loathed. The majority of Bond fans, and some of the more casual movie fans liked it, but probably more liked it than disliked it. And yes, while some did loath it, that number was certainly far from a majority.
Well, the same type of nonsense is happening again with Spectre. Similar numbers from Rottentomatoes, but I would argue even more people loved Spectre than QOS judging by the large number of people who have ranked this film in their top 10 Bond films list. Also, about the same number of people disliked this film as QOS. I also think fewer people downright hated this movie than QOS. But again, with at least 37 other threads proclaiming how badly this film "failed", you wouldn't think that was the case. Therefore, I along with many others here am glad there is at least one thread here where people can set the facts straight regarding Spectre. I think it's a modern Bond classic that everyone associated with can be proud of, and a film that will become more well received with age just like OHMSS and LTK became. It made a very solid amount of money at the box office, and it will turn a nice profit despite the higher production costs and revenue dropoff from Skyfall. It will also make a boatload of additional money from DVD and Blu-ray sales, so I don't think anyone associated with this film will have to worry about anyone losing money off of this. And I for one can hardly wait to go pick up my copy when this comes out in the stores next week! Keep up the great work EON! :)
No, it doesn't. The Dutch steelbook has only 1 disc:
http://www.mediamarkt.nl/nl/product/_spectre-steelbook-blu-ray-1419049.html
Whereas the German steelbook lists a full 2-disc set steelbook:
http://www.mediamarkt.de/de/product/_james-bond-spectre-steel-edition-media-markt-exklusiv-action-blu-ray-2090836.html
I have taken my shots at this film but I did and do enjoy it. It was still one if my best Bond experiences in the cinema.
No clue how I can love a film I'm so critical of lol
That's because you care about the Bond films. One wouldn't be so passionate if one didn't care so much. ;)
I'm always looking for an angle, a deeper theme that the film presents. We've discussed SF's themes, regarding new/young and old, quite a bit. So what's the meat of SP? I'll go with this:This is a film about our living selves and our dead selves. It's about duality.
1. Everything you need to know about the film's deeper themes is in the first few minutes--the opening words, "The dead are alive" is a pretty good clue. So the Day of the Dead festival, with Bond dressed in skeleton attire, sets the stage.
2. Some of the borrowed music is about weeping for the dead. The PTS music includes a song about La Llorona, which is a Mexican folk tale about the "weeping lady," who cries endlessly beside a river where her children died. The Vivaldi piece, "Cum Dederit," is based on Psalm 126, about weeping for the dead. This music plays when Lucia returns home to the assassins. Another song in the film is "A Furtive Tear," same themes.
3. In the PTS, Sciarra toasts, "To the dead."
4. "So here we are, Mr. Bond, two dead men enjoying the evening" -Mr. White. Dead is figurative in more than one sense. Sure, White is discussing their fate. But he is also commenting on the lives they have lived in this world of espionage. Neither man has truly "lived."
5. Oberhauser is supposed to be dead, yet he is alive. This carries with it many ramifications, including the idea that Bond's past is more alive than his present and future. He is truly a "dead man." See #4.
6. "It's called life, James. You should try it." -Moneypenny.
7. Cuckoo birds in the nest: one can live and the other can't.
8. Oberhauser comments on Hinx's victim losing his eyes and then his life, and that in between, there was noting. The suggestion is that the place between life and death is empty.
9. "Two Jameses." --Madeleine's comment to Bond, in a drunken state. She's seeing double, but the comment also suggests the duality in James: the living part and the dead part.
10. When Bond meets Blofeld in the MI6 building, they are separated by bulletproof glass. Mendes shows them together, with Blofeld's reflection superimposed over Bond's.
There's much more, and as I watch the film further, I am sure I'll uncover the layers.
Some one mentionef that SP is a modern classic? I can't agree with that for a variety of reasons but it's definitely a lot more enjoyable if you consciously ignore the glaring flaws of the movie but it is in no way a classic.
I think many people, fans especially take umbrage with SP because it should have been better. These films don't get made very often as Craig keeps saying and when we're waiting 3 to 4 years at a time for these movies to be made, with that comes expectations that don't accommodate basic and obvious flaws; mistakes these movies shouldn't be making in the first place when you consider the history and experience of these movies; not to mention the wealth of talent involved.
Still, there are a lot of good things about SP to enjoy and I can't wait to own my bluray copy.
11. Blofeld says, "A man lives inside his head; that's where the seed of his soul is." Later he says, "A man you're talking to now, a man inside your head, is Ernst Stavro Blofeld."
In other words, Blofeld represents a part of his soul. This is more of the duality, life-death stuff.
12. "I always knew death would wear a familiar face." -Mr. White.
The living and the dead is obviously a biggie, as you stated. In this case, for Bond those that have left him still continue to trouble him as he tries to move on in the present, though he finds out that sometimes it's not possible to bury those demons. In this case, it's fitting that passed [as in passed away] and past are one and the same in pronunciation and very interconnected for Bond now more than ever.
There's also a lot of themes of our two selves as humans in the film, our private and public selves as well as who we are and who we want to be. Bond and White have a great conversation that underscores the lives they've led, and how their death warrants are largely being signed when they speak in Austria, barely classified as alive when under the eyes of Blofeld. Almost like Schrödinger's cat, they are viewed on the outside looking in as both alive and dead at the same time. Dench's M could be interpreted like this as well, because though she's physically dead, she is very much still alive in Bond.
Of course during their conversation White's past is brought up, showing a private side of him that we didn't see in CR and QoS as we quickly uncover the daughter that he redeems himself for. The man he is (a terminal assassin cut off from the one person left in his life that he truly cares about) and who he wants to be (a man free of his chains to reunite and live happily with Madeleine) are at odds, and he realizes in the end that there's no going back for him, as much as he'd want to play the cards of life differently.
In many ways, he may be telling Bond not to make that same mistake. Later in the film Bond grapples with the same idea as White did: of who he is then and who he might want to be. He's lived a fast, rough, bloody life and has largely been a man who leaves his destiny up to others. He takes orders from superiors and does as he's told, most of the time, and doesn't give any of it much thought. In Madeleine he sees a chance for something more, something greater beyond all he's ever known, including the possibility of hanging up his holster and moving on past a lifestyle he's always had. Whether he takes the opportunity and truly tries to move on from spying after this, we have yet to see.
I think there's also an interesting examination from the PTS to the London opening sequences that might be trying to play with how Mexican culture and wider western culture like Britain's deal with death and the idea of mourning through the eyes of Bond. In the Mexican sense and in their celebration of The Day of the Dead, they have a very positive view on mourning, where altars to the dead are built and the entire festival is made up of the many things the dead enjoyed doing while they were alive. Vibrant colors fill the streets as the Mexican people embrace the idea of death that must logically come from life. In Bond's world, both in the western culture he exists in as a human in society and the espionage world he maneuvers, it's not that easy. He has no time to think about life, death or scores of other important questions regarding human existence in his job. When Vesper dies, he's right back to work, swiftly turning down the idea of a holiday as suggested by M. When Mathis dies, the man's body is still warm as Bond dumps him and moves along with Camille to catch up with Greene and Medrano. And even when M herself dies, Bond is still right back to work, constantly avoiding thinking about death and the dead.
When we find him at the beginning of SP around the time of the Day of the Dead festivities, M has come back through video to give him a message of advice, which is what Mexicans believe their loved ones do for them through a spiritual sense, and that leads him back on the trail to uncovering SPECTRE. His mood and the way he handles things in his life, like death, clash so spectacularly to the celebratory mood of Mexico. His dour inner life and immense baggage collide with the genial and vibrant streets and decorations. Homes feature wonderful displays commemorating the dead, as other public spaces feature similar vast beauty and style. Fast forward to Bond post mission in his apartment, and he's got no decorations of the sort to pay tribute to his own dead loved ones. His walls are blank, they're colored a pale, lifeless white, and no pictures of his parents, Vesper, M or anyone else fill the space. It's clear he doesn't like to remind himself of what he's lost, likely because since he was just a boy he's constantly had to suck it up and move on whenever tragedy has struck him. He's gotten so used to living with the idea of death, almost in a way that he prepares himself for it, that this duality is underscored even more. Death has always been a consideration for him, something that follows him everywhere he goes. In many ways, each day is his Day of the Dead: he is filled with thoughts of his past and what he's lost in the intervening years since his parents too passed away. It recalls to my mind Fleming's eloquent line from FRWL: "Death was in the room like a third man." Death and the idea of death is with Bond everywhere he travels. He is always pushing forward physically, but emotionally he is forever backtracking to the past as memories and demons of his formative years are dug up again and again, sometimes without his control.
And of course, there's loads of other themes going on in SP too.
Eyes- Nine Eyes/Five Eyes connection. Surveillance/everyone is watching you. All of the eyes of the world looking to unite to protect the world. Blofeld wants to make Bond unable to see and perceive the world he's created for himself, to disrupt his ability to recognize anyone in his life through is machine. Blofeld then gets a scar across his right eye. If eyes are the windows to the soul, he's now literally half alive and half dead.
The Mind-Blofeld is obsessed with the inner mind of people. He likes to control others any way he can, which is seen by how his agents answer to him like programmed drones. He later wants to take away all that Bond has in his life by making him unable to recognize anyone he loves. This desperation he feels to have control of any sort dates back to the moment when Bond made him feel lesser in the eyes of his father. His entire life post the murder of his father has been all about showing everyone how spectacular he is, and how powerful he can be. The interesting issue about this is that he craves an audience and gratification, but is attempting to achieve this through a covert organization. Quite tragically, he could never have gotten the kind of overt love he needed by always hiding away in that fashion.
Family-Blofeld's idea of family (or lack thereof) clashes with Bond's as he is threatened by the love his paternal figure showed for Bond when they were boys. While SF had themes of matriarchy and motherhood, SP relies all on the father figures in the characters' lives. Mr. White and Madeleine's relationship is delved into quite a bit, as is Bond's relationship with Mr. Oberhauser, who was seen as traitorous by Ernst. The man even goes so far as to take from the family name of his mother's side, underscoring his dislike of his father.
And of course, Bond has his MI6 family of Mallory, Moneypenny Q and Tanner, as dysfunctional as they are, who each trust each other and are willing to do whatever they can to aid those of them that've fallen. This contrasts firmly with Blofeld's idea of family. He's never had a true sense of love and compassion or structure. His family is SPECTRE, but it seems nobody truly follows him because they are devoted to his cause. They act out of fear, for what he could do to them or their families if they don't keep to the course he has laid out for them. In this way Bond has always had a better, truer sense of what it means to love and be loved than Blofeld, who can't envision doing anything for anybody but himself to achieve his goals and his goals alone.
When Bond tosses his gun off the bridge and doesn't waste a bullet by killing Blofeld, he shows the man how different they both are, and of how much more Bond has always understood about the idea of love and family. All Ernst can do is lie there on the ground like Ozymandias, his empire tarnished and his power in ruin as Bond walks off happily and in good spirits, all over again. His posture there on the ground recalls Silva's island and the statue that he keeps there that Severine is strapped to, that film's visual symbol for an empire in ruin, harkening back to Percy Shelley's Ozymandias and Silva's hatred for Britain's cultural aims through the actions of Bond and M. Blofeld has always been on an island, far away from everyone else. He's isolated and traumatized only himself by attempting to be the best of them all, to hold all the power. I think largely he only wants to be recognized as special and told that he's a value to the world, but because of who he is he has nobody close to him that trusts him, and the world everyone else inhabits is one he is constantly trying to sabotage and alter in his own image. He is in my mind, a very tragic character.
More on SP later when I see the film on Blu-ray.
Well-stated.
The bridge at the end has some more, perhaps too obvious, symbolism.
I totally agree! The more this movie is examined, the more one senses how well written and deep it is. Great posts Trip and Brady!
See now I was one that really liked the ending
The ending seemed different as a Bond umm err climax to me.