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I didn't know I was dating my mom.
Une mauvaise critique?? Voila inexcusable!!!
SO = significant other
I do \:D/ and yes, reinvention is the way to go. I just read a couple of pages when the leaks started and the Oberhauser-ESB was one of the few things there and I hated it. They managed to make it work, I must admit. There was no sentimentality, they were not "brothers", ESB was annoyed that Bond had was yet again messing with his life. Smartly done!
Hear hear L-)
It would have looked cooler, the machine I'm talking about won a Red Dot award or something like that, very stylish.
First of all, Swiss is not a language. I only had time to read the headline before it was translated and it was in German. Yes, technology has moved far enough to translate a scanned document, in fact you don't even have to scan it. If you have an android device you can test this right now with the google photo translate, just point your phone at a text in another language and magically it will show up translated on your screen. You're welcome /:)
Thanks, I was really puzzled about that one.
Mine would say the same thing but add I'll buy you the bluray and you can watch as often as you want when I am not at home. ;)
Without giving too much information I work in translation technology and it is now possible to translate a scanned PDF, although I am not sure it is possible with machine translation (and that said translation would be flawless).
5/5 stars
....and glad you liked @chrisisall
Now we needn't worry about agreeing or disagreeing on TND since we so heavily agree on this. ;)
Spectre's chief accomplishment is presenting a new failure mode, in leaning too heavily both on the questions and on the past glories. After the triumphant celebration of the old ways of espionage in Skyfall, the filmmakers decide that the best course of action is to immediately retread that ground with Denbigh pushing for Nine Eyes and shutting down the 00 program. To make matters worse, this isn't just a flagrant retread of Skyfall, they're also ripping off Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which actually bothered to develop the evil plot, such that there's some sense of tension when it's about to succeed. As the fine reviewer at io9 put it, "...Spectre is much more of a mess, culminating in a final countdown where I honestly could not tell you what would happen if the countdown reaches zero."
Second of all, they also decided to revisit the Blofeld and Spectre well, which, fine, it was in the title of the movie, everybody and their grandma saw the reveal coming, and they wouldn't be totally wrong if they thought QoS ruined the appeal of Quantum as a nebulous evil organization. I'm still not the biggest fan, but I can understand the rationale and look at the merits. But good heavens, the merits. The reveal means nothing in universe, and it's only for the benefit of the audience. And then, and then, and then, they decide on the single dumbest, laziest twist in Bond history. Blofeld is Bond's adopted brother (?!) who has been trying to get back at Bond for the last decade (?!?!) because his dad liked Bond more than him (?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!). So since Bond has been little more than a newly-minted, mostly unremarkable 00, Blofeld was manipulating things to bring him up and then break him down here. Good heavens, what a way to cheapen Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, and for such a POS motivation.
But that's not the worst of it, no, not by a long shot. They also felt the need to shoehorn in Silva's plot, whose entire appeal was that he was a lone wolf, an abandoned, embittered, evil version of Bond out for revenge against M. That was what gave Skyfall its emotional force, and I daresay not a single person in the theater worldwide was thinking, "Boy, you know what would be better? If Silva were in some vague, undefined way a puppet of another villain, who's mostly mad that his dad liked Bond more." The sheer stupidity of that choice is easily Spectre's dumbest moment.
Now, having spent several paragraphs ranting about the problems that run Spectre into the ground, let's talk about the good parts. Mr. White's reappearance is excellently done, if brief, and I enjoyed the callback to Felix and Bond's dalliance with Lucia Sciarra, as well as the subversion of the sacrificial lamb trope. The car chase in Rome and the big setpiece in the Alps were loads of fun, even if Bond's sudden possession of a plane doesn't make much sense. The fight on the train was pure kinetic violence, if a little heavy handed in its mixture of Grant, Oddjob, and Jaws. Astute readers will note that all three scenes involve Dave Batista, who is a highlight of the movie. The little callback to Piz Gloria also set my heart aflutter.
The jokiness didn't bother me so much. Some of them I could have stood to get rid of, but I'd have to rewatch to know just which ones (the couch didn't sit right with me right away, though). Bond leveling one ineffectual guard with a gut punch and telling the other to stay was a particularly good bit, as were his interactions with the other members of the MI6 crew, one of the few new spins that actually worked. Craig's performance is fine, not nearly as invested in the first three but also not nearly at Connery in YOLT-level disengagement, and he can do all that's asked of him well. The "examine Bond's psyche" bits feel a bit tacked on and they don't go as in depth as CR or even GE (see the first paragraph about half-assed retreads). The relationship with Madeline Swann was a mixed bag. As a standalone romance, it worked pretty well, but if the film expects us to buy her as a replacement to Vesper and a serious contender for the love of Bond's life, they're on something (which, given the Blofeld reveal, isn't a bad shout).
Hopefully she doesn't turn up dead in Bond 25 at the hands of Blofeld...ah, who am I kidding? He'll probably be mad that his cat likes Bond better this time around.
Spectre clocks in at 16/23, just below Thunderball and Quantum of Solace, and above Octopussy.
That one has already been moaned over. There is a second much better review that doesn't seem to be written only seeking attention.
Best review I've read. Well played.
- Bond starts to look into Greene's affairs and plot.
- Bond stumbles upon many members of the organization in Bregenz.
- In return, Fields and Mathis are killed.
- Bond gets revenge by extracting information from Greene (which leads to his death) and finally catching Yusef and stopping him from manipulating any more women.
- Cut to SF, where Bond is once again interfering in SPECTRE's affairs. As a result, Silva (with the assistance of SPECTRE) humiliates and kills M. This assistance is shown by the small army Silva manages to accumulate and it explains how he was able to escape and reach M so easily.
- Now in SP, Bond only begins to interfere in their plans once again because, even though Dench's M is now deceased, she's still responsible for getting Bond back on SPECTRE's trail, and the rest of the movie unfolds as such.
Typed that up pretty quick so I may have messed something up, but that's a snippet of the view I just came up with regarding SPECTRE's influence from QoS on. Helps me appreciate SF more, and I could use a lot more appreciation for that movie.
That makes a lot of sense @Creasy47!
@chrisisall I had a feeling you'd like this one and I was right! >:D<
I'm still floating from it! ^:)^
I most certainly did! Pretty sure I was breathing as minimally as possible during that train fight, too, from how intense it was. Watching Bond attempt to hold his own as Hinx threw him around like a ragdoll and destroyed the interior of the train was the exact type of fighting I missed in SF. Happy to see Mendes got it right this time around.
Ditto here.
I would completely agree, though my favorite has always been Bond fighting Slate in QoS...though that one may have been equaled for me, as well.