SPECTRE - Press reviews and personal reviews (BEWARE! Spoiler reviews allowed)

timmer · November 2015

Birdleson wrote: »

Nice piece @timmer . I agree with many of the thoughts and threads that you pulled together. But I do say that Swann needs to die because she is an annoying fricking character.

Harsh!
:)) She's good with a gun, you know!

boldfinger · November 2015

timmer wrote: »

chrisisall wrote: »

echo wrote: »

His pants are pretty short, too.

We called them "floods" way back when...
:))

Right, and they still look dorky. Appropriately strange if we are being kind. :(

===

Sam Mendes said something very strange in the Times Talks interview posted on this websites home page.

Mendes says " In this movie, Bond has to have an emotional journey. We set that expectation up in Skyfall"

Hunh? Actually no such expectation was created in Skyfall.
What was actually set up in Skyfall was that it appeared Bond had returned to normal. That he was ready to be an efficient operative again, minus emotional baggage, supported by a shiny new Mi6 team.

This utterance from Mendes rings hollow. What it seems he is actually doing is serving up what he thinks is needed justification for contriving the whole Bond and Blofeld have a disturbing childhood history.

As I said earlier, I think Mendes might be the only person in the world, that thinks the Bond-Blofeld family history story is remotely interesting.

But apparently Mendes can't make a movie, including a Bond movie, without his leads, including James Bond, indulging emotional journeys.
He is effectively saying he had no choice but to give Bond an emotional connection with Blofed. It was all set up in Skyfall, don't you see, except that it wasn't.

But even Mendes it seems had to address reality when it came to actually making the film. There is no actual emotional journey for Bond in this film. The emotional journey or obsession is all on the part of Ernst.
It boggles that Mendes' whole "emotional journey" angle comes down to Ernst having a fixation with Bond.

Bond is truly unaffected by Blofeld in any emotional way. This is part of what makes Craig's portrayal so engaging, I think. Craig's Bond is finally behaving like the Bond we know and love. He's on mission and focused, NOT bothered with emotional baggage.

Bond recognizes in Rome that Head of Spectre is strangely enough, the Franz Oberhauser he knew as a child, but he seems quite disaffected.
Rather the revelation is treated by Bond more as operational intelligence, in aid of Bond's quest to take down the person known as Chief of Spectre.

Bond says to Blofeld later,"I came here to kill you." He could have added, not because you are Franz Oberhauser but because you are the boss of this bad organization called Spectre.

The emotional journey is all with Blofeld.

Blofeld is obsessed with Bond, but even then it appears his obsession with Bond was spurred entirely by Bond's interference in his criminal affairs.
Blofeld was building Spectre independent of any lingering hostility towards Bond. If Bond hadn't got in the way of his work, would the pathological obsession with Bond have manifested at all?
I guess what we are being asked to believe is that Bond's interference in Spectre affairs caused Blofeld to double down on his Bond hatred. Bad memories of lost daddy love were rekindled.

So Blofeld obessess. The series retcon suggests that Blofeld was somehow instrumental in killing those that Bond loved in previous films.
Blofeld only mentions Vesper and M by name. So I guess we are to surmise that he helped put wheels in motion to kill Vesper, once he realized that she and Bond had come together, and that he also encouraged Silva in his efforts to take down M.

It's not clear whether Blofeld encouraged the death of Fields or Severine.
We don't know and I don't think we care, as those films gave both Greene and Silva their own motivations for taking these girls out.

In SP, we see Blofeld torturing Bond out of envy and twisted spite, and later going after Bond at Mi6 with pictures on the wall of dead persons from Bond's past, and forcing the Swann rescue dilemma on him.

Blofeld is 100% obsessed with Bond, but Bond it seems remains entirely unmoved by Blofeld. Bond even mocks him, which is great. It's exactly what we expect from Bond. It's Entirely consistent with his persona, which is not to dwell on the why of these villains but rather on the how of taking them down.

This is part of what makes Craig's performance so powerful. Even in the face of an arch villain from his childhood, he is focused on the practical mission reasons for taking him down.

This is where I think Mendes really tripped all over himself.
His stated intent is for Bond to engage an emotional journey but he fails to engage Bond in that respect.
It's as if the story wouldn't cooperateand and instead explores Blofeld's twisted emotional journey.
But the big problem with the whole "brother" history as being Blofeld's obsession and not Bond's, is that it falls into the Who Cares category.
It's as if Mendes shoehorned this angle in orginally to deliver on non-existent "expectations" of Bond engaging an emotional journey, but ultimately couldn't actually deliver.
I think this is one of the reasons that SP feels so uneven, even forced, in its attempts to elicit an emotional response, because the big emotional journey relates to Blofeld not Bond.
This is a problem because the audience identifies with Bond. We don't get emotionally engaged with Blofeld.
If you are going to make this kind of character drama, then Skyfall was reeally the better effort, because that movie was about Bond's journey. Like or lump the story, Skyfall was about Bond's journey.

SP rather, is about a fully formed mature Bond bearing witness to the psychosis of an arch villain who has an obsession with him.

This is why the brother angle, I don't think is terribly grevious to the canon going forward. Simply because Bond doesn't care. Bond is properly focused. All the brother angle adds is some background to the madness of Ernst, but the movie suggests that Blofled was deranged anyway, so his obsession with Bond, is really only a sidebar to his greater derangement.

Yet so much time and energy is focused on this brother relationship, that really doesn't mean much at all.

I do think its time for Mendes to move on.
It seems he managed to make a good watchable film, despite himself.

Looking ahead to B25, I would dispense with the brother angle all together. Let Ernst get back to trying to rule the world via Spectre with Bond as permanent thorn in his side that he can't quite exterminate and vice versa.

Even doing a riff on Fleming's OHMSS/YOLT saga, can just come down to Blofeld escapes and strikes back at Bond and Swann, followed by Bond counterstriking with full 007 sanction and force. Blofeld ultimately survives and lives to die another day, way off in the future after many more fresh adventures.

Swann need not be killed. She is not Tracy.

Long post, but a good one, @timmer!

Ludovico · November 2015

Cowley wrote: »

Ludovico wrote: »

Yes. Bond is ready for the Caribbean, and a summer adventure with brighter colours again.

Get him to bloody Australia!

I never Saud that about the Caribbean.

Benny · November 2015

Better late than never I guess. Having been to the premiere may have altered my opinion of Spectre, but on a more recent second viewing I noticed that my stance had remained the same.
Let it be known that I thoroughly enjoyed Spectre. More so than Skyfall in fact. But not quite up to the highs of Casino Royale. But still a very enjoyable Bond film. And for me this is what Spectre is. A good Bond film. As much as I like the realistic and more down to earth approach of films like FRWL, OHMSS and CR, I also love the over the top fun of TB, TSWLM and GE. Bond has never been a film franchise that required intense concentration or dialogue to rival Shakespeare. Bond to me is elements of Fleming (from time to time, or as much as you like), a dash of Cubby and Harry (every penny on the screen) a romp for a PTS, an objective for Bond to defeat, a decent amount of action, good Bond girl and a sly villain. For me Spectre delivers on that front. It's not the best Bond film, but it's far from the worst. Daniel Craig puts in what I would describe as his most relaxed Bond performance. A little more humour here and there, whilst keeping it a Craig Bond film. Lea Seydoux makes for a very good leading lady. I really enjoyed her part. Christoph Waltz is slightly underused as...well you know if you've seen the film. He looks like he's enjoying himself and does villain with his eyes closed. But what he does bring to the film is enjoyable. The rest of the cast are fine, with no real instances of poor acting, bad dialogue or bad casting. I did on my second viewing notice that no matter where Bond goes to in Spectre, everyone else seems to be somewhere else, be it Rome, Morocco or even London. Where has everybody gone?
But that's not enough to ruin the film for me.
The only real downer for me was the score. Reusing parts of the SF soundtrack is lazy and unacceptable in my opinion. Very poor effort.
Visually I thought it was one of the most beautifully shot Bond films I can recall. The opening shot is stunning. Very cool.
I love the use of location and the transition from continent to continent. The action is certainly up to scratch, with aerial action, a car chase, a plane set piece in the alps, a better than average fist fight and a game of cat and mouse to boot.
So there you have it. Not perfect, but pretty damn good. I enjoyed it as a good Bond film. And as a Bond fan, what more could I ask for.

Ludovico · November 2015

@timmer-I don't think Blofeld's giving himself credit for being the author of Bond's pain need that much retcon: he's the head of the organization that blackmailed Vesper which eventually drove her to suicide, he gave Silva resources and manpower and he was also ultimately the boss of Greene. That's all there is to it in his famous line.

bondjames · November 2015

@timmer, good post.

I agree that SP is all over the place....Mendes did indeed trip all over himself (unusual screw up for someone so good with character drama) with this film and that's why many (myself included) cannot see it as a classic film in the canon. He shouldn't have brought in the brother angle at all, as many have noted. It was completely redundant & unnecessary retconning. If he insisted in doing it, there should have been more emotional resonance.....not treated so casually, as it was here.

timmer wrote: »

Bond is truly unaffected by Blofeld in any emotional way. This is part of what makes Craig's portrayal so engaging, I think. Craig's Bond is finally behaving like the Bond we know and love. He's on mission and focused, NOT bothered with emotional baggage.

Bond recognizes in Rome that Head of Spectre is strangely enough, the Franz Oberhauser he knew as a child, but he seems quite disaffected.
Rather the revelation is treated by Bond more as operational intelligence, in aid of Bond's quest to take down the person known as Chief of Spectre.

Bond says to Blofeld later,"I came here to kill you." He could have added, not because you are Franz Oberhauser but because you are the boss of this bad organization called Spectre.

timmer wrote: »

This is part of what makes Craig's performance so powerful. Even in the face of an arch villain from his childhood, he is focused on the practical mission reasons for taking him down.

The problem, as you correctly note, is that Blofeld appears obsessed with Bond, and yet Bond appears disinterested. That is where a lot of the imbalance takes place for me. All we see of Bond reflecting is when he stares at that torn photo in his apartment. Even when he sees Blofeld in the Rome meeting, shortly afterwards he's casually making connections in the car with Mr. White & Quantum to MP......while being chased by Hinx.....another thing he does casually.

So I personally believe it is the 'Bond' portrayal that is problematic here, given the gravity of the connections (Vesper killer......long lost step brother etc...) being made and the deep implications. Bond shouldn't be so carefree about such connections. If he is, then why the hell should the audience care.

So I don't think this aspect of Craig's performance was a good one. He should have cared. We expect 'emo' Craig Bond to care. The audience (accustomed to him through 3 previous films) expect this. He is not Moore Bond. He is Craig Bond. I think that threw a lot of people.

So either don't go there at all (my preference), or if you do in fact go there, make it count. Mendes tried to have his cake and eat it too here, and he failed on both accounts imho.

timmer wrote: »

But the big problem with the whole "brother" history as being Blofeld's obsession and not Bond's, is that it falls into the Who Cares category.
It's as if Mendes shoehorned this angle in orginally to deliver on non-existent "expectations" of Bond engaging an emotional journey, but ultimately couldn't actually deliver.
I think this is one of the reasons that SP feels so uneven, even forced, in its attempts to elicit an emotional response, because the big emotional journey relates to Blofeld not Bond.
This is a problem because the audience identifies with Bond. We don't get emotionally engaged with Blofeld.
If you are going to make this kind of character drama, then Skyfall was reeally the better effort, because that movie was about Bond's journey. Like or lump the story, Skyfall was about Bond's journey.

I disagree here. I actually thought SF was about M's and Silva's journey. A journey of betrayal in pursuit of duty, and a journey of revenge. It was emotionally compelling, and Dench & Bardem sold it magnificently. One felt for both of them......and they both showed (through their acting) their regret and hatred. One related and sympathized. Bond was more of a bit player in this deep emotional scenario.

It worked because of the quality of Dench's and Bardem's performances, and because we all knew Dench in this series for years. She was established and we could relate to her. It's difficult to do the same with Waltz, who we only see for a few minutes in this film.

So the audience can in fact relate to a villain's personal demons. They just have to be sold convincingly to the audience. That was not done with SP, while it was in fact done with SF imho.

Tuulia · November 2015

timmer wrote: »

As I said earlier, I think Mendes might be the only person in the world, that thinks the Bond-Blofeld family history story is remotely interesting.

I agree with most of your excellent post, but this bit surely must be wrong. That wouldn't have been in the movie if nobody else liked it. Whoever originally wrote it must have thought it was a good idea, but at least a couple of Barbara, Michael and Daniel (or all three) must have thought it was interesting, too. The rest of the world, though... yeah, maybe not.

Ludovico · November 2015

I do like when a Bond villain has a background. I would have preferred Blofeld to have a background closer to the one in the novels but there you go.

Getafix · November 2015

My issue with SF and SP would be that the 'emotional journey' and the backstory that Mendes seems to attach so much significance to is totally half baked. In SF this overshadowed the film for me. I saw quite a lot of potential in the SF plot but I felt it was badly done. With SP the film is entertaining enough for me to overlook the weaknesses in the plot.

bondjames · November 2015

Getafix wrote: »

With SP the film is entertaining enough for me to overlook the weaknesses in the plot.

And herein lies the key to the issue.

-SF lovers related to the emotional drama and forgave the plot holes
-SP lovers related to the Bondian aspects of the film (absent in SF) and forgave the plot holes.

In both cases however, we do have melodrama (this is Mendes after all). I think the melodrama was better handled emotionally in SF, so I found the SP plot holes more jarring (I realize I am no longer moved/excited by apparent callback Bondian tropes........an interesting discovery on my part).

In both cases, we had weak scripts.

Mendes must go.

Shardlake · November 2015

echo wrote: »

timmer wrote: »

chrisisall wrote: »

echo wrote: »

His pants are pretty short, too.

We called them "floods" way back when...
:))

Right, and they still look dorky. Appropriately strange if we are being kind. :(

===

Sam Mendes said something very strange in the Times Talks interview posted on this websites home page.

Mendes says " In this movie, Bond has to have an emotional journey. We set that expectation up in Skyfall"

Hunh? Actually no such expectation was created in Skyfall.
What was actually set up in Skyfall was that it appeared Bond had returned to normal. That he was ready to be an efficient operative again, minus emotional baggage, supported by a shiny new Mi6 team.

This utterance from Mendes rings hollow. What it seems he is actually doing is serving up what he thinks is needed justification for contriving the whole Bond and Blofeld have a disturbing childhood history.

As I said earlier, I think Mendes might be the only person in the world, that thinks the Bond-Blofeld family history story is remotely interesting.

But apparently Mendes can't make a movie, including a Bond movie, without his leads, including James Bond, indulging emotional journeys.
He is effectively saying he had no choice but to give Bond an emotional connection with Blofed. It was all set up in Skyfall, don't you see, except that it wasn't.

But even Mendes it seems had to address reality when it came to actually making the film. There is no actual emotional journey for Bond in this film. The emotional journey or obsession is all on the part of Ernst.
It boggles that Mendes' whole "emotional journey" angle comes down to Ernst having a fixation with Bond.

Bond is truly unaffected by Blofeld in any emotional way. This is part of what makes Craig's portrayal so engaging, I think. Craig's Bond is finally behaving like the Bond we know and love. He's on mission and focused, NOT bothered with emotional baggage.

Bond recognizes in Rome that Head of Spectre is strangely enough, the Franz Oberhauser he knew as a child, but he seems quite disaffected.
Rather the revelation is treated by Bond more as operational intelligence, in aid of Bond's quest to take down the person known as Chief of Spectre.

Bond says to Blofeld later,"I came here to kill you." He could have added, not because you are Franz Oberhauser but because you are the boss of this bad organization called Spectre.

The emotional journey is all with Blofeld.

Blofeld is obsessed with Bond, but even then it appears his obsession with Bond was spurred entirely by Bond's interference in his criminal affairs.
Blofeld was building Spectre independent of any lingering hostility towards Bond. If Bond hadn't got in the way of his work, would the pathological obsession with Bond have manifested at all?
I guess what we are being asked to believe is that Bond's interference in Spectre affairs caused Blofeld to double down on his Bond hatred. Bad memories of lost daddy love were rekindled.

So Blofeld obessess. The series retcon suggests that Blofeld was somehow instrumental in killing those that Bond loved in previous films.
Blofeld only mentions Vesper and M by name. So I guess we are to surmise that he helped put wheels in motion to kill Vesper, once he realized that she and Bond had come together, and that he also encouraged Silva in his efforts to take down M.

It's not clear whether Blofeld encouraged the death of Fields or Severine.
We don't know and I don't think we care, as those films gave both Greene and Silva their own motivations for taking these girls out.

In SP, we see Blofeld torturing Bond out of envy and twisted spite, and later going after Bond at Mi6 with pictures on the wall of dead persons from Bond's past, and forcing the Swann rescue dilemma on him.

Blofeld is 100% obsessed with Bond, but Bond it seems remains entirely unmoved by Blofeld. Bond even mocks him, which is great. It's exactly what we expect from Bond. It's Entirely consistent with his persona, which is not to dwell on the why of these villains but rather on the how of taking them down.

This is part of what makes Craig's performance so powerful. Even in the face of an arch villain from his childhood, he is focused on the practical mission reasons for taking him down.

This is where I think Mendes really tripped all over himself.
His stated intent is for Bond to engage an emotional journey but he fails to engage Bond in that respect.
It's as if the story wouldn't cooperateand and instead explores Blofeld's twisted emotional journey.
But the big problem with the whole "brother" history as being Blofeld's obsession and not Bond's, is that it falls into the Who Cares category.
It's as if Mendes shoehorned this angle in orginally to deliver on non-existent "expectations" of Bond engaging an emotional journey, but ultimately couldn't actually deliver.
I think this is one of the reasons that SP feels so uneven, even forced, in its attempts to elicit an emotional response, because the big emotional journey relates to Blofeld not Bond.
This is a problem because the audience identifies with Bond. We don't get emotionally engaged with Blofeld.
If you are going to make this kind of character drama, then Skyfall was reeally the better effort, because that movie was about Bond's journey. Like or lump the story, Skyfall was about Bond's journey.

SP rather, is about a fully formed mature Bond bearing witness to the psychosis of an arch villain who has an obsession with him.

This is why the brother angle, I don't think is terribly grevious to the canon going forward. Simply because Bond doesn't care. Bond is properly focused. All the brother angle adds is some background to the madness of Ernst, but the movie suggests that Blofled was deranged anyway, so his obsession with Bond, is really only a sidebar to his greater derangement.

Yet so much time and energy is focused on this brother relationship, that really doesn't mean much at all.

I do think its time for Mendes to move on.
It seems he managed to make a good watchable film, despite himself.

Looking ahead to B25, I would dispense with the brother angle all together. Let Ernst get back to trying to rule the world via Spectre with Bond as permanent thorn in his side that he can't quite exterminate and vice versa.

Even doing a riff on Fleming's OHMSS/YOLT saga, can just come down to Blofeld escapes and strikes back at Bond and Swann, followed by Bond counterstriking with full 007 sanction and force. Blofeld ultimately survives and lives to die another day, way off in the future after many more fresh adventures.

Swann need not be killed. She is not Tracy.

Really good post about whose emotional journey it is, and why it seems a bit, or maybe way, off. I'm not advocating another revenge story, but the story would have engaged Bond more if he were upset about/avenging Pa Oberhauser's death a bit--the "cuckoo" as the devoted "son."

I know they didn't have the rights to SPECTRE back then and I'm sure Eon was being careful, but I would have bought Blofeld as the architect of Bond's pain (and not a retcon) more if there were some filmic indication that some specific figure was working in the shadows in CR, QoS, and SF. The closest they came to this was with White in the first two films. Perhaps White should have become Blofeld.

The whole Blofeld is Bond's brother thing is the biggest problem with the film, I was willing to deal with what they did in SF and still love the film for all it's flaws but SP could have been a cracking film but that element just is too much.

This alone makes me hope Mendes won't return, unless he can reign this kind of thing in. I feel sorry for Waltz because he does a great job with what he's given but that whole element underwhelms the character.

If ESB is back in the next one they need to re -establish his shadowy present, play down all this Daddy didn't love me as much as you rubbish and present the head of SPECTRE as a force to be reckoned with not some problem page cry baby.

AceHole · November 2015

All the 'dramatic connections' Mendes insists on shoehorning into his two (Bond) films end up doing quite the reverse of what they were intended to do - they make the whole piece less thrilling, unintentionally polluting the narrative by making it all boil down to:

SF: obnoxious, sulken ex- MI6 prodigy - vs. M
SP: obnoxious, sulken ex- foster brother - vs. Bond

Mendes is only really interested in exploring these (or this, as it's really the same in both) concepts, which leads to the rest of the film feeling incoherent, cobbled together and poorly executed.

Luckily SP has plenty of entertainment scattered around it to keep you going...

Getafix · November 2015

AceHole wrote: »

All the 'dramatic connections' Mendes insists on shoehorning into his two (Bond) films end up doing quite the reverse of what they were intended to do - they make the whole piece less thrilling, unintentionally polluting the narrative by making it all boil down to:

SF: obnoxious, sulken ex- MI6 prodigy - vs. M
SP: obnoxious, sulken ex- foster brother - vs. Bond

Mendes is only really interested in exploring these (or this, as it's really the same in both) concepts, which leads to the rest of the film feeling incoherent, cobbled together and poorly executed.

Luckily SP has plenty of entertainment scattered around it to keep you going...

I'd agree with you except for the fact that Mendes never actually 'explores' these concepts. They premise is there but does it add anything to either film? I'd argue that on an emotional/dramatic level they're both quite shallow - like most Bond films. The relationships are not as convincing or as involving as in OHMSS, TLD or CR, and they're pretty crudely shoe-horned in.

Silva's motivations are almost entirely unconvincing and they actually detract from his sense of menace. And the Blofeld 'brother' thing in SP has the unfortunate effect of making the whole DC story arc into a sort of superhero narrative.

Having said this, it's hopefully just a phase the Bond films are going through. It does reflect the current context of superhero and origins movies. In ten years time things will have moved on and Bond will be racing to catch up. A shame Bond is my less of a trend setter these days. Was it Charlie Higson who said that ever since LALD Bomd has been a copier more than a trendsetter?

AceHole · November 2015

Getafix wrote: »

AceHole wrote: »

All the 'dramatic connections' Mendes insists on shoehorning into his two (Bond) films end up doing quite the reverse of what they were intended to do - they make the whole piece less thrilling, unintentionally polluting the narrative by making it all boil down to:

SF: obnoxious, sulken ex- MI6 prodigy - vs. M
SP: obnoxious, sulken ex- foster brother - vs. Bond

Mendes is only really interested in exploring these (or this, as it's really the same in both) concepts, which leads to the rest of the film feeling incoherent, cobbled together and poorly executed.

Luckily SP has plenty of entertainment scattered around it to keep you going...

I'd agree with you except for the fact that Mendes never actually 'explores' these concepts. They premise is there but does it add anything to either film? I'd argue that on an emotional/dramatic level they're both quite shallow - like most Bond films. The relationships are not as convincing or as involving as in OHMSS, TLD or CR, and they're pretty crudely shoe-horned in.

Silva's motivations are almost entirely unconvincing and they actually detract from his sense of menace. And the Blofeld 'brother' thing in SP has the unfortunate effect of making the whole DC story arc into a sort of superhero narrative.

Having said this, it's hopefully just a phase the Bond films are going through. It does reflect the current context of superhero and origins movies. In ten years time things will have moved on and Bond will be racing to catch up. A shame Bond is my less of a trend setter these days. Was it Charlie Higson who said that ever since LALD Bomd has been a copier more than a trendsetter?

I think that in his head he does want to do this, ie. explore further, and his edit would have a lot more of this... if he got his way entirely.
Thank goodness EoN kept some kind of leash on him then...

Mendes' perfect Bondfilm would be a sort of SF, SP, LALD menage à trois with about 70% character drama, 25% ambient & moody cinematography and 5% thriller/action material...

bondjames · November 2015

Mendes admits as much in the recent Charlie Rose interview with DC.......that he needs that kind of melodrama before he can get involved. It's a drug to him I think.....

Great that we had him....some like SP and some like SF but there are few who dislike both.

Now let's get back to basics please. No more Mendes.

Getafix · November 2015

bondjames wrote: »

Mendes admits as much in the recent Charlie Rose interview with DC.......that he needs that kind of melodrama before he can get involved. It's a drug to him I think.....

Great that we had him....some like SP and some like SF but there are few who dislike both.

Now let's get back to basics please. No more Mendes.

On balance I probably agree. However, he did enough with SP to at least keep me entertained.

Trigger · November 2015

Personally @Timmer I loved the Blofeld-Bond backstory, as do other people I know including my girlfriend, so Mendes is FAR from the only one to find it interesting. It’s original, in the Bond world at least, as the most unoriginal thing they could have done IMO is have Blofeld as the same villain as he is in the old films, with no connections to Bond whatsoever etc.

And @bondjames what’s this about Bond not being bothered by Blofeld’s revelations? Isn’t this just the same, but even stronger Bond we saw in Skyfall with the “it’s a waste of good scotch line” – as in, never letting them see him bleed/hurt (be it physically or emotionally)? Bond is now fully complete in this film and as such ISN’T meant to be the emotional wreck he has been at times. He may, and indeed will, still feel it, but he hides it better than ever now, fully focussed on his job. The armour is fully erected. He has already grieved for Vesper, M etc, so the revelation that someone he grew up with was behind everything is a shock, but not one that’s going to tip him over the edge. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and Bond is stronger than ever now after all the crap he has been through. Just my take anyway.

Superintendent · November 2015

I don't put the blame on Mendes for this. He clearly told the producers what he wants to do with Bond and they agreed, so it was basically their decision. SF and SP are not just Bond films, they are also Sam Mendes films, and there lies the problem, IMO.

While I love character driven films (Kubrick and David Lynch are among my favourite directors), I don't think Bond movies should be a vessel for exploring such motifs. When I watch a Bond film, first and foremost I want to be entertained. Bits of character depth are okay, but to me this looks like they are doing this just for the sake of looking smart, while they really aren't offering anything substantial.

I certainly don't want another DAD, but something like CR is a great combination of "seriousness" and fun. That's why I think auteurs like Mendes or Nolan are not the right people for Bond. They should hire craftsman directors in the vein of Peter Hunt, John Glen and Martin Campbell.

Getafix · November 2015

A fair assessment.

Thunderfinger · November 2015

Matt007 wrote: »

Thunderfinger wrote: »

I didn t even notice he had no socks. But then again, I am not a woman or gay.

What an unfathomable idiotic thing to say.

Is it? Thanks, I didn t notice that either. Idiotically unfathomable.

Thunderfinger · November 2015

[quote="Benny;523348"I did on my second viewing notice that no matter where Bond goes to in Spectre, everyone else seems to be somewhere else, be it Rome, Morocco or even London. Where has everybody gone?
[/quote]

Mexico.

bondjames · November 2015

Thunderfinger wrote: »

[quote="Benny;523348"I did on my second viewing notice that no matter where Bond goes to in Spectre, everyone else seems to be somewhere else, be it Rome, Morocco or even London. Where has everybody gone?

Mexico.[/quote]
Ha ha.

So true. They blew the 'extra's' budget right there.

Getafix · November 2015

Yes it is weird how after Mexico there is a massive worldwide depopulation. May be it's a prelude to the next movie's old fashioned 'take over the world' storyline?

B25 may feature flashbacks to SP, with Bond suddenly realising that Blofeld had been killing everyone off secretly in the background, while distracting Bond with his daddy/brother/ cuckoo issues.

fanbond123 · November 2015

Does anyone know why Hinx didn't ram the side of Bond's car in the Rome chase? It just felt like Hinx was following Bond until both cars ran out of petrol! I dunno, from a drama perspective I felt the chase needed Hinx to try and take out Bond's car. Ram him off the road. I felt the scene lacked a bit of 'edge' which was surprising given how exciting the pre-credit scene was. The chase looked great but was devoid of much excitement.

royale65 · November 2015

Remember Bond is a consummate driver. I expect Hinx was having trouble keeping up with him.

Thunderfinger · November 2015

Hinx watching the Aston drowning very much reminded me of the similar scene in AVTAK.

dragonsky · November 2015

This forum's opinion on SPECTRE:

Suivez_ce_parachute · November 2015

fanbond123 wrote: »

Does anyone know why Hinx didn't ram the side of Bond's car in the Rome chase?

Hinx's mission was just to let Bond think he was being chased, while Blofeld just waited for a monitored Bond to go and find Madeleine, so he could later made her her surrogate child - well that was the plan until "I love you" made Blofeld realize his foster brother had just stole her child from him, so he had to kill everyone out of frustration. Simple as that :)

Thunderfinger · November 2015

Birdleson wrote: »

Thunderfinger wrote: »

Matt007 wrote: »

Thunderfinger wrote: »

I didn t even notice he had no socks. But then again, I am not a woman or gay.

What an unfathomable idiotic thing to say.

Is it? Thanks, I didn t notice that either. Idiotically unfathomable.

You need to be more fathomable, gay and womanly, @Thunderfinger . What the Hell is wrong with you? And keep all thoughts to yourself.

I do keep them to myself. On the internet. No need to read my posts, they are just meant for myself actually.

echo · November 2015

The New Yorker's review:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/human-bondage

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