007 story re booted with a racy first half and an ambiguous second half

Rating: 6/10 (26 November 2015)

Spectre marks the 24th installment in the bond series. Daniel Craig essays the character for the fourth time. Touted as one of the expensive production till date with a budget crossing $240 million comes one of the longest bond film which runs about 150 mins (after censoring by CBFC India as U/A). As in all installments Spectre had a solid opening of about 15 mins of top notch racy action followed by the glitz and glamor in the soundtrack or OST "writings on the wall" surprisingly lead by a male voice by Sam Smith composed by Thomas Newman. I have personally felt that Craig has less oomph factor and he emotes more muscular rather depending on classy gadgets ( no offence to the die hard Craig fans here). Also it is his entry which brought the personal factor or sentiment backdrop to the plot of bond series. Fights turned more muscular and there where additions of personal Vendetta. Here I stopped to question my self are the bond movies changing track towards more of Mission Impossible or Bourne type. After a terrific instalment like skyfall I had set the standards really high on both the director and the actor where Daniel has fairly done justice to the role but direction and screenplay had lots of erratic twists with references back to some of the old bond instalments bringing back villains and looping all villains under one global group. On the other hand Director Sam Mendes has also assured the usual formula of bond movies like posh car modifications, gadgets and falling for women ( could mention one sequence here when Swan questions 007 what are we gonna do next the next frame they end up making out in the train cabin). The main plot is bond revealing a secret global organisation called spectre headed by the most notorious villain Franz Oberhauser played by Christoph Waltz referred as Ernst Blofeld who is heading the global surveillance sort of thing but there was no clear background how did Blofeld became the ultimate villain of villains. Bond tracks this entire team because of a crypt message he has received from previous M Judi Dench while our present M played by Ralph Fiennes tries hard to keep the secret service and 00 agent service alive from the the political forces which tries to close the entire MI6. Meanwhile we encounter Mr white of the quay am organisation who give ma the task of protecting his daughter Dr Mandeline Swan essayed by Leà Seudoux in return to his favour he offered James. We also have portions of Q the techie and Money penny the mole for 007. The most hyped Monica Bellucci guest role just vanishes in mins after making out with our 007 in an Italian mansion. The cinematography was simply superb taking us on a virtual tour to Mexico, Alps of Austria , South Africa, Morocco, Tokyo and England. Editing should have been better handled which could have reduced the length of the movie. Verdict : Over all a racy and scenic first half and a confusing second half marred by plot twists and lack of clarity in the plot.