Operatic 007

Rating: 7/10 (19 September 2017)

You need to know that I'm writing this review never truly warming to the tone the Bond franchise took post Brosnan. I preferred the happy-go-lucky Bonds of the past compared to this new 'darker' Bond for the 2000s. However, I learned to appreciate that 'Casino Royale' was actually a good film. It wasn't what I'd call a 'Bond film' but it was a decent spy thriller. 'Quantum of Solace' just seemed to be an 'add-on' to 'Casino Royale,' but I felt that the series was taking a few tips from the past by injecting a little ore humour into 'Skyfall,' therefore making it the best of the trio (in my opinion). Now, having sat through Craig's latest turn as the invincible superspy, I feel that it was a hard watch.
Yes, it retained a little humour which I did appreciate and the action was there. It was just the direction which seems to irk me. The previous film (and my favourite you may remember!) was directed by our own Sam Mendes who I thought did a great job. Therefore I was a bit surprised when I didn't like his style any more. The closest I can describe it as was when Homer Simpson ran a plough business and tried to boost his sales by making a pretentious black and white advertisement which had loud operatic music, beautiful women and no relation at all to the service he was providing. This is what I felt when watching many long drawn out scenes in 'Spectre.' Loud opera music, slow moving people and grandiose locations. It all felt really over the top – and not in a self-knowing good way. It just screams that it's trying really hard to be deep, meaningful and artistic, yet all it's doing is coming across like a bad advert for posh perfume.
So, that's the bad out the way, now on to the good. The action is there, but (and I know I watched it on a popular online streaming service rather than on a big cinema screen) I felt like I could tell which explosions were computer-generated and which weren't due to a weird graininess of the picture (I stress – this could have been down to the quality of my broadband, so I'm reasonably forgiving on this one). I think the best part about the film was actually getting another dose of nostalgia by having our most evil of all Bond villains back again – Blofeld himself.
This time he was played by Christoph Waltz who is actually pretty creepy as the – virtually – omnipotent leader of the infamous terrorist organisation. It was nice to see someone repeatedly get the better of Bond and there were plenty of nods back to the previous (Craig) Bond films thrown in there for good measure. The other thing I liked was how Bond didn't actually do it alone this time. In 'Spectre' he was ably aided by M, Moneypenney, Q and some other guy I couldn't quite catch the name of. This made a pleasant change to simply pitting Bond against the world and felt almost a little like one of Tome Cruise's 'Mission Impossible' films.
Overall, I'd say that 'Spectre' is a pretty good effort. It's all there if you know what you're expecting from a 'modern' Bond movie. The direction grated on me and I tended to roll my eyes a bit, plus Craig himself was looking a bit tired all round. I've heard the rumours about him not wanting to play Bond any more. Maybe I was looking for signs of this, but I think it shows. However, it was decent enough. I'm interested to see where it goes from here, as it's clear that the franchise is technically 'ongoing' as opposed to the old 'stand-alone' Bond films.