A Beautiful Joke

Rating: 2/10 (28 October 2015)

A beautifully shot film that falls apart if you think about it for more than a nano-second.
Some things can be forgiven, like, if all the Daniel Craig era bad guys were all apparently part of the SPECTRE from the beginning how is he just noticing their secret society rings now?
The film suffers from a string of contrivances that make the final third of the film unbearable when your brain realises the surveillance subplot is actually the endgame and no 'twist' is going to make this anything moreIt really is just a wafer thin plot tieing set-pieces together. Which would be perfectly fine if it was that kind of film (Tomorrow never Dies), but alas this is another movie where the Baddie is super grumpy at Bond because *insert stupid contrived reason beyond Bonds control here*.
One would think that Sam Mendes and the writing staff can't think of anything original now that they've run out of Ian Fleming books.
So Bond kills some bad guy and then goes to get information from Monica Bellucci because SPECTRE have to kill her now. This is pretty stupid because you would think an evil organisation would look after your family as incentive for you to stay loyal. Not the opposite way round.
Monica Bellucci knows where the super-secret baddie conference room is. Lol, are they even trying anymore.
Christoph Waltz knows he's there. Do you know why, because in Skyfall Javier Bardem didn't show up until over an hour into the movie so this is the attempt to switch it up, oh and to add a mystery for the sake of it in the same way the Lost TV show did. Adds nothing.
So the bad guys know he's there but still allow the discussion of the Pale man/Mr white ..so Bond can thwart their plans. And in all that time they didn't set up a proper ambush or bug his car or anything. Bit pedantic on that last point I know.
Meanwhile in London, buzzwords such as Orwell, democracy, New world order are being thrown around. For some reason it reminded me of the Star Wars Senate from A Phantom Menace. Just so childish and TV show-ish at this point. And also ironic considering the head of the double 0 programme is lecturing anyone on democracy.
Mr White is a good guy now because reasons. Bond doesn't take the surveillance tape from his cabin or burn it down after leaving.
Madeleine Swann is the next link in this wild goose chase. She knows the hotel/apartment where her family vacations. The bad guys catch her but don't kill her. I guess they know about the vacation house too.
Another clue. They go to investigate a dot on a map. Another attempt on their lives. Then they get off the train and just wait. For some reason Bond knows Christoph Waltz really wants to talk with him even though his henchman just tried to kill himagain. Maybe his seen Christoph Waltz last few films and knows he loves to talk.
Apparently, they're connected! And this is super personal. Lucky for Bond, otherwise they would have just been taken out by a sniper.
Then Christoph Waltz tells him his an unstoppable force hitting an immovable object, no wait, something about 2 rats. No, it was a meteorite or something. Same diff.
Did we really need Blofeld to be Bonds adopted brother. Sigh. And does every young man or child that Bond's mentor let's down have to become a super villain now. Can't wait for the next villain that loses to 12 year old James in the school science fair.
Bond escapes because of his bomb watch. Wait, remember in the last film when they said exploding pens were sillyare they making fun of themselves or do they not see the irony. I really don't know anymore.
He just shoots his way out of a base. Exploding stuff everywhere, video game style. I appreciate a cool evil lair and Bond has taken them out in the past. But the set pieces are made to devise a scenario where this looks possible. In this escape Bond is one step away from being Neo.
So back to London. And now we have a doomsday countdown and all the government buildings are empty. No new revelations. Just that Bond chooses to save the girl and doesn't execute Christoph waltz at the endand then..does he retire? Are you kidding me?
Skyfall was a bit too much of a Dark Knight rip and now this one has to end like DK Rises.
The ego of the director and additional writers is ridiculous. To make LeChiffre SPECTRE, and Blofeld Bonds brother, blow up MI5/6 and have Bond possibly retire at the end is bizarre. It's like they're trying to make this their 'dark knight trilogy' even though half of them had nothing to do with Casino Royale. This isn't your baby. You have no right.
Whilst Skyfall was littered with plot holes this movie is possibly worse. Plot holes require a script that's tight enough to expose inconsistencies; this is just stuff happening because the next dumb thing needs to happen. What does Bonds connection to Blofeld have to do with a SPECTRE mass surveillance plot? Nothing. It reminds me of the SouthPark episode where they get manitee's to choose 3 random topics and mash them together to make a family guy episode