Spectre (2015) A Review by Nathan Fischer

Rating: 7/10 (16 November 2015)

I was never a big James Bond fan. I have not seen very many of the 007 films and I grew up with the Pierce Brosnan Bond. However, I have enjoyed every Bond movie I have seen and Spectre is no different.
Spectre is the 4th installment in the Daniel Craig/Sam Mendez vision of James Bond. First off, Daniel Craig makes a great Bond. He's smooth and charismatic. He may not be the best of the Bonds, but he definitely stands out. Director Sam Mendez has given depth to his James Bond like no other of the films has. His age is showing, and his actions and killing are beginning to weigh on him, but he can't stop. This is all he knows. Out of the Bond movies I've seen, this one was one of the easier plots to follow, but it's still fairly complicated. I won't go heavy in to the plot description, but lets just say James Bond meets his maker.
The movie is very well shot with some truly stunning locations. The opening scene stands out as easily the best, with the first shot being a very long "how did that pull that off?" tracking shot. On the other hand, the action seemed underwhelming to me. It wasn't poorly done, just nothing new. The "Bond Girl" this time around is a stand out. Played by Madeleine Swann, she herself is the daughter of an assassin and she understands Bond like very few can. She is a confident and competent woman instead of just eye candy.
Christoph Waltz always makes for a good villain but he's not given enough screen time here. I felt like the barely scratched the surface of his madness. His henchman though, Mr. Hinx (Dave Butista) is a force and physically outmatches Bond, forcing Bond to use his wits against him.
So, here is my gripe. The length. At a runtime of 2 hours and 28min, it starts to drag. Some scenes just seemed unnecessary and it broke the pacing for me. They could have cut it down to 2 hours and I would have been satisfied, but it seemed to just keep going. But once again, I'm not a die-hard Bond fan and I don't get immersed in the world like some hardcore fans do, so maybe for them, the longer the better.
All in all, this is a solid entry in the series. It definitely left me curious to see where they take James Bond next, just keep it around 2 hours.