An Unspectacular SPECTRE!

Rating: 4/10 (6 November 2015)

When QUANTAM OF SOLACE (2008) came out, one of the major complaints was QOS was more of a Jason Bourne flick than Bond. There were too much actions and less of Bond materials in the story. Now in compare to that, if I say this in a short, simple and to the point manner, the news is yesterday I went to the theater with an expectation to see at least a decent, time passing James Bond movie but after spending nearly two & half hour in the theater what I saw...wasn't a Bond flick at all! Daniel Craig's most probably last outing as 007 and Sam Mendes' 2nd consecutive Bond film SPECTRE was nothing but a travesty of a Bond movie! Though it did try to follow the traditional Bond formula in its basic plot line with a great line of cast (wasted!) but from the very beginning all it was able to did was to become something else other than a Bond movie. The most weird thing was, intentionally or not, this time Sam Mendes unnecessarily gave totally an offbeat, dark and strangely depressing mood all over in SPECTRE. At times it was even surprisingly slow and irrationally dragged for a Bond movie. Action sequences were very average and more than that the Bond-momentum was terribly missing from the beginning to the end! As a lifelong 007 fan, it was painful to see when they finally but forcefully put the signature Bond theme at those final last shots, it was like some regular, average action flick just used that soundtrack in the background not only for some weird funny reasons but illegally as well; it was totally out of place. Now the frustrating thing was it actually had some interesting idea but Mendes and his team completely failed to play with them creatively. Now to live up to the expectations of the fans and compete with younger agents like Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt at the box office, I think it still very much possible to provide a typically entertaining and successful Bond movie by keeping things faithful to its tradition, style and source material but this franchise seriously need some bit more brave and imaginative writers in coming days as well as young and talented directors like James Gunn, Edgar Wright or not sure Guy Ritchie may be.
If you still really want to see the unspectacular SPECTRE, better wait for the DVD or skip it. It doesn't worth your time and money at the theater for sure.