Had potential and had its moments, but there are better Bond films

Rating: 6/10 (12 June 2018)

Sam Mendes returned as director for the fourth installment of the Daniel Craig James Bond series. With everything from questions of how long Craig would be doing this to what a huge budget the film had, there's lots to discuss.
Arguably the best place to start, lets talk about the beginning. Production values are imminent from the opening shots. Although there is hardly a cut or a word for the first five minutes, there isn't really anything special that happens. And this ends up taking a toll when the run-time is just under 2 and 1/2 hours. There's some cool helicopter stunts (with some disbelief of reality put aside), but I still consider this action sequence only the third best. And then you also have to talk about Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall." His voice is fantastic and the relevance of the animation in accordance with the story is appreciated, but there's some lacking quality that doesn't seem to fit in with a 007 film. And the animation overall didn't strike me as impressive, so I still rank this theme as third best as well.
Spectre attempts to tie in the previous films into this plot. I guess there's points for effort, but it doesn't really have a huge emotional connection to pull it off. And there were multiple instances where a scene could've been tidied up or even cut entirely. But no. This movie just had to make it to 2 1/2 hours. It's just really long and a little draining.
I think I was still fine with the film up until a snowy mountain sequence where Bond ends up driving like this cargo plane. And as problems arise, the sequence goes into the most Pierce Brosnan-esque style of action-- so over-the-top that it's just like c'mon man.
Lea Seydoux adds a nice touch, and Monica Bellucci certainly adds a bit of a surprising element for Bond Girls. Really have no issue there. And then fans of Sherlock will recognize Andrew Scott in the film. Having gained attention as Moriarty, I was intrigued to see him step into a different role... That didn't happen. Pretty sure the producers told him to act almost exactly as Moriarty had. The result is nothing surprising, which is a disappointment and also a little frustrating.
But lets talk about what had the most potential overall for the film: Christoph Waltz. After having Javier Bardem kill it as the villain in the previous film, I think Waltz is an excellent choice to bring new elements. But this is easily the worst aspect of any Daniel Craig Bond film. Which pains me so much to say because there's a good deal of build-up. His introduction has great camerawork and lighting, and it creates a mystical veil around the organization and his role behind it. And this lasts for lets say 8 minutes. Then the movie basically forgets about it for a good hour. He's brought back, and it could still be very interesting despite a drop in fanfare. But what was supposed to be a tense, high-production action set-piece is set back with a surprisingly boring backstory for the villain filled with ideas that say "This is the bad guy and he's bad and he does bad things because he's bad" and unbelievably predictable action. And I guess they make it appear he's dead, but everyone knows that's not the case--even if the run-time is padded already. The climax reminds me of Mission Impossible Rogue Nation if that climax was also filled with cliches. And what I mean by that comparison is that Rogue Nation kind of has their climax setup like a heist, and you don't really feel any tension because you feel like it all is part of the good guys' plans. Spectre is similar to this, and the ignorance and stupidity that leads to the demise of the villain makes me think that the writers just couldn't think of any other logical possibility for a death.
Spectre isn't all bad, like the returns of Ben Whishaw as Q and Ralph Fiennes as M were very welcome, but it's a very flawed film that certainly had potential.
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