not so hot

Rating: 5/10 (7 November 2015)

Oh dear. Hopefully I will discern lurking beauties in this film when I inevitably watch it over and over on Blu-ray. It is definitely less than the sum of its parts.
First the fragments of good: several cast members really are wonderful to see whenever they are on screen, first among them Christoph Waltz. Apparently he has no concern of being typecast as a villain. This is probably the weakest performance I have seen him give as this character, and the fault is not his but a weak plodding script and I think the director's ineffective use of his talents. There is one scene close to the beginning when he is introduced, that is clearly a homage to Tarantino and it is wonderful, but nothing after uses him to such good effect.
Ralph Fiennes and Andrew Scott are wonderful, particularly the latter. I admired Jesper Christensen since his small role in Casino Royale, and he does not disappoint. He is one of the few recurrent Bond characters to actually evolve through the movies.
Monica Bellucci, I can't be objective about her. I adore her as a great beauty and great actress and always have. That said, she is twice abused, first she is given weak lines and very little screen time, and worse her makeup is horrendous and adds ten years to her face. Of course, the wag might say she looks hideous and the makeup saved her, but I have seen her so many times, for example in that fantastic Paris Match spread "Stars sans fards" and without makeup Bellucci is one of the wonders of the world.
Lea Seydoux surprised me. I know her as one of the countless pretty stars France produces and I expected very little. She is actually very good and hauntingly beautiful, despite miserably few lines and scenes and a costume howler in which she wakes up after a drunken sleep, perfectly coiffed in unwrinkled negligee.
Of course the main star of this movie is always the Bond and the story. And these are the film's principle weaknesses. The story is at best formulaic and conspicuously written "by committee". It is easily the most tired of the Craig Bond movie script plots. Its script is really banal. And that leaves poor Daniel Craig without much to do. I loved Craig in Casino Royale and think he is a fabulous actor. But even he can't work miracles with this script and direction.
After such huge disappointment, this seems trivial, but I am tired of the skin-tight costumes Bond has to wear. They actually look uncomfortable, besides being improbable. I don't know if they are by Tom Ford or they are Tom Ford-inspired, but they are a jarring departure from the original novel's esprit.
So see it of course, how can one not. But don't expect too much.