Welcome return to the classic era of Bond

Rating: 7/10 (22 January 2016)

Spectre is the latest in the Bond franchise which sees the return of Sam Mendes as director and Daniel Craig as James Bond, the film also sees the return of Ralph Fiennes as M, Naomie Harris as Moneypenny and Ben Whishaw as Q. Several new cast members appear also such as Christoph Waltz, Lea Seydoux, Dave Bautista, and Monica Bellucci.
The moment this film started I knew Bond was truly back, some might have said that for Casino Royale or Skyfall but the moment that classic theme began playing and I saw that gun barrel sequence where it belonged at the beginning of the film I knew 007 was really back. From that moment onwards you were thrust back into that golden age of espionage with more modern elements sprinkled in. Everything that made the classic films so great was in this film.
Before the titles even came on I was already blown away, intense action with stunning camera work including a impressive one shot that must have lasted a good couple of minutes, coving a large amount of space very fluently. It was a great introduction to the long ride ahead of you. Followed by this was another fantastic title sequence with a song that I feel is getting far too much hate, it's by far not a perfect song but it's not as ear-bleeding-ly bad as many make it out to be, in my opinion it's a very Bond song and we have had much worse so stop your whining and be happy Jack White and Alicia Keys aren't back!
One of my favourite parts of Spectre and Skyfall where the characters, in Casino Royale Bond was more of a fleshed out character than he had ever really been before, with each film since they have improved on his character and I hope they continue to. The side characters were also very well done, each distinct and with their own little quirks, what was even more fun was to see them all interact with each other leading to great and mostly very humorous scenes. Fortunately there were a lot more of them as the side characters, which would only appear in the beginning briefing and if they were lucky the ending of the classic films, had a lot more screen time and involvement in the plot. I did feel a tad bid underwhelmed with one or two characters including Andrew Scott's who was practically a worse version of his character in Sherlock, considering we know he is capable of great performances it was a shame to see him mostly go to waste in this. As for practically everyone else it was excellent and all expertly performed too.
On the visual side of things I was also very happy; the sets were (as always) brilliant, detailed and very, very big. I did have a minor problem with one of the sets though and that was it was pretty much just thrown away, we are introduced to this expansive and excellent set with lots of potential to be a classic Bond villain lair but instead we see about 4 rooms of it and come it's inevitable destruction James just leaves, shoots a gas tank and bye bye expensive set. In the older films a bigger deal would be made of it, usually the set is slowly blowing up while Bond and his companion are still inside, shooting their way out until eventually they get outside just as it goes up in smoke. That being said the film was already packing an exceptionally large run time and more than enough big action pieces and didn't need an extra five or ten minutes on something that wasn't even the proper climax. Maybe it's just the Bond fanboy part of me but I just felt slightly underwhelmed. Other than that everything was top-notch including the costumes and very well done special effects including computer generated and practical. All expertly shot alongside another brilliant Thomas Newman score. On that note the score was also great, while listening to it the night before I thought it was very tedious and dull but with the film it worked very well which I suppose is all a good score should do. It did become a tad bit repetitive at times, in particular the use of the first few notes of the Bond theme which was used so often that it became very annoying, luckily not long after I noticed it, it was used a lot less.
Another fault with the film was how predictable it was, I wouldn't say you knew what was going to happen all the time but, I'm not sure if it's just because I have seen all the Bond films, many of the big twists were spottable from a mile off, it may be different for regular movie goers that may have only seen the recent films but fans of classic Bond will be left rolling their eyes when they should have been gasping with surprise. In fact the main twist I knew from the moment the film was announced and they're not trying to even hide it anymore (a word of warning, do not check the Wikipedia page!)
Other than that Spectre is definitely Bond at his best, a triumphant return to the days of Connery and Moore without the cheese but still enough humour to keep you going through the long and exciting, dark ride of spies and chaos. Beautifully shot intense action and brilliant performances this will be a highlight of any Bond fan's movie marathon.