The Spectre

Plot synopsis:
Following Gareth Mallory's promotion to M, James Bond takes leave from MI6, which is merged with MI5 in a series of reforms to the British intelligence community. However, a posthumous message from the previous M leads Bond to carry an unauthorised mission in Mexico City, where he stops a terrorist bombing plot. While confronting the criminals' leader, Marco Sciarra, Bond grabs his ring which is emblazoned with a stylised octopus. Upon returning to London, Bond is indefinitely suspended from field duty by M. Parallel to this, M is in the midst of a power struggle with Max Denbigh (whom Bond dubs "C"), the head of a privately backed agency, the Joint Intelligence Service. C campaigns for Britain to form "Nine Eyes", a global surveillance and intelligence co-operation initiative and uses his influence to close down the '00' section as he believes it to be outdated.
Bond disobeys M's order and travels to Rome to attend Sciarra's funeral. He seduces Sciarra's widow Lucia, who tells him Marco belonged to Spectre, an organisation of businessmen with criminal and terrorist connections. Bond uses Sciarra's ring to infiltrate a Spectre meeting, where he identifies the leader, Franz Oberhauser. When Oberhauser addresses Bond by name, he is pursued across the city by Spectre's assassin, Mr. Hinx. Moneypenny informs Bond that the information he collected leads to Mr. White, a former member of Spectre subsidiary Quantum, who has fallen afoul of Oberhauser and has been marked for assassination. Bond asks her to investigate Oberhauser, who was presumed dead years earlier.
Bond locates White in Austria, where he learns that White is dying of thallium poisoning. He tells Bond to find and protect his daughter, Dr. Madeline Swann, who will take him to L'Américain; this will in turn lead him to Spectre. White then commits suicide. Bond approaches Swann, and after rescuing her from Hinx, the two meet Q. Through Sciarra's ring, Q forensically links Oberhauser to Bond's previous missions, identifying Le Chiffre, Dominic Greene and Raoul Silva as Spectre agents.
Swann takes Bond to L'Américain, a hotel in Tangier, and discover White left evidence directing them to Oberhauser's operations base at a massive crater in the Sahara. Taking a train to a remote station, Bond and Swann have an encounter with Hinx that sees the assassin killed, and are eventually escorted to Oberhauser's base. There, Oberhauser reveals that Spectre has been funding the Joint Intelligence Service while staging terrorist attacks around the world, creating a need for the Nine Eyes programme. In return C will give Spectre unlimited access to intelligence gathered by Nine Eyes, allowing them to anticipate and counter-act investigations into their operations. Bond is tortured as Oberhauser discusses their shared history: after the younger Bond was orphaned, Oberhauser's father Hannes became his temporary guardian. Believing that Bond supplanted his role as son, Oberhauser killed his father and staged his own death, adopting the name Ernst Stavro Blofeld—going on to form Spectre and targeting Bond. Bond and Swann overpower him and escape, destroying the base in an explosion and leaving Blofeld to die.
Bond and Swann return to London where they meet M, Bill Tanner, Q, and Moneypenny with the intention of arresting C and stopping Nine Eyes from being activated. Swann and Bond are abducted separately, while the rest of the group proceed with the plan. After Q succeeds in preventing the Nine Eyes from going online, a brief struggle between M and C ends with C falling to his death. Meanwhile, Bond is taken to the ruins of the old MI6 building, which is scheduled for demolition after Raoul Silva's bombing. Moving throughout a ruined labyrinth, he encounters a disfigured Blofeld, who tells him that he has a choice between escaping the building before explosives are detonated or die trying to save Swann. Bond finds Swann and the two escape by boat as the building collapses. Bond shoots down Blofeld's helicopter, which crashes onto Westminster Bridge. As Blofeld crawls away from the wreckage, Bond confronts him but leaves him to be arrested by M, before leaving the bridge with Swann.

Tags: paranormal, revenge, neo noir, murder

Review:
great short included on "Justice League :Crisis on Two Earths".
i really enjoyed this little gem which is included as a bonus on the Justice League:Crisis on Two Earths DVD:it's basically a sort of a film noir type mystery.it's only about 11 minutes or so,but it gives you a brief idea of who The Spectre is,if you're not already familiar with the character.this short film is a good way to introduce the character,and to gauge fan interest,as he is what could be considered a fringe character.i believe the character could probably do justice to a full length feature and hope that DC has that as one of their goals in the future.regardless,i really enjoyed seeing The Spectre on the screen,even briefly.for me,DC Showcase: The Spectre is an 8/10.
Loses a point for not being a full length feature.
If the ghost of Christmas Future had a creepier crime fighting relative, "The Spectre" would be it.
By day, Detective Jim Corrigan investigates homicide cases; his latest case being the explosive murder of a Hollywood film executive producer.
Incidentally, the victim is also the father of his girlfriend Aimee Brenner.
The usual investigation red tape gets in the way of his investigation as Corrigan finds himself powerless to bring the suspects to justice.
But Jim Corrigan has an ace up his sleeve.
By night, Corrigan assumes his true form as "THE SPECTRE", an avenging spirit with immense supernatural powers.
Unimpeded by the limitations of a human form, the Spectre seeks out the suspects of the murder case and dishes out his own supernatural form of justice.
However, the clues might not be as obvious as he thought and the real suspect may be closer than he thinks.From the get go, "The Spectre" animated short film is a beautiful tribute to classic film noir supernatural thrillers.
Everything from the old school music to the "grindhouse" film grain is heightens that "1970s" feel.
Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, who also directed the awesome G.I Joe Resolute movie, the animation and artwork here is astounding.
Character movements are just so "real", so lifelike and extremely fluid.
The artwork too has a higher level of detail even when compared to the full length "Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths" main feature that this short film came with.
Easily better looking than many of the best Japanese anime too.Writer Steve Niles is no stranger to the horror genre, having penned the critically acclaimed "30 Days of Night" series.
Clocking in at barely over 11 minutes, the entire set up of "the Spectre" is a classic, though rather predictable, detective story.
But the scenes involving the Specter, glowing green eyes swirling cape and inhuman voice adding to air of creepiness, are genuinely scary with a couple of real shocks.
Fans of horror movies will be able to pick out some noticeable homages to films like "Chucky" and "Final Destination".
Seeing as how The Spectre might not be as famous as Batman or as popular as Superman, it was probably a wise move for Warner to only make one short film in order to gauge viewers' interest.
The result was so spectacular, so oozing with style and boasting high end production values that it really is a pity Warner did not go all out to make a full length feature from the start.
Having a mature narrative makes this short film accessible to even viewers who are not fans of animation as it plays out very much like a live action movie.Definitely not to be missed.
Get it now with the blu-ray or 2 disc DVD copy of "Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths" or get the "DC Showcase: Original Shorts Collection" DVD and blu-ray due out in November 2010.
Oh yes, there is quite a fair bit of violence, actually more so than the main Justice League feature; so be warned..
The Spectre: Interesting enough I suppose.
I'm not particularly familiar with The Spectre and I guess that's the point of these DC Showcases, an opportunity to become acquainted with lesser known heroes.With the neat voice talent of Gary Cole & Alyssa Milano this DC short gets to the point quick.It tells the story of a detective searching for a killer of a Hollywood actor, meanwhile the shadowy figure that is The Spectre is handing out his own brand of justice.Again not being familiar with The Spectre I didn't really know what to expect and have to say it has a real film noir feel about it.
Combine that with his powers seeming somewhat overpowered and I'd be curious to see more.The Good:Good voice talentWell animatedThe Bad:Limited due to the time constraintsThings I Learnt From This Short:Gary Cole needs to do more voice work.
"You can't kill a dead man...and the guilty must be punished for their crimes!".
This short was such a cool little surprise and I ended up liking it a whole lot more than the movie it came with!
It had a lot of edgy noir-esc pizazz and a very appealing retro visual look with seventies type grain and a soft glow to the picture, and I was quite hooked by that style almost right away, it gave the short a terrific tone, as well as making the superb animation stand out more.
I enjoy the brief murder mystery plot of it, for such a short..short they do a good job of giving it an effective setup, middle and payoff, but I really loved it because of the title character, a dark avenger I'd never even heard of before watching this.
He was so awesomely mysterious and his abilities were so otherworldly, I was surprised to find out that he's actually one of the oldest comic book characters, having decades on creations like Ghost Rider and Spawn, whom he immediately made me think of.
I'm not saying that my personal knowledge goes for everyone, but compared to Superman you'd be hard pressed to find the average person in the street who knew who the Spectre was, and that's a shame because there's some pretty great potential there, I could watch a whole series or an animated movie based around this guy if it were as well made and gripping as this short.
He really kicked ass, when he wasn't masquerading as the hard boiled fifties gumshoe detective that he was in life, the Spectre was like a dispassionate judge who delivered frightening ethereal doom down upon those that the harsh form of cold cosmic justice that he embodied, deemed guilty!
I think his particular style of merciless punishment prevents him from being considered a true hero, definitely more of an anti-hero..
What he did to the guilty was downright brutal, and while not quite gory, it certainly didn't pull any punches with the death and violence, with a very creepy sequence of a man trapped in a movie studio full of monster props that catch and eat him, and a beautiful but heartless debutante who had her own father assassinated for his money being blendered alive by a whirlwind of the ill gotten dollar bills as sharp as razors!
I love the classic horror movie references, the brilliant homage to John Carpenter's Christine is pretty unmistakable, but I also spied little nods to The Exorcist and a quick music theme near the end that sounded very similar to that Italian band that were in a lot of giallo horror movies Goblin!
So while you may require a pentient for the macabre to really love this, I found it to be a great thrilling and atmospheric short that made me want to see more of this ghostly guardian of dire justice who truly brings new meaning to the word Wrath!
Excellent and well worth seeing.
X. Good for older fans.
Be warned the Specter is a character that is very dark for a child to watch so don't show them this short.
The animation and voice acting are good but the story is just too much WTF did I just watch.
In the story, the Specter kills someone by using his dummies against them, controlling a car and ramming it into them and turning money notes into paper cuts.
It is an okay short..
An underused hero.
This is another of these roughly 11-minute-long animated short films made by Warner Bros that came out 5 years ago.
The director is Joaquim Dos Santos and his work here and also in the other showpieces lets me think that it would actually be nice if he got his own feature film at some point.
The Spectre is a superhero who is relatively unknown and it would be equally nice if he got his own film at some point, maybe even live action.
The story here is about a man who gets killed and The Spectre, who has the ability to breathe life into inanimate objects, takes revenge.
First we think, it is because of a thing he has going on with the victim's daughter (voiced by Alyssa Milano), but then things move into another direction.
The final plot twist elevates a fairly mediocre film to this point.
Good writing here, although I still believe that he solved these cases far too quickly.
Maybe one villain in the middle of the film would have been enough and instead some more elaboration on how he found out who was really behind it all.
Still, that's just a minor criticism.
The animation is pretty good and this is a decent film.
I still believe "Jonah Hex" is the best of these, but "The Spectre" is maybe 3rd behind Superman as well, but better than Green Arrow and Catwoman.
Recommended.