Spectre Movie Review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic Movie Reviews

Spectre

Spectre is the latest addition to the 007 series, once again starring Daniel Craig in the role of Bond, possibly for the last time as he's said he doesn't want to play the role again. The film follows Bond as he is attempting to uncover this shadow organization called Spectre who seem to have their hands in everything. The film stars, alongside Craig, Christoph Waltz, Lea Seadoux, Ralph Fiennes, Andrew Scott, and Ben Whishaw.

Something that all four of the recent Bond films have had in common - even Quantum of Solace) is that they all have really nice and well co-ordinated action. The opening scene in Spectre really sets this film up to be something special, starting off with a really long tracking shot, followed by a really impressive action sequence with one of the more inventive Bond setpeices. The action in Spectre is the highlight of the film, all of it being really well-paced, and really creative with the direction. This also goes hand in hand with the cinematography, which is also another really cool part of this movie.

Aside from the cinematography and the action, there's also a couple of other things to like about Spectre. The actors all do pretty decent jobs, and the plot following M and Andrew Scotts character was an interesting enough side-plot for the film. However, Spectre unfortunately falls flat from the writing between both the dialogue, the characters, and the story being pretty dull. However, all those are minor complaints in comparison to the thing that broke this movie for me, and that's the villain.

When you have someone like Christoph Waltz - someone whose highlight of their career is playing one of cinematic histories most menacing villains - playing a Bond villain, that should be put to good use. And it's not that Christoph Waltz's villain is a bad villain, it's just questionable if he even is a villain. The problem is his character is in exactly three scenes in the entire movie. Not to mention, the reveal of exactly why he's doing what he's doing is downright laughable and brings the movie down as a whole.

Now to some, this may seem like a minor complaint, but not to me. In Skyfall, Javier Bardem played one of the best Bond villains of all time - Silva. And there are a lot of reasons why Silva was such a good Bond villain, and it seems like none of those traits were applied to this character. Silva was menacing, and can outsmart Bond, something that was illistrated through his actions in the film. The problem with Oberhauser is that the film never illustrates that he's a threat, but simply has a bunch of other characters telling Bond how much of a threat he is, with the film never delivering on that threat. The end result is a villain who never seems like he could beat Bond, there's never any doubt that Bond will win, and thus there's nothing to pull your interest into the movie.

Final Rating

I saw this movie with a friend of mine who said he really enjoyed the film, a lot more than I did, which is why I'm bumping up the rating a little more than what I would have given it originally. For me, personally, I wasn't a fan of this movie and probably won't see it again. It's not the worst Daniel Craig Bond movie (that'd be Quantum of Solace), but it's absolutely not the best (Still Skyfall). If you're interested in seeing it, go ahead. If not, you probably won't be missing anything if you skip it.