James Bond Franchise (1962-∞)

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cdnchris
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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#376 Post by cdnchris » Sat Nov 07, 2015 2:27 am

Sadly, I probably only liked this because I lowered my expectations after coming across so many mixed reactions to it, and I lowered them enough where the film still managed to exceed them. It was nice seeing some of the old staples back: the opening down-the-barrel shot, ridiculous stunt work, an evil lair, gadgets (though still limited admittedly), evil organization with plans of world domination, pretty badass henchman (Bautista was visually one of the more intimidating looking henchmen in recent memory), and so on. I also must admit that, as a Bond fan, I sported a big grin when
SpoilerShow
the white cat makes its first appearance.
The story was certainly a mess. I was following along with it but the last act was all over the place, and all of the "twists" weren't really at all surprising. How they tried to tie the previous Bond films together, and also how they tried to combine Quantum and Spectre, didn't entirely work, either. For the latter I'm sure it's related to the legal issues with McClory's estate at the time (they couldn't use the Spectre name so they called the organization Quantum) but I'm sure there was a less convoluted way to tie everything together.

The opening was really impressive and one of the more elaborately shot sequences in the franchise. I agree with others that visually the film is striking, but despite the fact that the opening is pretty cool (and it may be one of my favourite Bond openings) visually nothing in this reaches the level of the fight scene in the Hong Kong high rise in Skyfall.

Coming out I liked what I saw and enjoyed it, but there is one aspect that probably came pretty close to ruining it for me, and it's such a small part of the film:
SpoilerShow
Blofeld has daddy issues!? Talk about turning one of the coolest supervillans in film history into one of the biggest cry-babies in film history.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#377 Post by Luke M » Sat Nov 07, 2015 2:37 pm

I stubbornly refused to lower my expectations an instead insisted so many critics and commenters must've been wrong. Welp. That was certainly not the case. Not since Boyle's Sunshine has a movie taken such a huge dive from beginning to end. Though arguably, Sunshine's fall was worse but only happened in the final act.

It was ridiculously predictable. And Monica Bellucci was in it, what 5 minutes? And helicopters, why so many? So many head scratching decisions in this one.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#378 Post by YnEoS » Mon Nov 23, 2015 9:40 pm

My memory of past James Bond movies seems to be blank, so I don't have much to compare this to, but I thought there were some really effective scenes in the film, even though the overall story and context of everything was fairly messy.

The scene with the two killers played out of focus where we can only see their guns raising by the glint of light hitting them. I also thought the whole scene of Bond sneaking into the evil villain meeting was very effective in how it presented everything and built up slowly.

A lot of the important scenes seemed to have the right sense of pacing and gravitas. Important things were held off long enough and built up to actually mean something instead of just rushing through.

But yeah, aside from that I didn't really have any interest in what was going on in the film, so the effectiveness of individual scenes was dampened somewhat by my lack of caring for the characters.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#379 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Nov 23, 2015 11:25 pm

The most Bond-like of the Craig Bond films. We have all the familiar elements, from hulking, silent henchmen, to swooning Bond girls, to Bond being strapped to a table and tortured. It's all there. The last three films have been preparation for all the old tricks.

Like everyone else, aside from the opening, nothing here stood out. There were so many plot points and locations and action sequences to get through that the movie forgot to give any weight or interest to what was happening. Blofeld is here, yet I waited in vain for a single interesting exchange between him and Bond. There was nothing like that great meeting between Bond and Silva on the island. Once the plot got going, the crisp dialogue from the earlier scenes faded away

But what really bothered me was how easy everything was for Bond. He chats on the phone during a car chase, he walks out of a building just moments after being tortured and shoots everyone like he went back to replay the first level of a game he'd just beat, he gets out of being hooded and handcuffed more easily than I put on my jacket, he shoots down a helicopter with a 9mm pistol while in a speedboat, he and Lea Seydoux fall completely in love with each other for no reason at all. There are no stakes in this movie. It all just happens--enjoyably, I admit, but without life. Better than Quantum of Solace but not as good as Casino Royale or Skyfall, two of the very best in this series.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#380 Post by bdsweeney » Tue Nov 24, 2015 12:12 am

Mr Sausage wrote: There were so many plot points and locations and action sequences to get through that the movie forgot to give any weight or interest to what was happening.
That's the best summation I've read or heard anywhere on the film's problems. Ridiculous plot twists, explosions etc. are a given for any Bond film but they are seem so carelessly done in this film. For all of the top-notch production values and adequate-for-the-film performances, the film is let down terribly by its plotting.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#381 Post by Ribs » Tue Nov 24, 2015 12:26 am

I liked that Waltz's evil torture machine was going to make Bond forget everything he knew, even though the Craig Bond has so clearly been trying to shrug off and ignore everything that's happened in any of his previous films, this film especially guilty of this. I'm pretty sure this was not deliberate whatsoever but I almost got the impression that Bond sort of would like to forget his past loves and get a fresh start.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#382 Post by D50 » Tue Nov 24, 2015 11:35 am

Ribs wrote:I liked that Waltz's evil torture machine...
It's a homage to Goldfinger's laser scene.

Do you expect me to talk?

No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#383 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Nov 26, 2015 11:18 pm

Better than Quantum of Solace, but slightly below the other two Craig films for me. I think I'll be able to see it in a better light if the next film is a direct continuation, and is Craig's last outing as has been speculated.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#384 Post by hanshotfirst1138 » Sun Dec 06, 2015 11:31 am

D50 wrote:
Ribs wrote:I liked that Waltz's evil torture machine...
It's a homage to Goldfinger's laser scene.

Do you expect me to talk?

No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.
I thought that the line of dialogue was too: "And I thought you came here to die!"

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#385 Post by tenia » Sun Dec 06, 2015 4:58 pm

D50 wrote:
Ribs wrote:I liked that Waltz's evil torture machine...
It's a homage to Goldfinger's laser scene.

Do you expect me to talk?

No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.
But quite a piece of junk, which makes absolutely nothing at all to Bond making the sequence pointless except making a couple of people cringe in the back of the room (in our case, it actually got many viewers laughing by the non-impact of the machine on Bond).

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#386 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sun Dec 06, 2015 9:57 pm

It made me cringe a little. It reminded me more of Marathon Man, though not as brilliantly torturous as that scene was.

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Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#387 Post by hanshotfirst1138 » Sun Dec 06, 2015 10:35 pm

tenia wrote:
D50 wrote:
Ribs wrote:I liked that Waltz's evil torture machine...
It's a homage to Goldfinger's laser scene.

Do you expect me to talk?

No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.
But quite a piece of junk, which makes absolutely nothing at all to Bond making the sequence pointless except making a couple of people cringe in the back of the room (in our case, it actually got many viewers laughing by the non-impact of the machine on Bond).
I found it quite cringe-worthy watching, but I don't know if Blofeld was just being sadistic at first or what, since nothing seemed to actually damage Bond. Once Bond got free, he seemed perfectly fine. You'd think they'd at least have him hold his head and say "ouch" or something.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#388 Post by connor » Mon Dec 07, 2015 2:19 pm

Easily the worst of the Daniel Craig Bond films. I'm not the biggest fan of QUANTUM but it was far more interesting and entertaining than this. SPECTRE tried to take classic era Bond silliness and graft it onto the neo-noir, pseudo "realist" (or "Nolanist") visual style of the last few films.

The love story was completely unearned, the final set-piece in the building was totally lame with no real payoff (and he finds her...in a room! Tied up!). Same with the torture sequence. I cringed every time they pushed the whole "no no no! seriously: all the bad things in the last few Craig movies are linked! And now? Resolved!"

I remember Gawker reported on leaked Sony emails a while back in which the execs were all trying to fix "third act" problems with the SPECTRE script. Their notes were surprisingly good for a bunch of studio hacks.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#389 Post by HanaBiSonatine » Mon Dec 07, 2015 6:03 pm

I feel the main fault of both of Mendes's Bond films is that, essentially, they're rather self-serious without providing enough thematic or emotional resonance to validate the usage of such a stolid tone.

Spectre loosens up a bit, compared to the almost stifling "Serious with a capital S" atmosphere of Skyfall, but it's certainly still there, and both films suffer immensely for it.

The problem is that, when you're dealing with such a high-budget franchise like Bond, you're only going to be allowed to experiment so much before the leash is pulled. There's nothing inherently wrong with taking Bond seriously, and I'm by no means advocating a return to Roger Moore-esque ludicrousness, but if you're going to do so, there would need to be a radical reinvention of the entire format. A huge de-emphasis on action, much more on character. No super villians. No ridiculous gadgets. Given the millions that are invested in each of these movies, that's never going to happen. Not to mention the fact that there are already far better spy movies about exactly that kind of thing.

So what we're left with is directors like Sam Mendes draining all the vitality and playfulness out of what is, and always will be, a ridiculous spy franchise, in the fallacious belief that if something isn't funny, then it's inherently dramatic instead of simply being inert. The scenes where Bond first tracks down Spectre in Italy, and when he rediscovers Mr. White in this film are prime examples. Sumptuously photographed, with dread-laden premonitions and declarations of doom peppered amid long dramatic pauses. It's more like watching a funeral procession by way of a perfume commercial than an action film.

Casino Royale remains my favorite Craig Bond film because it has the perfect balance of playfulness and intensity. It knows when to play it straight, and has more than enough credibility when it has to 'get down to business' as it were, yet it never forgets that it's meant to be entertaining and maintains a light touch throughout.

Mendes replaces the light touch in that film with heavy-handed moroseness, yet keeps henchmen with metal thumbnails and hacker super villians with secret island lairs. It's like oil and water, and incredibly misguided. Mendes and his team have put the tonal cart before the horse, and forgotten to actually put anything worth pontificating about before they drained all the fun out of the proceedings.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#390 Post by tenia » Mon Dec 07, 2015 6:32 pm

My main issue with Spectre was that it spends more tile trying to put closure to the previous 3 movies than building any story on its own. Same goes for the characters (also adding on top of that Seydoux's terrible acting).
And it's vastly overlong.

Skyfall at least was able to live on its own.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#391 Post by hanshotfirst1138 » Tue Dec 08, 2015 2:01 am

tenia wrote:My main issue with Spectre was that it spends more tile trying to put closure to the previous 3 movies than building any story on its own. Same goes for the characters (also adding on top of that Seydoux's terrible acting).
And it's vastly overlong.

Skyfall at least was able to live on its own.
It's funny, I was thinking that it had both that problem AND the opposite. On the one hand, it rather too neatly decided to retroactively be a wrap up to the previous movies. On the other, I thought it set up all kinds of interesting possibilities for the Bond world and future movies, but did little to pay them off. I was sure it'd end with Blofeld still out there, possibly together with another villain, and Bond and M trying to rebuild to get ready for the coming storm, resetting the pieces of the Bond universe. The film missed too many opportunities. Nearly every interesting idea-Spectre infiltrating MI-6, Bond, Monneypenny, Q, and M working off the grid, casting Walzt-got touched on or set up then either revolved too quickly or simply dropped. I wondered if the ideas for more than one film got folded into the script for this? I know about the reshoots for the big third act, and they sure show, it feels surprisingly small-scale for a Bond picture's final set piece, and while I think what it wants to do is feel like the stakes are more personal, in the end it make the finale feel much too limp.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#392 Post by HAL 9000 » Fri Dec 11, 2015 8:39 pm

As far as Spectre goes, I thought the continuous tracking shot and scene in the helicopter were fantastic even if it had nothing to do with the rest of the film. The place where Waltz lives in Africa I found to have really great production design. The Bond girl seemed a little underdeveloped and the relationship didn't seem to come naturally. But, for the most part, I thought it wasn't a bad film. Yeah, I guess how they are trying to tie some of the other elements of Bond's life from other Bond film stories might seem a little forced or not convincing I guess you could say. Maybe it seemed tacked on. Skyfall, for me, I think had a great first portion, but I didn't like how it resorted to a sort of Mc Guyver do it yourself homemade contraptions for Bond and M to defend themselves rather than Bond using Q's invented gadgets which seem a little more classy and fit the character of Bond better. I do not know if many people share my position on this, based on what I read and hear on the internet, but I like Quantum of Solace. I like the opera house, the plane that Bond is piloting going between narrow canyons, the car chase with the narrow walls. I can't remember all of it, because, right now, because I have that film in storage. There's also the explosion of that place in South or Central America, which I thought was pretty well thought out. Does anybody like Quantum of Solace or am I alone on this? I'll check the forum at some point in the future to see if anybody has left any thoughts regarding my comments.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#393 Post by hanshotfirst1138 » Sat Dec 12, 2015 12:10 am

Most Bond fans really don't like QOS, in my experience. Personally, I think that the shaky cam in it drives me up the wall, and with the exception of the opera house, most of the set pieces were weak and interesting. However, I think Forester brings a slightly more personal touch. It's a bit more interesting thematically; it's one of the few Bond films where he's not just a military dog and actually goes on a more personal mission, it tries to be a bit more complex politically, and it does the Hitchcockian "man on the run" storyline, something I don't think any other Bond films quite did. It's pretty lean, I think it's one of the shortest of all of the Bond pictures, which is kind of novel given how bloated they usually are. Unfortunately, it got put into production during the WGA strike and started without a finished script, and it really shows, the plot kind of jumps around. After Casino Royale, it was generally looked at as a comedown, but I sometimes think time might be kinder to it than to many Bod flicks. Even the title song feels different. I was sure it'd be the last Bond flick on 35mm too, so I had a bit of a soft spot for it for that reason prior to the surprising announcement that this would would be shot on film :D.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#394 Post by Trees » Sat Dec 12, 2015 3:13 am

I would rank this film slightly behind CASINO ROYALE, but ahead of QUANTUM and SKYFALL. To me, SKYFALL barely even qualifies as a Bond film at all, but rather, is just a glorified, above-average shoot-em-up movie. So many key, indispensable staples of Bond are missing from SKYFALL. In that sense, SPECTRE is an improvement, making some fairly large strides back toward Bond staples. I liked the elaborate opening shots in Mexico city, using steadicam, technocrane and barely perceptible cuts -- it's a high mark in production values for the Bond series. The heli scene was a disaster, though. It was so poorly conceived and shot that you can barely tell what's going on. I just couldn't care less about that heli scene. Things were building up great until that farce in the heli. Very anticlimactic.

All Bond films should have exotic locales, multiple gorgeous women, equally exotic cars, Q dispensing ingenious gadgets/tech, lots of panache and humor, tuxedo'd gambling and boozing, memorable henchmen, and an iconic bad guy with a glorious secret evil headquarters (complete with monorails when possible). SPECTRE started clawing back some of these keys tenets. For example, I always love when Bond is captured by the bad guy, but treated to a nicely decorated room with fresh clothing and given a chance to rest and spruce up before the inevitable showdown with the villain. It shows some class! I was glad to see this old motif brought back in SPECTRE. Dave Bautista was the best henchman in ages, bringing back memories of Jaws. It's also so great to see Q back in absolutely top form, in this case serving as a very close confidant of Bond, similar to the role Desmond Martin had grown into by the time OCTOPUSSY was filmed, for example. I really love the new M, also.

A lot of energy is wasted in the last few Bond films trying to tie them all together, which was never part of the Bond franchise. These films should more or less stand alone. Tying the films together has gained the viewer nothing. Rather, I would say, it has become a huge distraction and drain on the franchise. It should stop.

The finale of this film in London is a mess. The final showdown probably should have taken place at Blofeld's evil headquarters.

Some things I am hoping for in future Bonds:

1. Better Bond girls and romance
2. Better gadgets
3. More humor and panache
4. Better evil headquarters
5. Better world-domination plot

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#395 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Dec 25, 2015 8:16 am

Radiohead - "Spectre"
Last year we were asked to write a theme tune for the Bond movie Spectre.
Yes we were. It didn’t work out, but became something of our own, which we love very much.
As the year closes we thought you might like to hear it.
Merry Christmas. May the force be with you.

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Luke M
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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#396 Post by Luke M » Fri Dec 25, 2015 8:34 pm

It's better than the Sam Smith song. That's not huge praise though.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#397 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Dec 25, 2015 10:30 pm

I like the idea of them collaborating with Thomas Newman, but more the guy who scored American Beauty than 007.

Skyfall had some of his signature sounds in there, but here it seems to have tended more towards the general Bond sound. Which isn't bad on it's own, but it's not as unique-sounding as it could be.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#398 Post by domino harvey » Wed Feb 24, 2016 1:27 pm


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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#399 Post by cdnchris » Wed Feb 24, 2016 1:48 pm

Well, if he is done-done, my daughter's going to be really upset about that.

Ended up watching Spectre a few more times because of her. The first two-thirds, which I was OK with initially, worked better for me, but that last third is still a hot mess. I'd really hate for him to go out on that one.

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Re: Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

#400 Post by Ribs » Wed Feb 24, 2016 1:59 pm

A bit baffled that people are taking this as more demonstrative of him leaving than any earlier report; it's still second hand, and is not in definitive terms either.

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