Rate SPECTRE (out of ten)

lachesis wrote:

The criticism leaves me puzzled in that many of us seemed keen to see a more traditional Bond film..... not yet another entry steeped in the wallowing pretension and self conciousness of the last 3. Much as I loved Skayfall it really was, for me, a case of finally getting the job done that the preceding 4 films wholly failed to do. As of now I am debating whether to venture to the cinema (it doesnt take much to put me off these days) or just wait on the Blu-ray, but it was a good old fashioned Bond that I really was missing and hoped we'd see this time....is it or is it not?

Ambler is just pissed that neither Bond girl recited Tennyson. Skyfall wasn't a masterpiece to me, in fact it was one of the more boring Bond films I've seen. I'm hoping this one is better than the last two....

By the way, was the huge budget seen in this film and worth every penny?

I vote -4. I haven't seen the film, but if I like it, then that compromises my integrity as a fan of Ian Fleming.

x

Blunt Instrument wrote:

8. I had fun.

Same. My thoughts are elsewhere here. But to hell with it.

I'm somewhere between 7 and 8. I'll vote after my second viewing.

To compare to Craig's other three, CR would be a 7, QOS would be a 5, and SF would be 10.

Yeah I'll wait until my second viewing on Wednesday… When you seeing it next, MP?

Sunday afternoon. Since CR it's been a tradition to see it first with my cousin, then with my mom as she's a fan of Craig. In fact, she always asks "when are we gonna see Daniel Craig?". I have a feeling we won't see Bond films together again once he departs!

Ha that's awesome.

Six for me.

Gave it a 7, but that's from the gut from last night's viewing. I'll definitely be seeing it again before too long.

As of one viewing, I'm giving it an 8.

I'm giving it a 4 right now. I'll see it again next week.

4/10

It was shit. Thinking of writing a review for the members thread, but I don't even know if it's worth it.

Gave it a 3.

A Bond movie can't fail to be entertaining; there is no truly terrible Bond movie, and even the worst of them are usually better than anything else out in the marketplace.

Having said all that, with the combined resources of SONY Pictures, 4 writers, an Oscar-winning director, a popular actor, and the level of acting talent hired, not to mention the talent behind the camera, plus a bank-busting budget, there is absolutely NO EXCUSE for what we ended up with. Just none.

After a second viewing, I gave it an 8. Flawed as it gets in the climax, I enjoyed the heck out of the whole thing.

Having had some time to digest it, especially with a 2nd viewing, it gets a 5 from me.

Just average.

Glad I got my blu-ray of Mission Impossible Rogue Nation...its action sequences are superior. Rebecca Ferguson makes Lea Seydoux look like a barefoot little girl.

Didn't see the $250m budget.

It had some good moments of course...but I was expecting better. Especially on the heels of Skyfall.

Not a waste, but nothing groundbreaking or overly memorable either. Which is where this film should have gone.

Best moment...Q introduces the car, and shits on Bond. Gives him a watch, then shits on him again. Priceless. The torture scene was ok too.

Good to see Bond get a bitch slap too.

Car action in Rome - overhyped and a letdown. 2 great cars doing standard textbook stuff. Is Bond standard textbook now? Why are other franchises doing it better? The trailers showed all the good parts.

Blofeld - not bad, but too puny. Looks barely 5ft 8.

Could have been much better. I'll get the blu-ray out of duty, compared to other films which I get to, you know, actually watch.

After only one viewing I'd give it a 3. That might change once I've had a second viewing, but I'll wait for the DVD.

Of all the Bond's I have seen in theaters, it was the first time I ever sat there and realized in the middle of the film that I was truly bored watching it. Those thoughts quickly turned to criticism of the film. Then "When is this going to end?"

Hell, for all the flaws of QoS and the atrociously bad editing in the first 20 minutes of the film, I knew in theaters I was not watching a great Bond film. But I wasn't bored. I wasn't critical while watching it. I still enjoyed it as a decent run of the mill Bond film. FFS, at least DAD had a solid 45 minute stretch before it turned to shit.

Problem with the film is that the Mexico stuff is the best part of the film. It's a great pre-title sequence. Problem is: it's the best action scene of the film. Nothing comes close to topping it. The rest of the film is generic action scenes. Despite this, I still felt something was missing. It seems like the scene didn't have that final polish. But that could be said of the whole film which, if reports are true, and it was that expensive to make, it certainly did not follow the adage of showing every penny on screen. Speaking of which, the Blofeld grey control room looked like a shoddy set they pulled from an 80s Doctor Who episode.

Everything about Blofeld was horrible and unnecessary. Waltz was boring. Craig looked bored. Whether that's them or the script, who knows. Hinx was good, but underused. Blofeld was wimpy. The crappy backstory solidified that. What could have been a grand reintroduction was a massive, embarrassing dud for the producers.

Action scenes were meh. The Lucia/Bond scenes were just odd. Seydoux could have been a good Bond girl, but the script gives her nothing to do. Film should have been cut by about 45 minutes. Bring it down to QoS length. It's okay if it has little substance, just make it a reasonable running time for us to handle. You could have easily cut that without losing any plot.

It's getting ridiculous with each film they try to re-write the events of the prior film. Let's hope to god with Bond 25 they move on from the events of CR, QoS, and SF and let them be. We don't need another film trying to re-write the story of CR, QoS, SF, and SP.

Instead of SPECTRE they should have just called it UNINSPIRED.

Interesting. While I am hardly an apologist for SP--it clearly has a few weaknesses--I was utterly captivated from the first frame to the last. The film is 2 1/2 hours in length, but--tempus fugit--the hours cooked away like droplets of water hitting a blast furnace door. In other words, the 2 1/2 hours didn't feel remotely long. Indeed, I was a bit startled by the fact that not once did I feel antsy.

Craig has been quoted as saying Mendes was still editing Spectre a couple of days before it opened in the UK, which sounds unlikely. However, it does feel like a rough-cut at many points.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Interesting. While I am hardly an apologist for SP--it clearly has a few weaknesses--I was utterly captivated from the first frame to the last. The film is 2 1/2 hours in length, but--tempus fugit--the hours cooked away like droplets of water hitting a blast furnace door. In other words, the 2 1/2 hours didn't feel remotely long. Indeed, I was a bit startled by the fact that not once did I feel antsy.

Yep. It's pacy (as any action-adventure-thriller worth its salt should be), but not distractedly so.

I liked it much more than I did Skyfall on first watch. I give it an eight.

An elegantly shot adventure film for adults. I thought it was a noble and mostly successful attempt to marry the 'gritty'-ness of the Craig era with the macabre surrealness of Fleming and the early Connery films. The chauffeured Rolls Royce in the desert. The perfectly manicured lawns in a crater in the middle of the dessert. The torture scene.

I positively frothed it. Bang on. Delighted to see the gunbarrel back where it belongs.

Sure there are problems. I think you could argue both ways on the Oberhauser thing - was it necessary? Perhaps not, but it added stakes to the story in a way another backstory couldn't. They hadn't done the leg work in previous films to build to a FRWL style vendetta, and for me, it was sufficiently underplayed that it really didn't bother me. It wasn't played for melodrama, just motive. I thought it worked.

In fact, I was really impressed with the way the film had emotional stakes present in the plot without resorting to the melodrama that was present in CR, QoS and SF. The scene in White's cubby hole at L'Americain is a perfect example. Contrast it with the (horrible) scene in Quantum with Bond drunk on the plane.

The ending hit a bit of a false note, but it was very well executed. It's pretty minor in my book.

I haven't really read other's criticisms yet but I'd be interested to see what they are.

SPECTRE was at its best when it displayed elements of Benign Bizarre, in the words of Dr Khanners. If Bond's stay in Blofeld's lair had been lengthened, the soap operatic Blofeld backstory had been dropped, and the desert complex was the setting of the film's climax (naturally one that would've been more thrilling than one-bullet-and-the-whole-place-blows-the-fuck-up), my opinion of SPECTRE would've been higher. As it stands, I don't think the movie was engaging enough to warrant the running time and could've been trimmed.  

So I'd give it about a 5.5, though I'm open to the fact that I might like it more when I see it again on DVD.

CJB wrote:

SPECTRE was at its best when it displayed elements of Benign Bizarre, in the words of Dr Khanners. If Bond's stay in Blofeld's lair had been lengthened, the soap operatic Blofeld backstory had been dropped, and the desert complex was the setting of the film's climax (naturally one that would've been more thrilling than one-bullet-and-the-whole-place-blows-the-fuck-up), my opinion of SPECTRE would've been higher. As it stands, I don't think the movie was engaging enough to warrant the running time and could've been trimmed.  

Agree with all of this!

CJB wrote:

SPECTRE was at its best when it displayed elements of Benign Bizarre, in the words of Dr Khanners. If Bond's stay in Blofeld's lair had been lengthened, the soap operatic Blofeld backstory had been dropped, and the desert complex was the setting of the film's climax (naturally one that would've been more thrilling than one-bullet-and-the-whole-place-blows-the-fuck-up), my opinion of SPECTRE would've been higher. As it stands, I don't think the movie was engaging enough to warrant the running time and could've been trimmed.  

So I'd give it about a 5.5, though I'm open to the fact that I might like it more when I see it again on DVD.

I've only seen SP once, but my sense is that SP contains a fairly high level of the BB. As much as OHMSS and DAF? Probably not, but pretty dam' close!

I'd rate the film at a 7. It's got a lot of oddball elements and SPECTRE themselves came across as a pushover after such build-up but the film itself is fun for the most part in a Roger Moore-esque way. Blofeld definitely needed better contractors for his desert hideout that's for sure.