Movie Review - Spectre

Spectre  $$

 

PG-13

148 Minutes

Starring: Daniel Craig, Cristoph Waltz, Lea Seydoux, and Ralph Fiennes.

Director: Sam Mendes.

 

            The Bond franchise had some worthy competition this year with Man From Uncle and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation this year and Kingsman: The Secret Service  last year. Frankly, I feel that all of those films outperformed Spectre.

            In this film we find James Bond primarily operating on his own as MI6 undergoes changes and the threat of shutting down the Double-O program entirely. James is on the trail of a secret organization that was the driving force behind several of the threats he has dealt. In order to find the leader of this organization he has to protect Dr. Swann (Lea Seydoux), the daughter of the assassin known as Mr. White (Jesper Christensen). 

            Spectre has all of the traditional 007 elements. This is how I ranked them.

1. Fun – Not so much. My son, a friend, and I all agreed that we were more interested in the movie ending so we could go home than we were in seeing what happened next. It felt slow and uninspired.

            Spectre gets 0 MB for fun.

2. Story – Nothing we haven’t seen before. James does some globe trotting in search of the bad guys, seduces women, and kills a few bad guys. The unfortunate part about it is that he does all of this without demonstrating hardly any emotion. It was nice to see the Spectre storyline finally introduced into the franchise reboot and as an origins story for the villain it works fairly well.

            Spectre gets Full MB for story.

3. Technical – There are many state of the art special effects. Most of the time, the high end films get a Full Movie Buck rating in this category because they have employed top people in this field and made the film look and sound tremendous. While Spectre does look fantastic and the rest of the special effects are excellent I can’t get past the vehicle chase seen early in the film. The three of us attending the movie all agreed that this was probably the dullest chase scene we had ever witnessed.

            Spectre gets a Half MB for Technical.

4. Acting – As I mentioned before I felt Daniel Craig turned in a performance that reminded me more of an emotionless robot than a man risking everything to save the world. I found it hard to care what happened to Mr. Bond. On the other hand, I wholly enjoyed the performance from Ben Wishaw as Q and Ralph Fiennes as M. The movie might have been better if it had focused on the efforts of these two members of the British spy squad as they worked together to bring down the gathering of villains. Lea Seydoux was a mistake to cast opposite of Daniel Craig. With both of them on the screen together none of their scenes generate any energy. Christoph Waltz turns in an excellent performance as the mastermind who has organized the villains of the world.

            Spectre gets Half a MB for acting.
 

            Put all of that together and Spectre earns a rating of 2 Movie Bucks. If you’re going to put out a turkey I guess Thanksgiving is the best time to do it. My suggestion is to avoid this film and check out one of the many good selections that are currently in the theaters.

 

                        Randy’s Rating System

$$$$   = Full Price    See this movie right away and pay full price, it’s worth it.

$$$     = Matinee      Catch this as a matinee or other discounted showing.
$$        = Discount     Wait until this movie reaches a discount theater near you.
$          = Rental         Wait until this movie reaches your local video rental outlet.
0          = No Sale       Don’t see this movie at any price.