Contains spoilers. See the movie first.
I made sure not to see any trailers or promotional material on SPECTRE before seeing the movie, so my mind is pretty fresh going into the theater. However, it’s difficult for anyone not to have a ‘comparison brain’ working when it comes to a film series, so it’s difficult not to think about the great Skyfall or Casino Royal as I sit here waiting for the curtains to open on the new 007 adventure.
The opening, long-running continuous shot wows me, so I know the director is trying hard. Craig looks great as the long take ends with the cut to his close-up.
The helicopter action over the large crowd is amazing, though the flying sequence goes on a tad too long for my taste, but this is the only time in the movie I think the action was over-extended.
The title sequence visuals are good with a good song. Bond being suspended from duty by M and the introduction of C and his intelligence service gets the story started off nicely. When the widow Lucia is about to be killed and Bond shoots the two assassins the energy really kicked in for me.
Then I really get into the mood of the movie when Bond infiltrates the SPECTRE meeting. It’s a quiet, dark boardroom setting with soft-spoken, slow-talking villains in shadows intercut with Bond’s reactions. Very involving. The introduction of the assassin Mr. Hinx is surprisingly staged. So far this is turning out to be a nicely paced story.
The car chase with Bond’s newly issued Aston Martin is cool and I laugh when his tail-gun has no ammo and the ‘atmosphere’ gadget is actually music set for 009 who likes Sinatra as a few seconds of New York, New York plays to Bond’s frustration.
From there the story and action move forward quickly and good it’s to see the return of Mr. White. His daughter, Dr. Swann, that Bond must now protect, is more my type, physically and demeanor, than Vesper Lynd was in Casino Royal, though I imagine that most Bond fans would choose Vesper over Swann. But for me, she’s more involving and that’s an important aspect of this story.
All through the movie there are references to past Bond stories which always excites me. Some of them might only be my own personal projection; like where Bond goes through maze-like corridors seeing targets with faces. This reminds me of the 'fun-house' type maze on Scaramanga's island in Man with the Golden Gun. Maybe it's just me over-projecting, but that's how much I'm into SPECTRE. Other references are more obvious.
The fight on the train with Mr. Hinx has nice echoes of the train fight in From Russia with Love and it’s great to see the realism of it as Bond, at one point, runs from the larger man and throws things at him. Swann joining the fight is a nice bonus and the beer keg ending is terrific.
As you’ve read, I’m partial to the Arizona Meteor Crater, so seeing the villain Oberhauser’s headquarters is in a meteor crater delights me as well as seeing the meteor itself with the Inglorious Basterds villain (my favorite Tarantino movie) giving the lines about it ‘building up momentum in space’ impresses me greatly.
Later, I’ve read that many Bond fans had trouble with the final act of SPECTRE. But I stayed engaged with it all the way. The fact that Bond gets lucky and disables the helicopter with a pistol is a stretch, but he fires many times and indeed gets lucky. That’s okay with me.
This last act has something that no other Bond movie has, the ‘team effort’. Bond is assisted by M, Q and Moneypenny and the intercutting to them is what makes this part of the movie unique and more exciting than if it is just Bond saving the day. Bond’s jump into the net, holding Swann, just before the bomb destroys the building thrills me.
The image of Bond on the bridge at night under Big Ben holding the gun on Oberhuser with M watching on one side and Swann on the other, for some reason, is very powerful to me, as is Bond not pulling the trigger and saying: “Besides, I’ve got something better to do.” Driving off with the girl in the refurbished original Aston Martin is a terrific ending.
Some Bond fans have put forth the idea that Bond died strapped to the villains torture chair and the rest of the movie is his dying hallucination such as in Occurrence at Owl Creek, Point Blank or Total Recall. It’s an interesting idea, one that I might embrace if this was a single movie and not a series, but no, Bond has survived another adventure and a good one.
Of course, SPECTRE, doesn’t have the jaw-dropping surprises of Skyfall, nor the blazing colorful action and gambling sequences of Casino Royale. In fact, the photography in SPECTRE is subdued, but that adds to the realism.
A month later, I returned to the theater to see it again. Now that the plot is already in my mind, I enjoy the dialogue scenes even more and appreciate the humor that comes in at various places. The second viewing makes me think, that for me, repeat ‘for me’, SPECTRE is up there with Skyfall and Casino Royale.
See you at the movies,
Paul
Forbidden Power wins 38 International Awards, including:
2018 - Best Picture out of 1,000 entries at the BITB Hollywood Film Festival.
2019 - Best Science Ficiton Feature Film at the International Oklahoma BB Film Festival.
2019 - Best Thriller - London Flicks Festival.
2019 – Best Original Screenplay – Florence Film Awards Italy.
2019 - Best Feature Film - New York Cinematography Awards.
After a one-night affair with a mysterious woman, a young man wakes up alone with sexually transmitted powers and enhanced sexual power.
He searches for the woman to find out the source of her power and why he was chosen.
I like the gadgets although some of them are totally unrealistic and wouldn't work without movie special effects. I like the idea that Bond makes mistakes and sometimes fails, but his superhuman feats of physical prowess are totally impossible without death and injury and seem to have become the staple for action movies and television.
And, I find that most of the action scenes are prolonged and fantastical in their serendipity. An ordinary human would be lucky to survive one of them, let alone the several that Bond has in each of his movies. In spite of this, I'm hooked and watch each and every movie when I can because it does give me an adrenaline rush here and there and Bond's lifestyle certainly is to be coveted.
Ron