Spectre
- DB
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
On Her Majesty's Underwhelming Service.
Here's what I've been watching and playing over the last seven days...
MOVIES
Spectre
Movie summary: A cryptic message from James Bond's past sends him on a trail to uncover the existence of a sinister organisation named SPECTRE. With a new threat dawning, Bond learns the terrible truth about the author of all his pain in his most recent missions. (IMDb)
This might seem like an odd comparison, but Spectre reminds me of The Favourite in one way: it's less than the sum of its parts.
In Spectre's case, it's very much less than the sum of its parts as The Favourite is still a highly enjoyable film despite not quite working as a whole for me.
Here, the movie look and sounds great, there's the usual globe-trotting you'd expect and some great action sequences too - especially the extended fight sequence between Bond (Daniel Craig again) and Hinx (Dave Bautista) on a train.
Don't get me wrong, it's not a match for the train fight in From Russia With Love (my favourite Bond movie) which is one of the all-time great fight scenes for me, but it's still fun to see Bond completely outmatched and desperately trying anything he can to beat a bad guy.
I can't really fault the acting performances in Spectre, although I will say that Bond and Madeleine (Léa Seydoux) don't have the most sparkling chemistry, which does somewhat deflate their relationship somewhat.
That lack of genuine chemistry is also a problem of No Time to Die to be fair, where Craig and Ana de Armas (as Paloma from the CIA) show what true chemistry is in the 15 minutes de Armas is in that film.
Personally, I don't have too many quibbles when it comes to Spectre's plot either, although I will say that the pacing is off and I really started feeling that 2.5-hour length by the end.
So yes, it's a little saggy in the story area and the leading man and woman don't have the most sparkling chemistry you've ever seen, but is that enough to complete suck the wind out of an entire movie?
The answer turns out to be 'apparently so', because Spectre just doesn't grab you or draw you in, despite having so much good material to work with.
On the surface level, Spectre appears to have all the right pieces to make a truly fantastic James Bond movie, but it just never comes together in a satisfying manner. [4/10]
GAMES
007 First Light
I haven't started playing this yet despite having the game for almost two weeks now, but it just seemed fitting to include it here as a James Bond release I'm looking forward to getting into following that review of Spectre.
Damn it, but this game is proving yet again why it's one of my favourites of all-time - it's the reason I haven't started First Light or Star Wars: Resistance yet, as I've kept jumping back into Geralt's boots at every opportunity over the last week.
I've dealt with the Bloody Baron plot, got Triss and the mages safely out of Novigrad, rescued Dandelion, am on my way to building an incredible Gwent deck and am now in Skellige.
It's slightly disturbing how much this game has its claws in me again on what is my third full playthrough.
Also currently playing: Batman: Arkham City, Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020)
TV
As already admitted above, my troubling addiction to The Witcher 3 has delayed my starting Star Wars: Resistance - which has way more episodes than I thought it did - but I have a long weekend coming up and plan on averaging at least an episode a day from Friday onwards.
Comments