{"id":4142,"date":"2015-11-06T06:47:43","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T13:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=4142"},"modified":"2015-11-06T06:47:43","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T13:47:43","slug":"review-spectre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=4142","title":{"rendered":"Review: SPECTRE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a>\"fixbutton\"<\/a>James Bond isn\u2019t a nice guy.\u00a0 While he\u2019d be an interesting addition to your holiday cocktail party, he wouldn\u2019t be someone you\u2019d want to befriend.\u00a0 And whatever you do, keep your daughters away from him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpectre\u201d makes it absolutely clear that Bond is best without entanglements.\u00a0 He\u2019s a cool customer when he can kill indiscriminately without concern that his girl of the moment will also die in the process.\u00a0 At one point early in the film, Bond beds down the widow of an assassin.\u00a0 As he ties his tie preparing to make his hasty exit, he casually leaves the beauty (the oldest \u201cBond\u201d girl Monica Bellucci) a slip of paper with a number to call.\u00a0 Hopefully, his American secret agent colleague will safe-guard her.\u00a0 Probably not.\u00a0 The women in Bond\u2019s life often don\u2019t live long after a 007 romantic encounter.<\/p>\n

Starting in Mexico City with an opening sequence that rates as one of the series best, \u201cSpectre\u201d works when the action sequences take their time.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the film\u2019s closing third is rushed and surprisingly dim-witted. The buildup is worth seeing, as the pieces are arranged which teased a smarter resolution.<\/p>\n

The key player in this installment should be Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz), who has a history with Bond and fashions himself into a classic villain in the series.\u00a0 All the set-up elements are sharply developed.\u00a0 Oberhauser is the shadowy leader of a sinister criminal organization cleverly named Spectre. We meet him as his underlings practically publicly discuss their illegal activities.\u00a0 And in a most vicious and bloody manner, a new heavy named Hinx (Dave Bautista) makes his dramatic entrance.\u00a0 Ironically, it\u2019s the quiet and deadly Hinx that towers above (both literally and figuratively) Oberhauser and his whole organization.\u00a0 While his tactics are broad and basic, they work on a gritty, visceral level without requiring much exposition to understand.<\/p>\n

Oberhauser is an enigma.\u00a0 Naturally, he has a personal beef with Bond and is determined to kill him, but only on his terms.\u00a0 In a classic Bond scene, Oberhauser uses the most inefficient device to exact his revenge. The killing device is like something out of a horror movie, and its introduced completely out of the blue.\u00a0 This scene, like so much of the film\u2019s closing moments, is frustrating and simplistic.\u00a0 It is as though all the good writing was spent and the filmmaker just wanted to get on with it.\u00a0 While this might give the viewers what they are familiar with, the action packed sequences lack basic logic.\u00a0 The effect is to take Waltz, one of the most gifted actors working today, and dumb him down.\u00a0 It is unfortunate.<\/p>\n

Still, there is much to like in \u201cSpectre.\u201d The opening sequence on the streets of Mexico City is absolutely a marvelous combination of cinematography and choreography.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very tight and thrilling scene with tongue-in-cheek humor that harkens back to the Bond audiences fell in love with over 23 prior films.\u00a0 The humor is welcomed after the serious narrative told in \u201cSkyfall.\u201d And Bond\u2019s sexuality is on full display, showcasing his macho prowess that serves as the secret agent\u2019s most effective investigative tool and dangerous weapon.\u00a0 Sleep with Bond and you might just wake up dead.<\/p>\n

But making us chuckle with funny one liners and comical exchanges is one thing, insulting our intelligence is another.\u00a0 Oberhauser is no match at all for Silva (Javier Bardem), the villain from \u201cSkyfall.\u201d\u00a0 It is as though the two characters live in two different universes.\u00a0 One would expect more, especially given the place that Oberhauser has in the series.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this is the last 007 film for Daniel Craig.\u00a0 And \u201cSpectre\u201d acts as a fitting send-off.\u00a0 The stage is set for another fresh face to take over the character.\u00a0 The question is: what direction will the producers take? My suggestion is to do something radical and cast Idris Elba (of TV\u2019s \u201cLuther\u2019) as Bond.\u00a0 Such an edgy casting choice would inject something unique into this secret agent franchise.\u00a0 If the successes and failures of \u201cSpectre\u201d tell us anything, it is time for the mantle to be passed to another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSpectre\u201d has its moments, most of them early\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4145,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4142\/revisions\/4145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}