I typically enjoy spy movies. I like the classy outfits, the awesome cars, action, frivolous love, adventure, intelligent villains, I love it! I love the thrill of it! This movie, Spectre, I did not love. My husband on the other hand totally adored this movie. He said it was a perfect throw-back to the 1960s Bond movies and seemed to love all the things about the movie that I disliked.
This movie was ridiculous. You know those spy movie spoofs where someone sneezes wrong and it triggers a MASSIVE EXPLOSION!!!!!!! Yeah, that was this movie. Everything blew up, twice. Which normally, sure fine whatever but it just took itself so seriously while it did it. Also, the chase scenes were ridiculous. At one point I had to bite my tongue to keep from yelling, "You can't fly an airplane as if it were a sports car!!!!!" at the screen. Cars were drowned for no reason, planes were de-winged, helicopter engines were stalled, average citizens in Fiats were pushed to ridiculous speeds, parked cars were flattened. Excessive, entirely unnecessary.
One of my very favorite thing about Bond movies are the villains. They're always incredibly smart, driven individuals with loads of money and technology to burn and the single-minded desire to destroy James Bond. Christopher Waltz certainly delivered in that regard. His desert compound was lavish and crewed by hundreds of men in matching outfits but Bond defeated him too easily. There was no struggle. There was a couple moments of discomfort but nothing a top British spy couldn't handle.
There are two things that really bug me about this movie, I think. The first thing is that my favorite parts of the movie's trailer did not actually make it into the movie. When the Evil League of Evil capture Bond and explain to him that the connection they all shared was him and he looks all horrified, that bit didn't happen. When you see Bond's name added with spray paint to a list of names of those deceased, it seems like a big dramatic thing in the trailer. In reality, it was just some shitty directions of where Mr. Bond was to be taken to meet the big boss. Not dramatic at all and it allows Bond to kill his captors and go find the big boss on his own.
The second thing that bugged me was that James Bond usually comes off as very suave and charming in the other movies. He seems like a person women are drawn to because he is so charismatic. This movie was not like that. He just came off as a bully and somewhat of a dick the entire time. The love story made zero sense because he was such a total jerk to his "love interest" the whole time and she was pretty hostile herself and then suddenly, "But James, I love you!" Bullshit. I got so sick of him bullying Q into giving him what he wants without considering the risks that Q has to endure because of Bond's actions. The entire movie has him gallivanting around flipping the bird to absolutely everyone and honestly, just making things worse.
This movie made me sit for a moment and think that maybe 007 movies aren't for me... and then I realized that I've liked the previous ones and this one stands on its own in its mediocrity. I feel like Daniel Craig is super over this role and I'm glad he is retiring from it. This may be a controversial opinion, but I would love to see Daniel Radcliffe in the role.
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