![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
[181] Tangier Story
AS PROMISED, I AM BACK. OKAY, SO, SPECTRE. SPECTRE, SPECTRE, SPECTRE.
I have a lot of feelings about the movie that I haven't sorted out yet, so I haven't read any reviews or anything yet, but the impression I get is that it's getting shit on a lot? Which I don't get. At all. No, it's not as good as Skyfall or Casino Royale, but those are high-water marks in a fifty-year-old franchise. I guess if you're looking at the Craig films in a vacuum, it's the second-worst Bond film EVER? But these films don't exist in a vacuum, they never have, one of the central tenets of the franchise is that each movie is a reaction (or overreaction) to the last one, and Spectre is -- by all metrics I care about, anyway -- an above-average Bond movie. I enjoyed the heck out of it. Spoiler-filled ramblings to follow.
I did not expect them to go Full Blofeld. I really did not. With the cat and the scar and the meteorite crater supervillain lair and the elaborate torture machine while he monologues and just. Full Blofeld. Wow. Which really did not make it any easier to forget the fact that they actually went with the Bond-and-Blofeld-as-brothers plot. The one that Goldmember already did. I just. Wat. There's getting back to the fun dumb gadgety stuff now that Austin Powers has faded from the cultural memory a bit, that is one thing, and then there's RECYCLING ACTUAL AUSTIN POWERS PLOTS. WHAT. WATH. Just. Ha.
And I actually don't hate the twist itself? It's kinda interesting, and could have been well done, it just... wasn't. It served zero purpose, there was no need whatsoever to give the new big bad some personal twist, this is not a story that needed to be about Bond, yes Skyfall was great but Bond movies do not all need to be about Bond. Sometimes he can just do stuff!
(I'm talking specifically about the childhood backstory here when I talk about the twist, not that Oberhauser = Blofeld in general, because come on now. And I honestly thought that was done fine and not really presented as a twist, this wasn't some overblown Khamberbatch bullshit, just a cat and a quick 'bee tee dubs, this is my name now' aside and they moved right along with it, worked perfectly for me. And the 'IT WAS MEEEEE ALL ALOOOOOOONG' retcon, while a little more twist-y and silly, was just pretty standard nonsensical supervillain stuff, I had no problem with it, even if I do think it makes Silva into a less interesting villain as a consequence.)
But yeah! Completely unnecessary backstory that they did nothing with! It would have been more than enough to just have him secretly ruin Bond's life for constantly screwing up his plans, a personal matter only because of Bond and Blofeld themselves and their actions throughout the series instead of some random twist of fate long before we cared about these people. *cuckoo noises*
This makes it sound like I hated it, but it's just that one aspect of how it was done that rankled. At the end of the day, and this may get me some flack from purists, but Christoph Waltz = 2nd Best Blofeld ever. Donald Pleasance was weird and creepy about it, and it was fun for a movie, but I've never been able to buy that guy as the head of a globe-spanning empire. Whereas Telly Savalas as OHMSS's charming sociopath Blofeld? Now that is a guy I would follow to world domination, and that's the vibe it felt like Waltz was channeling. I was a little worried that his whole 'facade of civility over evil' schtick would wear thin quickly, but it kept me captivated because it never once cracked over the course of the movie. To the point where... I don't think it was a facade this time? Even in defeat, bleeding through his dodgy prosthetics, he got heated but there was never any real loss of cool.
In short, I really hope we see more of him.
In contrast, as for Daniel Craig, I really hope he's done.
That's a tough thing to say, Craig is my Bond, now and forever, but... this is where to end it. He's not old enough to say 'he's too old', but he's old. He's definitely lost a lot of the raw physicality he brought to Royale almost ten years ago, which worked nicely for this film (that's two movies in a row focusing on how he's a relic), but is gonna start to suck if it isn't his last outing. And that ending was the perfect way to go out, using his license to kill to choose not to kill for once (lol like that's not gonna come back to bite people #blofeldlives) and walking off with his fling du jour (the "I love you" stuff was silly, Swann is clearly no Vesper, but I never got the impression that the movie was actually trying to make her into some love of Bond's life even in the end, so I didn't much care), maybe trying to ditch a little of that toxic masculinity they've been emphasising in the process. Throwing the gun, that was it, that's the image to leave on, that's a wrap with an actual character arc that started way back in black-and-white Prague. You know the only other Bond to ever have a proper character arc? Lazenby, because he only lasted one movie so never had anything to backslide back into. DON'T TAKE THIS FROM CRAIG!BOND, IT'S PERFECT.
Bring back the gang, M and Q and Moneypenny and Tanner, put someone new in the role of Bond and just don't reference the previous movies/backstory. Even when you bring back Blofeld. Don't reboot things, don't make it into a whole fucking thing, just keep going. And cast someone young this time, so sayeth me.
I have been trying to mention On Her Majesty's Secret Service as little as possible here, because I shouldn't have to, the parallels are there, they're obvious, but they're largely shallow and not that important in the grand scheme of things. Mostly I'm just not sure if I'm annoyed or relieved that Spectre didn't use that reworked piece of the OHMSS theme they threw into one of the trailers. I don't know if my heart could have taken it.
OKAY, that's enough essay-writing bullshit, point form trash now:
I have a lot of feelings about the movie that I haven't sorted out yet, so I haven't read any reviews or anything yet, but the impression I get is that it's getting shit on a lot? Which I don't get. At all. No, it's not as good as Skyfall or Casino Royale, but those are high-water marks in a fifty-year-old franchise. I guess if you're looking at the Craig films in a vacuum, it's the second-worst Bond film EVER? But these films don't exist in a vacuum, they never have, one of the central tenets of the franchise is that each movie is a reaction (or overreaction) to the last one, and Spectre is -- by all metrics I care about, anyway -- an above-average Bond movie. I enjoyed the heck out of it. Spoiler-filled ramblings to follow.
I did not expect them to go Full Blofeld. I really did not. With the cat and the scar and the meteorite crater supervillain lair and the elaborate torture machine while he monologues and just. Full Blofeld. Wow. Which really did not make it any easier to forget the fact that they actually went with the Bond-and-Blofeld-as-brothers plot. The one that Goldmember already did. I just. Wat. There's getting back to the fun dumb gadgety stuff now that Austin Powers has faded from the cultural memory a bit, that is one thing, and then there's RECYCLING ACTUAL AUSTIN POWERS PLOTS. WHAT. WATH. Just. Ha.
And I actually don't hate the twist itself? It's kinda interesting, and could have been well done, it just... wasn't. It served zero purpose, there was no need whatsoever to give the new big bad some personal twist, this is not a story that needed to be about Bond, yes Skyfall was great but Bond movies do not all need to be about Bond. Sometimes he can just do stuff!
(I'm talking specifically about the childhood backstory here when I talk about the twist, not that Oberhauser = Blofeld in general, because come on now. And I honestly thought that was done fine and not really presented as a twist, this wasn't some overblown Khamberbatch bullshit, just a cat and a quick 'bee tee dubs, this is my name now' aside and they moved right along with it, worked perfectly for me. And the 'IT WAS MEEEEE ALL ALOOOOOOONG' retcon, while a little more twist-y and silly, was just pretty standard nonsensical supervillain stuff, I had no problem with it, even if I do think it makes Silva into a less interesting villain as a consequence.)
But yeah! Completely unnecessary backstory that they did nothing with! It would have been more than enough to just have him secretly ruin Bond's life for constantly screwing up his plans, a personal matter only because of Bond and Blofeld themselves and their actions throughout the series instead of some random twist of fate long before we cared about these people. *cuckoo noises*
This makes it sound like I hated it, but it's just that one aspect of how it was done that rankled. At the end of the day, and this may get me some flack from purists, but Christoph Waltz = 2nd Best Blofeld ever. Donald Pleasance was weird and creepy about it, and it was fun for a movie, but I've never been able to buy that guy as the head of a globe-spanning empire. Whereas Telly Savalas as OHMSS's charming sociopath Blofeld? Now that is a guy I would follow to world domination, and that's the vibe it felt like Waltz was channeling. I was a little worried that his whole 'facade of civility over evil' schtick would wear thin quickly, but it kept me captivated because it never once cracked over the course of the movie. To the point where... I don't think it was a facade this time? Even in defeat, bleeding through his dodgy prosthetics, he got heated but there was never any real loss of cool.
In short, I really hope we see more of him.
In contrast, as for Daniel Craig, I really hope he's done.
That's a tough thing to say, Craig is my Bond, now and forever, but... this is where to end it. He's not old enough to say 'he's too old', but he's old. He's definitely lost a lot of the raw physicality he brought to Royale almost ten years ago, which worked nicely for this film (that's two movies in a row focusing on how he's a relic), but is gonna start to suck if it isn't his last outing. And that ending was the perfect way to go out, using his license to kill to choose not to kill for once (lol like that's not gonna come back to bite people #blofeldlives) and walking off with his fling du jour (the "I love you" stuff was silly, Swann is clearly no Vesper, but I never got the impression that the movie was actually trying to make her into some love of Bond's life even in the end, so I didn't much care), maybe trying to ditch a little of that toxic masculinity they've been emphasising in the process. Throwing the gun, that was it, that's the image to leave on, that's a wrap with an actual character arc that started way back in black-and-white Prague. You know the only other Bond to ever have a proper character arc? Lazenby, because he only lasted one movie so never had anything to backslide back into. DON'T TAKE THIS FROM CRAIG!BOND, IT'S PERFECT.
Bring back the gang, M and Q and Moneypenny and Tanner, put someone new in the role of Bond and just don't reference the previous movies/backstory. Even when you bring back Blofeld. Don't reboot things, don't make it into a whole fucking thing, just keep going. And cast someone young this time, so sayeth me.
I have been trying to mention On Her Majesty's Secret Service as little as possible here, because I shouldn't have to, the parallels are there, they're obvious, but they're largely shallow and not that important in the grand scheme of things. Mostly I'm just not sure if I'm annoyed or relieved that Spectre didn't use that reworked piece of the OHMSS theme they threw into one of the trailers. I don't know if my heart could have taken it.
OKAY, that's enough essay-writing bullshit, point form trash now:
- HOW ABOUT THAT TENTACLE PORN INTRO, HUH? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. When I heard the Sam Smith song, I was not thinking TENTACLE PORN. I'm strangely glad that naked ladies are back in the credits, but fuck that octopus was creepy as shit. So... an effective sequence, I guess.
- I enjoy that Spectre is basically the exact same thing as MCU Hydra, right down to the Quantum/Centipede no no no it was THESE GUYS all along tie-in. Also now Quantum of Solace isn't a complete waste, so: bonus.
- That makes it sound like I hate QoS, which I don't, it's just kind of a slog and only works as an extended epilogue to Royale, not a movie of its own. BUT I DIGRESS.
- If you have a close-quarters knock-down drag-out fight on a train, you're gonna be compared to From Russia with Love, and as a result, you're almost always gonna have a bad time. This was obviously not as good as that fight, but it stood on its own, and it was the only time in the movie where I really felt like Bond was actually in any sort of danger? Nicely brutal stuff.
- Relatedly, I really hope Hinx comes back, Bautista brought a lot of nice classic Bond henchman family fun. We never saw him actually die! And having him show up in the next movie would be a good precursor to bringing Blofeld back once a new Bond has established himself. Otherwise he and Sévérine will just have to hang out in Bond Heaven, giving each other manicure tips forever.
- Holy crap, was the third act a mess. Shit, maybe this is something deserving of more than a bullet point, but TOO LATE TO GO BACK NOW. I remember reading back when the script got leaked (despite my studiously avoiding all actual spoilers) that there were a lot of panicky rewrites right up to filming and iiiiiiit shows in the end. Just... a mess, that's all I've got. Lots of it felt like reshoots, too, right up to that ending with the aforementioned dodgy prosthetics. I still liked it well enough, and most of the movie up until then is great, but wow did it go off the rails in the end, and not even in spectacular train wreck fashion. The whole plot with C just... ends, the last setpiece is unnecessarily convoluted, and I'm gonna need a rewatch to completely lock down the actual narrative starting somewhere between Morocco and when they ended up back in London to the end.
- Andrew Scott was totally wasted, damn, but was worth it for my mom going "Wait, Voldemort and Moriarty are the good guys??" at the beginning.
- I'm so disappointed that M didn't say the C stood for cunt. That would have been great, idgaf.
- lol @ the magic bad guy dna ring
- I MISS FELIX BRING BACK FELIX. Recast him along with Bond for the next one, he needs his American buddyyyyyyyy, being all flirty with Q just doesn't have the same punch.
- I really wish Madeleine and Lucia's roles in this movie were swapped, with Seydoux as a grieving daughter suddenly in danger and Bellucci as the estranged wife he promised to protect. I would have loved for the "old" (read: actually age-appropriate) Bond girl to be the badass main one. Also would have made him walking off with her in the end better. But what are you gonna do.
- SO MUCH NITPICKING, HA HA, I ACTUALLY REALLY LIKED IT GUYS, I SWEAR.
- Why the heck don't I have any Bond icons.
- Roger Deakins was missed. Big time. Spectre is not a bad-looking movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it looks like a steaming pile of crap next to Skyfall. Tough, tough act to follow.
- Dat opening shot in Mexico, though.
