There is an upside to having the flu and high fever: I couldn’t literally do anything else around the house besides shivering under the covers and watching movies. So I guess getting sick was actually a blessing, because I could catch up on some films I have been dying to cross off my list.
Thanks AMAZON PRIME! I pay good money for you and you actually deliver!
I saw 4 movies the other day: SPECTRE, The Boss(click for the review), Sisters and The Internship, which I will be reviewing this week.
It might be the fact that I have now more knowledge in film-making than before, but I have to say, I was quite disappointed with the first two.
SPECTRE – the last of the 007 movies (for now)
If you check out my Instagram feed, you will see some posts about this movie. I made them while I was watching it. NOTE TO ANYONE – if you are instagraming while watching a movie, the movie ain’t that good. Spoiler alert much?
So 5 minutes in, after a long and boring intro, Bond had already kissed a girl, shot some bad guys, survived without a scratch (or a concussion; he does that a lot) from a collapsing building and high jacked a helicopter. This is what you would expect from a James Bond movie. Sad to say this was the highlight of the film.
What happened after that was even more full of clichés, landscape views of buildings and boat rides, for no freaking good reason! Guess Bond loves boats. And planes.
So let’s do the laurasgotzthis ABC review:
A(action): Yes, it is a Bond movies, so it has to be filled with action. I don’t know why Bond had to almost shag a woman in the first minute, just to get on a roof… but ok. If you like fights, and car chases, and explosions and all of that macho-adrenaline stuff, then it is the thing for you. The screenwriters/producers/or whoever approved the final script did a BAD thing involving FEELINGS into the story, mainly because they did not develop the characters enough to support this emotional layer. They did a better job at it with SKYFALL. Or maybe that was just the effect of the marvelous Dame Judy Dench.
B(boom!): If I hadn’t know it was a Bond movie, I would have been really dissapointed, since I did not understand what the fudge he was doing in Mexico (shooting people is not a conflict, guys). 20 min. in we finally find out why Bond went rogue in the first 10 min. M left him a message beyond the grave, and that is so sweet/loyal/heroic of him to follow her last orders. Draws tears to your eyes, right? For that one second, because they did not develop this BOOM point! I know the film-makers wanted to make it all about James’s past and BU-HU (without the lack of character development as I mentioned), but M’s message was the catalizator of this whole F story! Big reveal… and CUT TO a fancy car. They had 2 more hours to make it better, but they cluttered the action plot with even more, diverse emotional crap that did not have its place. It all goes downhill from the 20th min.
C(character): I did not get this: did they want to give Bond feelings? Is this what they were trying to do? I get it. In the modern era, the audience wants more character driven movies. The heroes have to be damaged. But we are talking about JAMES BOND, people! All we expect him to do is shag beautiful girls and jump out of burning cars! Emotions in Bond movies!? Yew!
Let’s talk about Bond. So he wants to… discover something about his past, I guess. The little orphan turned super spy. YAWN! Does he want to catch the bad guy because he wants to solve the mystery of what happened to his foster dad or because he wants to save the world? Or both? I have no idea. His emotions were left hanging in the air. Maybe bad writing, maybe bad acting. Don’t know. For me, if you have EMOTIONS in the movie, you have to develop them properly. If not, they are just bad props. I am fine with just the burning boats, or cars! and the occasional emotionless fornication.
The villain! If Christoph Walz had not played him, I would have been so bored with this guy! Really!? Jesus! I think he’s the worst, less interesting bad guy of all the Bond movies. ”It was me, all along! Let’s drill inside your head, for no particular reason and with no effect to you or to the story – EVER!”
The women: Just… really?
What was the deal with the first lady, who he did not BOINK? He could have just found his way to the rooftop on his own.
2nd woman: Monica Belluci, a big yes! Saved 5 min. of the movie! Amazing back-story to this woman! She played the widow brilliantly! That was the only scene in SPECTRE where I felt scared: when the hit men tried to kill her- because she is a great actress and I could see the FEAR running through her whole body. I don’t know why 007 had to ”give it” to her, but whatever. Bond movie.
The 3rd girl – a beautiful, smart, young woman who knows a secret, but who gets kidnapped a lot and, of course, does the nasty with Bond. *sigh*. First of all, the writers made her character a woman JUST so that Bond can f*ck her! Awful character development and bad acting! So bad! Yes, PRETTY gives you the job, especially in a Bond movie. Second of all, why did the film-makers, yet again, made her so helpless and powerless? We learn she knows how to shoot a gun. She seems smart and self sufficient. Why does she not fight back and Bond always has to save her?
D(dialogue): You know when you are getting it on and the other person speaks off track? Yup. Dialogue is overrated in action movies. The only good things about it are actually the clichés! I *sigh* and *eye-roll* a 1000 times during this movie.
E(education): So not a feminist movie! Hello!? 20st century called! They want their ” beautiful lady in distress” back! Moneypenny was the only hard-ass woman on the show and she just sat on her computer and held mysterious phone conversations from enclosed spaces! The fudge? No. SPECTRE does not bring anything new. Not to the BOND franchise, not to the ACTION MOVIE franchise.
Overall, Spectre was a dissapointment. If you want a real action movie, I recommend you focus on THE EXPENDABLES series. I hope they do a better job with the next 007 movie, but I pray it’s not going to be about Cristoph Walz’s character again! Burry him! Burry him under a glacier somewhere!
What did YOU think about SPECTRE? See you in the comments!
L.
Laurasgotzthis Review |
SPECTRE (a 007 movie) |
| A(action) |  |
| B(boom) | – |
| C(character) | – |
| D(dialogue) | – |
| E(education) | – |
Laura S. Götz 