Am I missing something? I read in the Papers that Spectre, the new Bond film, is tipped to become the biggest grossing movie in UK history if not the World!
I think cinema-goers must have seen a completely different flick to me! I though it was at least an hour too long, boring in the extreme and completely lacking in suspense. The plot was hammered together by seeming brutes bereft of any of Fleming's subtlety or charm and lacking any of the usual sense of fate we came to love anew in Casino Royale, QoS and SkyFall.
These earlier films gave us the gritty no-nonsense Bond we all craved, gilded brilliantly with golden plots and well-formed bad guys doing very bad things. Daniel Craig's stunts were to die for too: the white-knuckled thrill of the Parkour scaffold battle had us all gripping the seat in front of us and the final Skyfall skirmish was just High Noon in the heather.
Not so Spectre. From the word go, with that utterly atrocious Helicopter fight over Mexico City, it was double O hell and certainly not heaven. I can see why born-to-play-Bond Craig would be hacked off with this ham fisted mess. And what happened to Christoph Waltz? All he had to do in Inglorious Bastards was drink milk and we were terrified. Here he cavorts around a lab on an office chair. Big sweat!
More Basildon than James, the story overall was a tedious sleep-inducing monster. Fans say its a confident slice of the genre. I say its a cynical pile of stodge, stale and bloated. For Bond's sake bring back Judi Dench from the dead and sack the scriptwriters. Idris Elba should demand it!
Shaken not stirred? I was neither. More like Regretting I paid!
Funnily enough, Woodsy, I wasn't too thrilled by it either. Daniel Craig, 'though great in the fight scenes, lacks the charisma of Connery and Moore. Having said that, I think it was better than Quantum and Skyfall, but not by much. As for Idris Elba - no way. It's not being racist to say that Bond should always be white, in the same way that Shaft (or T'challa, or Luke Cage) should always be black. That's the way they were created. And Doctor Who should always be a man.
ReplyDeleteFunny how films affect us. It is an individual experience after all. Craig was the gritty re-worked Bond we seem to have needed after the quips and japes of Moore, Brosnan et al. I suppose similar realism was brought to many old bolted franchises like Bond. Batman springs to mind particularly with the stripped-down Heath Ledger Joker. As for Idris Elba, I'm not bothered who plays Bond as long as the plot is tight, the action original and thrilling and the bad guys are as bad as hell.
ReplyDeleteI'm a traditionalist when it comes to fictional characters and prefer a certain consistency in their portrayal. Like you, I want the plot to be right, but I also prefer the actor to be 'right' - and that means someone who embodies Bond as Fleming created him. (Craig is still too short for my liking.) If Idris Elba or Colin Salmon were playing a British secret agent (John Band?) with a 50-odd year history of being played by a black guy, I wouldn't like to see a white guy suddenly being cast in the part. (Nor would most black people, I'd venture.) Now there's an idea - someone should make a series of movies with either Idris or Colin. Regarding Spectre, it dragged a bit in the middle and could have been cut down a bit. I've also got reservations about Bond and Blofeld being brought up as brothers. Too much like Lex Luthor and Clark Kent being childhood friends. Casino Royale is still Craig's best Bond film so far, in my opinion. Let's hope his next one fulfills his potential.
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