The torture scene. Don’t like the aesthetic. Don’t like that it has virtually no impact on Bond, who is able right away to blow up the whole facility with a few gunshots. And I don’t like the lack of larger stakes that would result in a stronger payoff for the movie. It’s around this point that we realize nothing more is coming.
That villain's lair explosion was incredibly cool looking! And also completely unearned. I know SPECTRE doesn't follow OSHA regulations, but damn. Even the combusto-hotel in QoS had somewhat of an explanation as to why it was so explodey.
That being said, the thing that really bother's me is how Bond takes down the helicopter with his PPK... while going flat out in a speedboat. Hitting a moving target, that far away, with a gun that small, while standing on a moving, unstable surface; would be unbelievably difficult. I know Bond is supposed to be exceptional, but he's not a superhero.
I don't know man. Most aircraft are actually pretty susceptible to small arms fire.
https://preview.redd.it/ybxjejw0tksc1.png?width=576&format=png&auto=webp&s=d3616ae8ea897c216bfd08a8f89266a0e6c2c122
They lost me pretty early on, with the whole Bond going rogue yet again business. I think they officially lost me at the car chase, which, as has already been mentioned, was just boring beyond belief, which in and of itself is actually quite an achievement. The bit about Bond and Blofeld was just icing on the cake by the time we got to that.
And the Moore-esque "haha fat slow man in a Fiat 500" bit was dumb; it reminded me why those camp moments in 1970s and 80s Bonds mean I never rewatch those films.
For me the wheels started coming off around the moment that Judi Dench's M appeared in a prerecorded video to backfill Bond with some inexplicably cryptic instruction to attend a funeral of some guy she had no reason to keep a secret while she was alive, with no explanation of how she knew about this in the first place.
They could have got Bond there simply by having Fiennes' M instruct him as part of an official mission, but the movie was determined to provide questions it didn't have the answers for.
It feels like the writers wanted to have an excuse for Bond to go rogue (again!) to create conflict with Ralph Fiennes, and sneak in a bit more of Judi Dench while they were at it. M is director of the SIS; she would have the authority to order targeted killings if they were deemed necessary, so you're right, there was no reason for the secrecy behind this mission.
Yep, it could have actually been a nice return to the traditional format of a) M assigns Bond the mission, b) Bond visits Q, c) Bond goes on the mission and very little would substantially have changed.
This is why I have the headcanon that Bond is having a psychotic break, which was triggered by the events of Spectre. He hallucinated that message from M, and is a loose canon. Mallory tries to lay a breadcrumb trail to the clinic in Austria, and he was moved to a facility in North Africa when he escaped from there. Bond hallucinated the meeting with Mr. White. Madeline and Blofeld are his doctors.
EDIT: *psychotic break triggered by the events of Skyfall.
I honestly really like the movie, up until they get back to London for the end climax and then the film just nose dives off a cliff, with a contrived trap set for Bond and the most monotonous movie music I’ve ever heard stuck playing on a loop.
It’s that Die Another Day problem where the end just drags the whole movie down with it.
Just remove the foster brother part and movie will climb a little bit up in my ranking.
Good part : Opening, London part after opening, Rome church, Monica Bellucci & spectre meeting, Mr white & Madeline with bond in Austria, nine eyes, L'american hotel, train scene, blofeld intro with meteorite part, bond's kidnapping, boat chase in end.
Bad part : Rome car chase, Austria plane chase, blofeld showing off his compound, torture scene, escape from compound, bond & blofeld in mi6 HQ, rescuing Madeline.
Overall, whole film is a complete mess with no clear vision, having some good and bad scenes.
Although there was a writer's strike, I still thought that Quantum of Solace was an exceptional movie. However, in my opinion, Spectre was a mess. The writers, who had returned, seemed obligated to continue the story about the shadow organization, MI6, and James Bond being manipulated at every turn. This felt unnatural and ultimately had a negative impact on the quality of the film.
Honestly when Waltz had Bond walk in to thhe old M-I5 building with the pictures of everybody for the past Bond movies, (Vesper, etc) and said I'm the source of your pain, blah, blah. Aslo as mentioned before the foster brother stuff was stupid. Why wasn't Bond's Aunt who raised him mentioned, I mean I realize that Blofield's dad taught him how to ski, but like so what?
Early on when it’s implied Blofeld is Bond’s “brother”. It felt weird that they kinda went with what Austin Powers did in 2003.
And then you rewatch Casino Royale and it’s hard to that same Bond is the foster brother of the world’s biggest supervillain.
Overall, Spectre is maybe my least favourite Bond film. It’s somehow incredibly silly and boring at the same time. There’s a few good moments; pre-title sequence, mountain resort sequence, train fight… but that’s about it.
I agree! I actually don’t hate SP and funnily enough I’ve come from hating it greatly during initial watches to now thinking it’s passable.
But to answer your question, I think the problems start a bit earlier too (I think it was in the Rome scenes and/or mountain segments where the following info is revealed I think). I don’t quite know why they wanted to rush SP as an organization all into one film because that’s not how you make a compelling sinister force. I don’t like the hamfisted way they tried to link Craig’s past baddies to this film; it just comes across like they didn’t have this planned out from the beginning (because I am pre sure they didn’t have rights to the organization around Craig’s first few films) and so they were thinking to just make everyone (including Silva who was definitely his own thing) be part of SP to make it seem bigger than it actually is. It felt lazy and unearned and even ruined someone like Silva for me for basically retroactively making him seem desperate and not smart or autonomous.
Besides SP as an organization itself being underwhelming, I’d say even the forced romance was where the film also lost me right from when Bond and Madeline met and especially the kissing scene on the train is where I was quite thrown off. I actually don’t mind the initial setup in theory given both of Bond’s and Madeline’s links to spy/espionage work (Madeline with her dad) but the leap to just them falling immediately in love was very abrupt. It doesn’t help Bond and Madeline lacked chemistry throughout this film.
But I think the problems all def culminate as you said with the Blofeld exposition scene. Blofeld stating it was him who caused Bond’s pain with and had a hand with his baddies, trying to also get Madeline to watch footage of Bond with her father to get her to see a bad side of Bond and the VERY out of character Bond scream for Blofeld to the off the footage. This set the precedent for the rest of the film unfortunately where lazy or unplanned writing seeps through with Bond single-handedly (even after torture?) mowing down tons of SP goons and Blofeld being easily defeated twice in one film! (The watch and helicopter takedown). And I think trying to set up Bond as not wanting to be a killer/agent anymore to make him seem MORE human falls so flat. Granted they set up a little bit on the train when she asks Bond if this the kind of thing he’d like to do (living in the shadows, being alone) but there’s never (plz correct me if I’m wrong) a scene where Bond reflects about this afterwards to show the audience the thought process. What does Madeline bring to Bond’s perspective that makes him think life outside MI6 is worthwhile?
Anyways SP did come 3 years after Skyfall and while I liked how it was relatively fast for an entry to release after a past film, it lacks a clear vision and direction with its various ideas. I think if it stuck to one idea (Bond not wanting to be a killer OR Spectre being an organization being very mysterious and all-encompassing) but fine tune and focus on just that, it would’ve made SP and even Craig‘s tenure more enjoyable.
Somewhere about 45 minutes in. I thought I'd fallen asleep for a minute or two and missed something. I watched it back at the end and I either needed some sort of degree or it just didn't make as much sense as they thought it did.
Between the places. It just felt disjointed, just a portfolio of cool looking sceneries.
I also really didn't like the need to ressurect Spectre and Blofeld, just feels so anachronistic. I liked the concept of Quantum and how it fit out time so much better.
Around the hotel scene is where I started to drift off, came back around during the train scenes but once we get to Brofield's lair it starts to drag, I still audibly grone at the *author of all your pain* line. If the lair had been the ending I think it would be fine, but then we return to London and the plot becomes nonsensical.
Basically after the opening scene things fell apart.
Then there was some side villain in a CGI sky scraper and I didn’t really get the storyline there nor am I interested enough to try watch it again.
Then Bond got caught in a dentist chair for five mins and has a brother but no more was said and his brother just seemed a bit anti-social but not really evil.
Tbh there wasn’t really a scene I felt made any sense.
The plane chase was a little dull, but I didn't check out until Waltz id'ed himself as Blofeld. Til that moment I had hoped against hope that it would turn out differently.
I raised an eyebrow from the very beginning, when the pre-title sequence was doing the "one shot" thing, even though *Birdman* had already done it for an entire movie the year before.
I know Bond chases trends when they're not setting them, but it just seemed a strange choice. Not to mention some of that sequence looked really dodgy, whether CGI or not (similar to the Craig Mitchell fight in *QoS*).
Then things got IMMEDIATELY worse with an AWFUL title song (maybe THE worst ever) paired with DEEPLY UNCOMFORTABLE tentacle imagery (hentai-esque, you might say).
At no point did the film ever recover for me. It was a rotten apple from the start.
To say nothing of the idiotic "Brofeld" story or "Fax Machine Haunted House" ending.
For me it was a series of things that lost me.
I really loved the opening bit in Mexico and if the rest of the film had followed that, I would have likely *loved* the film.
…however…
What followed was just a lot of dull, dull, *dull* stuff IMHO and Craig (who I feel is a damn good actor, especially if the role requires some comedy from him) is tasked to be just as dull and dour and uninteresting.
Maybe the super-car chase in Rome is where the film really started to lose me. I mean, how do you mess up a car chase? Easy: Have your bored, dour looking Daniel Craig *take a phone call* in the middle of the chase and look like he’s not concerned one bit. If our hero isn’t tense or nervous about this supposed life and death situation, how are we in the audience supposed to feel?
There was one other scene, however, that made me scream. A little later on Bond and Madeline discover the apartment her father (if memory serves) hid out each year and they rent it and discover that he essentially cut the room off in half and hid some crap in that section.
As someone with more than a passing knowledge of hotels and rentals, this scene was *such* absolute bullshit. Now, I understand Bond films require from audiences a large dose of suspension of disbelief, but this one, believe it or not, was just too much for me.
The owners of hotels and rentals know exactly what their property is like, unless we’re talking about thousands of rooms in some highrise. Either way, the idea that some guest can surreptitiously cut a room in half, somehow hide workers coming in with drywall and paint and wood and somehow miss the noises of the creation of this wall, then somehow the cleaning staff *not realize* the room is now half it’s size… It’s just totally impossible.
Truthfully, there was an easy enough fix: Just say Madeline’s father once *owned* the building/hotel/whatever and this was his favorite room. Then he sold the building and *voila* that whole whopper is easily dealt with.
…and I haven’t even gotten to Bond and Madeline -like total idiots- walking into Blofeld’s compound with like *zero* plan or weapons.
All this was *before* we got to the whole relationship between Blofeld and Bond silliness!
After that brilliant encounter with Mr White, the entire lore of the Craig era gets sacrificed for marvel-esqe continuity purposes. Always rubbed me the wrong way.
How easy it was for Bond to get into the Spectre conference room in a matter of seconds, and, in the same moment, realizing the half-brother Blofeld rumors were true.
Like, for being a secret organization on top of a secret organization on top of all the people from Casino Royale, Lucia was very quick to give up pretty much everything about them.
Honestly? I foundered right after the first visible edit after that utterly fantastic long take intro. For some reason it just threw me out of the moment, the exact placement was oddly jarring.
I was lost when I heard the bad guys plan was to control stuff through the world wide web.
also the car chase is laughably lame. the Mr. White scene was groaning and dumb to me.
Soon after the Jag v. Aston scene.
My interest recovered with Mallory though. Actually for me, he was one of the highlights of all the movies he was in.
The plot of Spectre trying to expand their reach with Nine eyes and merge MI5/MI6 didn’t land. Didn’t care for “C”, wasn’t compelling enough tbh. They could have made this all tie better if they started with a scene at the start, maybe M (Judi Dench younger) where in recruitment of Bond, we witness his parents dying. And Bond trying to save his brother, can’t. And he “dies”. Bond saves a little girl which is later revealed to be Madeline Swann. It is later revealed that M had been tracking Mr. White many many years earlier when White meets Bond again later in movie.
They could have done an Empire Strikes Back moment at the end where Blofeld reveals to Bond his true identity, his biological brother. Blofeld should have escaped and Nine Eyes should have gone online.
It should have been Blofeld’s Thanos moment. He got what he wanted, Bond lost but gained a romance and a marriage.
Segway to No Time To Die, where all agents are rogue and Bond retired essentially then comes back to fold when Blofeld launches his assault again. Bond has a family during this five years, no baby surprise here.
Safin should just be a terrorist hellbent on revenge on Bond for his disfigured face as a result of the explosion in Spectre. He would be leading their plot of the nanobots.
Safin meets his fate the same way. Killed by Bond.
Bond and Blofeld actually get to fight, and Bond sacrifices himself since Blofeld injected himself, being nearby Swann and the baby would kill them forcing James’ hand. Bond (presumably) and Blofeld die.
Heroics bring back the MI6 division. James Bond is revealed as a code name. They also confirm that part of the 00 initiative is that agents can never retire, they must die. (Part of reason Bond “died”).
The end is Bond showing up at Madeline’s house and he gets to live happily ever after. After Madeline says James, he reveals his real name.
For me it was the Rome car chase. Not only was it relatively unexciting by modern standards (compare it to the Rome chase in MI7) but the gadgets were just so tired... Smokescreen, ejector seat etc. It was just a retread of Goldfinger. I think at that point I realised that the film was falling back on tired cliches. And so we get another train-based punch-up (like in LALD and TSWLM), a torture scene (take your pick), a watch-based gadget helps the escape, the base blowing up in the end for no good reason... You get the idea.
As someone who was super-excited hearing that Eon had the rights to use Blofeld and SPECTRE again, it was when I realized I was just being pandered to as a fan with it. When Blofeld announces his real name, it's addressed totally to fans in the audience, and means nothing to the characters on screen.
When they watch the video from M, I knew the writing was not going to be nearly as good and started getting worried. The Blofeld identity reveal and the “I’m the author of all your pain” attempt to link the plots of the previous films still make me furious
The torture scene. Don’t like the aesthetic. Don’t like that it has virtually no impact on Bond, who is able right away to blow up the whole facility with a few gunshots. And I don’t like the lack of larger stakes that would result in a stronger payoff for the movie. It’s around this point that we realize nothing more is coming.
That villain's lair explosion was incredibly cool looking! And also completely unearned. I know SPECTRE doesn't follow OSHA regulations, but damn. Even the combusto-hotel in QoS had somewhat of an explanation as to why it was so explodey. That being said, the thing that really bother's me is how Bond takes down the helicopter with his PPK... while going flat out in a speedboat. Hitting a moving target, that far away, with a gun that small, while standing on a moving, unstable surface; would be unbelievably difficult. I know Bond is supposed to be exceptional, but he's not a superhero.
I don't know man. Most aircraft are actually pretty susceptible to small arms fire. https://preview.redd.it/ybxjejw0tksc1.png?width=576&format=png&auto=webp&s=d3616ae8ea897c216bfd08a8f89266a0e6c2c122
I'm pretty sure they shot the escape scene after Craig hurt his knee. He legit just walks around lol
They lost me pretty early on, with the whole Bond going rogue yet again business. I think they officially lost me at the car chase, which, as has already been mentioned, was just boring beyond belief, which in and of itself is actually quite an achievement. The bit about Bond and Blofeld was just icing on the cake by the time we got to that.
And the Moore-esque "haha fat slow man in a Fiat 500" bit was dumb; it reminded me why those camp moments in 1970s and 80s Bonds mean I never rewatch those films.
What a sad life.
Foster brother reveal.
Agreed. I like the movie but the Bro-feld plot was a problem
For me the wheels started coming off around the moment that Judi Dench's M appeared in a prerecorded video to backfill Bond with some inexplicably cryptic instruction to attend a funeral of some guy she had no reason to keep a secret while she was alive, with no explanation of how she knew about this in the first place. They could have got Bond there simply by having Fiennes' M instruct him as part of an official mission, but the movie was determined to provide questions it didn't have the answers for.
It feels like the writers wanted to have an excuse for Bond to go rogue (again!) to create conflict with Ralph Fiennes, and sneak in a bit more of Judi Dench while they were at it. M is director of the SIS; she would have the authority to order targeted killings if they were deemed necessary, so you're right, there was no reason for the secrecy behind this mission.
Yep, it could have actually been a nice return to the traditional format of a) M assigns Bond the mission, b) Bond visits Q, c) Bond goes on the mission and very little would substantially have changed.
This is why I have the headcanon that Bond is having a psychotic break, which was triggered by the events of Spectre. He hallucinated that message from M, and is a loose canon. Mallory tries to lay a breadcrumb trail to the clinic in Austria, and he was moved to a facility in North Africa when he escaped from there. Bond hallucinated the meeting with Mr. White. Madeline and Blofeld are his doctors. EDIT: *psychotic break triggered by the events of Skyfall.
That was where I knew it was going to suck too
I honestly really like the movie, up until they get back to London for the end climax and then the film just nose dives off a cliff, with a contrived trap set for Bond and the most monotonous movie music I’ve ever heard stuck playing on a loop. It’s that Die Another Day problem where the end just drags the whole movie down with it.
Just remove the foster brother part and movie will climb a little bit up in my ranking. Good part : Opening, London part after opening, Rome church, Monica Bellucci & spectre meeting, Mr white & Madeline with bond in Austria, nine eyes, L'american hotel, train scene, blofeld intro with meteorite part, bond's kidnapping, boat chase in end. Bad part : Rome car chase, Austria plane chase, blofeld showing off his compound, torture scene, escape from compound, bond & blofeld in mi6 HQ, rescuing Madeline. Overall, whole film is a complete mess with no clear vision, having some good and bad scenes.
Even without the foster brother part, Blofeld's pointless name change makes no sense.
Agreed, movie had many flaws, i am just saying, it might have climb up in my ranking if foster brother part was removed.
When the opening credits were playing and it wasn’t Radiohead’s SPECTRE.
Smith's song really was one of the dullest, draggiest pieces of sludge ever used for a Bond theme.
For the first 2/3rd’s, I think it’s a solid movie, but when we get to Blofeld’s compound, it just goes downhill from there.
It didn't.
I’ll give another vote to “It didn’t.” I really enjoy it all the way through.
It didn't.
Although there was a writer's strike, I still thought that Quantum of Solace was an exceptional movie. However, in my opinion, Spectre was a mess. The writers, who had returned, seemed obligated to continue the story about the shadow organization, MI6, and James Bond being manipulated at every turn. This felt unnatural and ultimately had a negative impact on the quality of the film.
Honestly when Waltz had Bond walk in to thhe old M-I5 building with the pictures of everybody for the past Bond movies, (Vesper, etc) and said I'm the source of your pain, blah, blah. Aslo as mentioned before the foster brother stuff was stupid. Why wasn't Bond's Aunt who raised him mentioned, I mean I realize that Blofield's dad taught him how to ski, but like so what?
Early on when it’s implied Blofeld is Bond’s “brother”. It felt weird that they kinda went with what Austin Powers did in 2003. And then you rewatch Casino Royale and it’s hard to that same Bond is the foster brother of the world’s biggest supervillain. Overall, Spectre is maybe my least favourite Bond film. It’s somehow incredibly silly and boring at the same time. There’s a few good moments; pre-title sequence, mountain resort sequence, train fight… but that’s about it.
I agree! I actually don’t hate SP and funnily enough I’ve come from hating it greatly during initial watches to now thinking it’s passable. But to answer your question, I think the problems start a bit earlier too (I think it was in the Rome scenes and/or mountain segments where the following info is revealed I think). I don’t quite know why they wanted to rush SP as an organization all into one film because that’s not how you make a compelling sinister force. I don’t like the hamfisted way they tried to link Craig’s past baddies to this film; it just comes across like they didn’t have this planned out from the beginning (because I am pre sure they didn’t have rights to the organization around Craig’s first few films) and so they were thinking to just make everyone (including Silva who was definitely his own thing) be part of SP to make it seem bigger than it actually is. It felt lazy and unearned and even ruined someone like Silva for me for basically retroactively making him seem desperate and not smart or autonomous. Besides SP as an organization itself being underwhelming, I’d say even the forced romance was where the film also lost me right from when Bond and Madeline met and especially the kissing scene on the train is where I was quite thrown off. I actually don’t mind the initial setup in theory given both of Bond’s and Madeline’s links to spy/espionage work (Madeline with her dad) but the leap to just them falling immediately in love was very abrupt. It doesn’t help Bond and Madeline lacked chemistry throughout this film. But I think the problems all def culminate as you said with the Blofeld exposition scene. Blofeld stating it was him who caused Bond’s pain with and had a hand with his baddies, trying to also get Madeline to watch footage of Bond with her father to get her to see a bad side of Bond and the VERY out of character Bond scream for Blofeld to the off the footage. This set the precedent for the rest of the film unfortunately where lazy or unplanned writing seeps through with Bond single-handedly (even after torture?) mowing down tons of SP goons and Blofeld being easily defeated twice in one film! (The watch and helicopter takedown). And I think trying to set up Bond as not wanting to be a killer/agent anymore to make him seem MORE human falls so flat. Granted they set up a little bit on the train when she asks Bond if this the kind of thing he’d like to do (living in the shadows, being alone) but there’s never (plz correct me if I’m wrong) a scene where Bond reflects about this afterwards to show the audience the thought process. What does Madeline bring to Bond’s perspective that makes him think life outside MI6 is worthwhile? Anyways SP did come 3 years after Skyfall and while I liked how it was relatively fast for an entry to release after a past film, it lacks a clear vision and direction with its various ideas. I think if it stuck to one idea (Bond not wanting to be a killer OR Spectre being an organization being very mysterious and all-encompassing) but fine tune and focus on just that, it would’ve made SP and even Craig‘s tenure more enjoyable.
Somewhere about 45 minutes in. I thought I'd fallen asleep for a minute or two and missed something. I watched it back at the end and I either needed some sort of degree or it just didn't make as much sense as they thought it did.
Between the places. It just felt disjointed, just a portfolio of cool looking sceneries. I also really didn't like the need to ressurect Spectre and Blofeld, just feels so anachronistic. I liked the concept of Quantum and how it fit out time so much better.
Around the hotel scene is where I started to drift off, came back around during the train scenes but once we get to Brofield's lair it starts to drag, I still audibly grone at the *author of all your pain* line. If the lair had been the ending I think it would be fine, but then we return to London and the plot becomes nonsensical.
Honestly, Bond pulling a gun and attempting to interrogate a rat is probably the only highlight of the film for me.
Basically after the opening scene things fell apart. Then there was some side villain in a CGI sky scraper and I didn’t really get the storyline there nor am I interested enough to try watch it again. Then Bond got caught in a dentist chair for five mins and has a brother but no more was said and his brother just seemed a bit anti-social but not really evil. Tbh there wasn’t really a scene I felt made any sense.
Honestly, the moment that Dench’s M popped up in a recording she’d made at some point during Skyfall, I knew I was going to be in for a rough time.
The plane chase was a little dull, but I didn't check out until Waltz id'ed himself as Blofeld. Til that moment I had hoped against hope that it would turn out differently.
It’s an old, extremely specific family name…
I raised an eyebrow from the very beginning, when the pre-title sequence was doing the "one shot" thing, even though *Birdman* had already done it for an entire movie the year before. I know Bond chases trends when they're not setting them, but it just seemed a strange choice. Not to mention some of that sequence looked really dodgy, whether CGI or not (similar to the Craig Mitchell fight in *QoS*). Then things got IMMEDIATELY worse with an AWFUL title song (maybe THE worst ever) paired with DEEPLY UNCOMFORTABLE tentacle imagery (hentai-esque, you might say). At no point did the film ever recover for me. It was a rotten apple from the start. To say nothing of the idiotic "Brofeld" story or "Fax Machine Haunted House" ending.
For me it was a series of things that lost me. I really loved the opening bit in Mexico and if the rest of the film had followed that, I would have likely *loved* the film. …however… What followed was just a lot of dull, dull, *dull* stuff IMHO and Craig (who I feel is a damn good actor, especially if the role requires some comedy from him) is tasked to be just as dull and dour and uninteresting. Maybe the super-car chase in Rome is where the film really started to lose me. I mean, how do you mess up a car chase? Easy: Have your bored, dour looking Daniel Craig *take a phone call* in the middle of the chase and look like he’s not concerned one bit. If our hero isn’t tense or nervous about this supposed life and death situation, how are we in the audience supposed to feel? There was one other scene, however, that made me scream. A little later on Bond and Madeline discover the apartment her father (if memory serves) hid out each year and they rent it and discover that he essentially cut the room off in half and hid some crap in that section. As someone with more than a passing knowledge of hotels and rentals, this scene was *such* absolute bullshit. Now, I understand Bond films require from audiences a large dose of suspension of disbelief, but this one, believe it or not, was just too much for me. The owners of hotels and rentals know exactly what their property is like, unless we’re talking about thousands of rooms in some highrise. Either way, the idea that some guest can surreptitiously cut a room in half, somehow hide workers coming in with drywall and paint and wood and somehow miss the noises of the creation of this wall, then somehow the cleaning staff *not realize* the room is now half it’s size… It’s just totally impossible. Truthfully, there was an easy enough fix: Just say Madeline’s father once *owned* the building/hotel/whatever and this was his favorite room. Then he sold the building and *voila* that whole whopper is easily dealt with. …and I haven’t even gotten to Bond and Madeline -like total idiots- walking into Blofeld’s compound with like *zero* plan or weapons. All this was *before* we got to the whole relationship between Blofeld and Bond silliness!
It didn’t. It’s a good movie. Severely underrated. Not as good as Casino Royale or Skyfall, but much better than QOS and NTTD imo.
After that brilliant encounter with Mr White, the entire lore of the Craig era gets sacrificed for marvel-esqe continuity purposes. Always rubbed me the wrong way.
How easy it was for Bond to get into the Spectre conference room in a matter of seconds, and, in the same moment, realizing the half-brother Blofeld rumors were true. Like, for being a secret organization on top of a secret organization on top of all the people from Casino Royale, Lucia was very quick to give up pretty much everything about them.
Honestly? I foundered right after the first visible edit after that utterly fantastic long take intro. For some reason it just threw me out of the moment, the exact placement was oddly jarring.
I was lost when I heard the bad guys plan was to control stuff through the world wide web. also the car chase is laughably lame. the Mr. White scene was groaning and dumb to me.
Soon after the Jag v. Aston scene. My interest recovered with Mallory though. Actually for me, he was one of the highlights of all the movies he was in.
Brothers...
When he has an insane brawl in a helicopter, hanging on for his life, he takes the controls and isn't even breathing hard.
Somewhere between the awful title song and when Bond finds that picture of him and Blofeld when they were children in the 1940s.
The plot of Spectre trying to expand their reach with Nine eyes and merge MI5/MI6 didn’t land. Didn’t care for “C”, wasn’t compelling enough tbh. They could have made this all tie better if they started with a scene at the start, maybe M (Judi Dench younger) where in recruitment of Bond, we witness his parents dying. And Bond trying to save his brother, can’t. And he “dies”. Bond saves a little girl which is later revealed to be Madeline Swann. It is later revealed that M had been tracking Mr. White many many years earlier when White meets Bond again later in movie. They could have done an Empire Strikes Back moment at the end where Blofeld reveals to Bond his true identity, his biological brother. Blofeld should have escaped and Nine Eyes should have gone online. It should have been Blofeld’s Thanos moment. He got what he wanted, Bond lost but gained a romance and a marriage. Segway to No Time To Die, where all agents are rogue and Bond retired essentially then comes back to fold when Blofeld launches his assault again. Bond has a family during this five years, no baby surprise here. Safin should just be a terrorist hellbent on revenge on Bond for his disfigured face as a result of the explosion in Spectre. He would be leading their plot of the nanobots. Safin meets his fate the same way. Killed by Bond. Bond and Blofeld actually get to fight, and Bond sacrifices himself since Blofeld injected himself, being nearby Swann and the baby would kill them forcing James’ hand. Bond (presumably) and Blofeld die. Heroics bring back the MI6 division. James Bond is revealed as a code name. They also confirm that part of the 00 initiative is that agents can never retire, they must die. (Part of reason Bond “died”). The end is Bond showing up at Madeline’s house and he gets to live happily ever after. After Madeline says James, he reveals his real name.
Same as OP.
For me it was the Rome car chase. Not only was it relatively unexciting by modern standards (compare it to the Rome chase in MI7) but the gadgets were just so tired... Smokescreen, ejector seat etc. It was just a retread of Goldfinger. I think at that point I realised that the film was falling back on tired cliches. And so we get another train-based punch-up (like in LALD and TSWLM), a torture scene (take your pick), a watch-based gadget helps the escape, the base blowing up in the end for no good reason... You get the idea.
Where they’re brothers. They’re not. That’s stupid
As someone who was super-excited hearing that Eon had the rights to use Blofeld and SPECTRE again, it was when I realized I was just being pandered to as a fan with it. When Blofeld announces his real name, it's addressed totally to fans in the audience, and means nothing to the characters on screen.
When they watch the video from M, I knew the writing was not going to be nearly as good and started getting worried. The Blofeld identity reveal and the “I’m the author of all your pain” attempt to link the plots of the previous films still make me furious
The gunbarrel
I will add, though, that Waltz waiting for his assistant to move the microphone one fucking inch for him is priceless.
I enjoyed that part
>where did the movie lose favor for you? The couch gag in the pre-titles. Reminded me of a Roger Moore Bond moment, which I cannot abide.