The Big & Small Screen: ‘Spectre’ fails to live up to expectations

29 Nov, 2015 - 00:11 0 Views
The Big & Small Screen: ‘Spectre’ fails to live up to expectations The movie ‘Spectre’

The Sunday Mail

YOU know a film really sucks when you find yourself laughing to WhatsApp jokes in the middle of a movie premiere.
Sadly l found myself in that predicament quite recently.
Ster-Kinekor held its official screening of the latest James Bond movie “Spectre” last week, an event that emerged a bit too dull.
Despite attracting an average crowd, mostly looking dapper and exquisite in their best James Bond and Bond Girl attires — the general lack of effort on the part of the organisers was sadly the biggest put off on the night.
The movie itself failed to liven up proceedings as director Sam Mendes and his leading man Daniel Craig conspired to produce arguably one of the worst James Bond flicks ever.
I have nothing against Daniel Craig as an actor per se, but as James Bond I thought he was a rather uninspiring choice to begin with.
He lacks in the required charm and eloquence needed to bring to life the famous role. Admittedly, he has brought a certain amount of toughness and ruggedness that his predecessors Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, Sean Connery and Roger Moore all lacked. But then again, one does not go to a James Bond movie expecting their hero to plough through ten henchmen in a fist fight.
Hollywood is full of action men like Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne, Bruce Willis’ John McClane, Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and Jason Stratham’s Frank Martin for that.
The role of 007 requires a certain amount of panache and elegance, traits that Craig lacks. In the four movies he has starred in as agent 007, only “Skyfall” was solid and well-crafted but that had more to do with the well rounded script and performances from the likes of Javier Bardem and Dame Judy Dench.
“Casino Royale” and “Quantum of Solace” were both a total farce and hardly worth any mention.
In “Spectre”, we join our hero James Bond as he continues to deal with the ramification of the death of M (Judi Dench) who leaves him a cryptic message in which he is tasked to track down and kill a man from his past — Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz).
For those James Bond buffs out there, Oberhauser is the infamous Ernst Stavros Blofeld, the mysterious leader of “Spectre” — an international criminal organisation hell bent on world domination and a huge thorn in our hero’s backside.
Excuse the brashness!
According to script, Oberhauser’s father took in James as a youngster after the death of his parents.
The amount of love and attention he placed on a young Bond soared seeds of hatred and contempt between the two.
This leads Oberhauser to be at the heart of all of Bond’s grief, a simple act that requires him to kill every woman Bond has ever loved.
“Spectre” fails drastically in its attempts to continue from the merits of its predecessor “Skyfall”, despite every attempt to tie in the plot trends.
The highlight of it all are images of Dench as M, via video, and Jesper Christensen’s Mr White from “Quantum of Solace”.
In “Skyfall”, the film delved deep into M’s past and dealt with her death majestically. The way they killed her off was both tasteful and entertaining, and with rumours that Daniel Craig was retiring as Agent 007, the writer John Logan and his team must have wanted to give him a similar farewell.
Sadly they failed!
The plot is shallow and lacking in the attention to detail that “Skyfall” had. The performances are terrible and sadly Sam Mendes, in the directorial chair again, failed to fully utilise the acting talents of Waltz while not enough attention was given to Oberhauser’s back story or his relationship with our hero James Bond.
Craig was at his uninspiring best as Agent 007, while Monica Bellucci (Lucia Scairra) appears to have been a better choice for Bond girl than Lea Seydoux (Dr Madeleine Swann).
Despite having something like 10 minutes of screen time, she demonstrated more chemistry with our leading man than the love story between Bond and Dr Swan, which they tried to force down our throats.
The only other memorable characters like Moneypenny (Naomi Harris), Dave Bautista’s Mr Hinx and Mr White lacked enough material and screen time.
Hinx and Bond’s car chase through the streets of Rome was arguably one of the most anti-climactic and monotonous action sequences in movie history.
But this is only my opinion. Despite my rumblings, this is not to say that “Spectre” is all bad. For one, Christoph Waltz is in it.
The locations, camera shots and exquisite cinematography is all we have learnt to expect from James Bond movies while Craig does not utter some memorable cliché driven one-liners and quick retorts.
As of November 22, the movie had grossed roughly US$678,2 million, a big plus given its US$250 million budget.

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