CallOfEuropeanSpirit it’s not like another 00 agent will replace James Bond in the franchise, but the idea of James Bind working with another 00 agent is interested, and something that hasn’t been done a whole lot in the James bind movies
As much as I admire Lea Seydoux's performance, I honestly think Bond's relation with Camille in Quantum of Solace was more interesting and genuine than what we got in Spectre. And I didn't particularly enjoy Quantum on account of its horrid editing and generally boring characters.
RipleyVSXeno715 The thing that sucks the most about Quantum is the editing. After multiple viewings, you can finally figure out what's going on in each scene.
@suny123boy1 I don't think it was her acting that was the problem. Her character was written all over the place that she couldn't portray Swan with any consistency. She is a good actress, but in a role that she can't give much in.
I'd have made Blofeld an agent of Quantum who takes over the organization and re-brands it. I'd have also rewritten things to where Bond finds out from Mr. White that after the events of QOS, using the information Bond got out of Dominic Green, Quantum was largely dismantled by MI6. However Blofeld, along with Mr. White and the few surviving members of Quantum go off the grid and slowly rebuild the organization into Spectre in the 6 years in between QOS and this film. That would also play into the phrase "the dead are alive" at the beginning of the movie as well. This organization that was thought to be destroyed comes back to haunt the world as SPECTRE! The name would have made so much more sense as well.
Calvin - Bond Reviewer With a little more thought, the death symbolism/motif could have really worked. Spectre being the ghost of Quantum would have really tied it together. On a side note, I really like that Spectre's emblem is an Octopus since they look like and move similar to ghosts.
SolarDragon007 Fucking hell!!!! Now that I think about it. That would've made way more sense and would've been way better of a villain plot than what we got. Although where would Silva fit in in your version or would he even be included in your version at all?
irish91ify He'd be like Goldfinger in that he is unrelated, or they could have thrown in a line about how Spectre leaked the whereabouts of the data chip at the beginning of Skyfall. This would have been done as revenge against MI6 rather than against Bond specifically because I hate the adopted brothers thing.
I'm pretty sure Blofeld mentioning that he visited Madeleines house once was actually a reference to a similar scene that featured both of the actors in inglorious bastards
Ahhhh!! That never occurred to me but you're right... What a crap reference though. I loved Inglorious Basterds but, it's kind of a needless reference really.
I knew something was terribly wrong immediately when the movie opened with “the dead are alive”, it still baffles me that they thought it was a good idea
It's like a warning right off the bat isn't it? Just a signal of how pretentious the film is in places. Also ruined the gunbarrel opening into the film...
Could they not have just segued the gunbarrel into, I dunno, a sun? The sky? Any number of roughly circular white things you might see at a Day of the Dead parade?
2013: EON Productions manages to finally secure the rights to Blofeld and SPECTRE from the estate of Kevin McClory after 42 years. And that's why I have problems with 'Spectre'. Blofeld's inclusion is more because they could do it, rather than because they should have done it. I always felt Purvis & Wade wanted to use SPECTRE in 'Casino Royale' but couldn't because of the rights, so when they finally got the chance to use SPECTRE they wanted to make up for lost time, so did a ruddy big recon of the past films, as if they could alter the films that came before. Not to mention, using Blofeld also gave Broccoli & Wilson closure over the whole McClory debacle that their dad was forced to deal with for decades. And why make Blofeld Bond's brother? Because probably the inane studio heads at Sony Productions thought it would be deep. I can see them, in their board rooms, saying something like: "Being a villain just for the sake of having a villain isn't good character development. If he truly is Bond's arch-nemesis like they say he is, there should be something more profound about Blofeld. Could they be long lost brothers? Yes, do that." Ugh. The reason Blofeld is Bond's arch-nemesis, as opposed to any of the others, is because he has tenacity - and keeps coming back. He's the one guy Bond failed to kill. Not some cod personal-connection crap. The only villain before who had a personal-connection to Bond was Trevelyan in 'GoldenEye', and that worked because his grievance was with Britain, not with Bond himself. It wasn't a personal vendetta against Bond specifically. And that's why it worked, because it was the grand-scale master-plan that Bond villains are supposed to have. This "oh, daddy loved you more cuckoo" plan is just too weak. Look, I don't think emotional depth is a bad thing in Bond films - in fact, I think it can really richen a film's story if written well. That's why I like 'OHMSS' and 'Licence to Kill', because you see more of Bond as a person than just a conduit for action set pieces. But written poorly, it feels lazy. And that's what we have here. "Oh look at me, I'm being deep!" No you're not 'Spectre', no you are not.
Calvin - Bond Reviewer Why thanks! I'm very glad you liked it! Blofeld is a character I find really interesting - his legacy as the only Bond villain to be the villain of multiple films; as the stereotypical Bond villain we see in pop culture (I mean, pretty much all parodies of Bond villains have a cat to stroke, or a rotating chair to spin, or a face we never see); and also the basis of the whole Broccoli/McClory feud - the one that got away, so to speak. And now, a 4th legacy: as the first Bond villain to survive the reboot. Hopefully also the last - as much as I love the classics like Goldfinger and Dr No, I also love innovation. If they retread all the old villains I might just march up to EON Productions and loudly shout "No!" Anyway, I hope Bond 25 gives us a good spiral into insanity for Blofeld. It's an interesting character development that Fleming gave to us in 'You Only Live Twice', so, hopefully we'll get to see that. Purvis & Wade are Fleming geeks after all, so it's possible. Also - did you know early drafts of 'Spectre' that were leaked online contained Irma Bunt? Might have been cool to see her rebooted too, but seeing how they treated Blofeld, maybe it's best she was cut.
@@themasher4821 No, I saw that, I was just confused as to why you brought up Greta Gerwig when she had absolutely nothing to do with Spectre, or any Bond film for that matter. So I’m not sure what the point you’re trying to make is.
I really hope the little mouse comes back for 25. James could try tracking it down across five continents to get the secret betamax tape of where the cheese is kept. On route Blofeld, now disguised as a cosplay cat, tells James (in an interesting and completely new twist) he's a relic of the past and its all done with computers these days or some such. No one mentions the cheese again once which is shame because most of us like a nice bit of cheddar. MI6 blows up. Where's my contract?
Spectre's shoddy screenplay doomed the film from the beginning. Bond going rogue, the entire character of C, and the nanoblood rubbish all never should have made it into the final script. The film derails after the Rome meeting and becomes an utter snoozefest by the third act. Blofeld should have been hyped as Blofeld all along without any of the Oberhauser rubbish. One of Spectre's biggest failures was Blofeld's character; ripping off Austin Powers in Goldmember was absolutely unforgivable.
Yep. The very worst thing in this mess is the Goldmember stuff. It's a big f*** U to the fans even if the rest of the film had been passable. Did Coppola & Mendes not know? Were they trying to be meta or something? It utterly wrecks the Craig era.
I’d rather watch FYEO, AVTAK, Octopussy, Goldfinger, FRWL, DAF, TND, TWINE, LALD, TMWTGG, or TLD. I’m not a big fan of Craig, Dalton, or Lazenby. I like Dalton and Craig in non-bond movies and tv shows. I just hate Lazenby. My personal favorite is Moore. I like campy bond compared to serious bond.
I would assume the C character was vital to the original script but by the time it was re-written and re-worked during filming the character was redundant. I would have dumped Monica Bellucci bit too. Nothing against her but given the film is slow and overlong her part really didn't need to be there.
It also didn't help that 2015 had other spy movies (Man From UNCLE, Kingsman and Mission Impossible Rogue Nation) that did what they were trying to do better than this film did.
Great review Calvin! Loved the bit where you were hanging up the posters as Blofeld, that had me laughing. You raised some valid points. I agree on the whole Bond and Blofeld stepbrothers relationship being dull. There's a lot I have drastically different opinions on though! But that keeps Bond fandom fun and diverse I like to think! Keep it up!
I watched this again last night. I think that Bond's choice not to kill Blofeld on the bridge is supposed to be a pay off to a few lacklustre set-ups earlier on in the film. Also, the choice not to kill Blofeld is true to Bond's character as Fleming wrote it. By nature Bond hates killing in cold blood. I think this was mentioned in several places in the novels. It is also reiterated in TWINE where Bond has Renard on his knees and while he attaches the silencer to his gun he says, "I usually hate killing an unarmed man. Cold Blooded murder is a filthy business". The set-ups for his decision were on the train with Madeline where she asks why a man chooses the life of a paid assassin, and continues to ask what Bond thinks would happen if he stopped "living in the shadows, hunting, being hunted, always looking behind you, always alone". He doesn't know the answer and feels he doesn't have a choice, but I feel we're meant to think that this question has made more of an impression on him than it comes across. She tells him he's wrong and that we always have a choice. Bond says he'll drink to that, then the fight with Hinx ensues, stopping us from paying any thought to what has just been said. Perhaps this was supposed to be a profound moment in Bond's character arc, but it's so badly executed that it doesn't achieve what it was meant to. There is absolutely no sign whatsoever that Madeline's question or line of thought has had any kind of effect on Bond at all. A simple pause of deep thought from Bond to let us know that he is thinking about it would have helped this no end. Also, a shot of Bond looking at Madeline in deep thought would have told us that he was perhaps processing what she has said and developing feelings for her. If, during the fight with Hinx, madeline was knocked unconsious and actually needed Bond to perform CPR on her after Hinx was dispatched of, it would perhaps lend an emotional motive for Bond's and Swann's feeling toward one another to escalate as quickly as they do. There is also the line from M, although Bond isn't present so wouldn't have heard it, where he says a licence to kill is also a licence not to kill. This line illustrates the attitude towards his licence to kill that Bond will have been trained to have. This is reminiscent of Oskar Schindler's line in 'Schindler's List', "Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't". It's noteworthy that Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler says this to Amon Goeth who is played by Ralph Fiennes. The end of the film seems to be Bond resigning from MI6 and leaving for a life with Madeline. If this is the case, he wouldn't have wanted to start this new life with Madeline seeing him kill an unarmed man in cold blood. The problem is that the big picture is made of too many tiny, seemingly insignificant jigsaw pieces, that creating the jigsaw puzzle mentally from vague insignificant memories of poorly executed moments is arduous and not at all satisfying. This results in a film that appears to be a jumbled mess or silly ideas poorly executed, and thus an incompetent film.
My biggest problem is with the finale. there's no way a little .380 ppk can take down a helicopter past 50 yards. At that distance it couldn't even break glass let alone take down a helicopter. if only there was a high powered assault rifle that was hinted at in a Q scene.... oh wait.
Kaighen This film has one of the worst climaxes in the entire series. That shit with the heads of Vesper, Le Chiffre, etc. taped to the walls was the most childish thing ever.
When Bond fought the 2 guys on the stairs in Casino Royale, he was battered bloodied and out of breath here he fights hinx who throws him around like he was nothing and he quickly has sex afterwards, you can see the realism has gone abit in the 4 films
I feel like the movie would be better if they either had the villain be just oberhauser (my daddy loved you more than he loved me), or if they removed the family nonsense and made it just like a classic adventure with bond trying to prevent spectre's not-so-dastardly plan. Anyway, great review and nice to have you back :)
Very much agree! It's the fact they tried to shoehorn the Blofeld name in here that was my biggest issue. Guess they felt like they just had to use it since Eon got the rights back.
@@calvindyson I have a question. Let's assume they stick with the "Bond once lived in Oberhauser's house, so they were kinda-sorta brothers" plot point. But let's say they stick with one of the earlier drafts of the script, with C being Spectre's "Number One", and Oberhauser being more of an enforcer/field agent. Does that make it less stupid, more stupid, or fail to reduce the stupidity quotient?
It is hard to believe Mendes followed up Skyfall with this script which was hopeless to begin with. It kind of ruined Skyfall to know that Silva was working under Spectre. I prefer to delete that point in the timeline. Waltz as a villain was wasted. Why would they send their henchman after Bond on the train if Blofeld wanted Bond at the complex? And why is the bad guy's lair always so easy to destroy with a flick of a wrist? It seems there are always places for Bond to shoot to cause an explosion to destroy the whole place. The ending with him taking down the helicopter was just lazy writing. It seemed silly Blofeld would wait for Bond to get out of the building. And why was Blofeld in London to begin with? His goons did not help protect the transfer of intelligence to MI5 or whatever. He was just there to toy with Bond who stole his father's affection?
I prefer to think that if Silva has any link to Spectre then its he was going undercover and got caught so thats the organisation that kidnapped and tortured him for months before he took the pill that didn’t kill him
Mendes was the director - not the writer. The shots, stage sets, camerawork and lighting in Spectre look beautiful. Mendes did his job. It's the writers (and the producers asking the writers to rewrite the script numerous times) that resulted in this plot.
Weird choices in this film. Despite her brief screen time ,the Monica Bellucci character was more interesting than Madeline Swann. Blofeld was no surprise and was actually just fine as Franz Oberhauser. It would have made more sense to have had Spectre be behind the death of Bond's parents in that unexplained climbing accident (perhaps Andrew Bond was a spy for MI6). Instead we got the "Brofeld" plot from Austin Powers: Goldmember. This review was very fair to the film, praising its strengths as well as pointing out its weak points. We only disagree on the Sam Smith theme. I'd rather get the brain drill than ever hear Smith's warbling again.
Indeed, Bellucci should have been given more to do. I’d have more bought Bond falling in love with her than Swann in this context. Thanks for the very kind comment! I’m happy it came across as fair despite me probably going on a bit of a rant towards the end 😅
You're right, I hated the development, I hated them being brothers, hated everything being wrapped up and connected. Hated Swan character. Loads of bad ideas in this film, if I was on the writing team I would be embarrassed, I REALLY hope the producers have learned their lesson for Bond 25.
Swan being Mr White's daughter is completely pointless in the grand scheme of things, much like the brothers angle. Nothing against Léa Seydoux but a more charismatic actress might have made more of the characters [though she gets another shot in Bond 25]
@@christophersuarez6490 Yeah, making the Joker the murderer of Bruce's parents reduces the Batman/Joker relationship to a simple revenge story. Really lame.
Terrific review, I agree 100 percent. In our Ultimate Bondcast on my channel (five of us ranked all 25 movies) this stinker landed at 20th place among our group average, and 23rd for me. Just gets worse every time I watch it!
I like how the title sequence didn't include Dominic Greene as if to imply, "Yeah let's just forget about Quantum of Solace. Greene wasn't memorable anyway."
This movie is SOOO dreadfully boring! Technically, it's a superb film; Masterfully shot by Hoyte van Hoytema, and directed well with some good acting. The action scenes are alright. The stand-out sequence being the train fight. I really hate how they reuse a lot of the music, which is really lazy, and I hate the 'twist' and how the films are tied up. It's just a really boring film.
I think the movie would have been better with a David Arnold Score and better editing. Everything is so slow in the action scenes, we don't need rapid fire editing but it's completely dull.
Great point. The directing was good, the acting was on point, it looks fantastic and some of the locations are gorgeous. But the movie had no soul. It was made to check the typical Bond movie boxes and to make a horribly lazy attempt at tying the other movies together. Nothing like Skyfall and Casino Royale, hell, even Quantum was at least TRYING to be different.
How do the writers think up all those villain names? Mister *_White_* , Mister *_Green_* ? Willard *_Whyte_* , no relation..... And how could Bond walk away from Monica on the bed, then be seen in public with that fat ass and bleach blond mannequin Madelaine Swan? Then they bring her back with the wimpy brother Blofeld? The new 007 girl is a snotty bitch, this new movie will be a real box office bomb, I can smell it all the way to November, if people ever go to theaters again.
For me, it's good enough until the train fight ends. I'm still in the story up until this point. Then the rest of the movie is so shit it's almost beyond belief how lazy it becomes.
The worst thing about the Blofeld reveal is that everyone of a certain generation (or who's watched the old films) could see it coming from quite some distance, whereas the casual viewer only familiar with the newer films wouldn't really have cared. With regret, this is the point at which Spectre ceased to be about good v evil/espionage and became about the Bond films.
It's the same problem with Star Trek Into Darkness. The whole Khan reveal only works with people of a certain generation. I didn't see Wrath of Khan before so it went over my head. Those who saw Wrath of Khan were upset because how tacky the reveal was. It's like the cheapest form of nostalgia that harms the film you are watching by reminding you of a better film you could be watching.
With Bond's rather strange outburst at Blofeld showing off the tape, I always assumed that the original idea was to have the interrogation of Vesper Lynd be shown here instead of the Mr. White suicide tape: as you pointed out, we see Bond briefly pick and examine the tape at L' American before putting it down, so that later on, Blofeld would play this both to torment Bond and to show Madeline what happens to those that get close to Bond, hence why he says "This is important" in reference to what is otherwise something very unimportant. Perhaps it's just the poor writing of the film but it's an interesting idea. Great review, by the way.
I can only assume Eva Green said no to a cameo or some point pointed out she'd be obviously 9 years older and it wouldn't work. As you say, the change to Mr White was clumsy.
@@jamesatkinsonja I don't think the filmmakers would really care about the nine years thing because it would be glossed over by the important of the scene
On the contrary, I think Mr White's inclusion in the film was a good touch. They just shouldn't have made Lea Seydoux his daughter or Blofield Bond's brother. The unnecessary connections seemed forced
Been a Bond fan for decades but the Mission Impossible films got better as Bond films got worse to the point where both are getting boring but the stunts in the MI are still alot better than Bond films .
My take on the Q scene: Q is delivering the message his superiors told him to say, which is, we can monitor your vital signs and see if you are okay. Q then says it is a post-Mexico insurance policy, which I believe is Q going off-script and hinting that the real reason for the tracking is to keep tabs on where Bond is. (You can also see that one of the vital signs is alcohol level, implying that they are keeping track of Bonds drinking habits, suggesting they might think he is an alcoholic.) Q also says it was a direct order from M, which is his way of telling Bond that Q personally does not agree with this. When Bond says he completely understands, he is telling Q that he gets it is M wanting to spy on him and no hard feelings to Q. [30:10] I think Bond's reaction is not just that Madeline will see her father shoot himself, but also she will see that Bond enabled it. Of course, it is still something of an over-reaction given that we know White was dying anyway. The only way it makes any sense is if Madeline had not seen her father for some time and did not know what condition he was in, not what his relationship with Bond was. It's probably another continuity error caused by either editing or script changes. [31:40] You almost went full-gollum there. We hates this scene Baggins.
R.A.s Reviews In Winter Soldier Hydra was going to blow up a bunch of cities with the helicarriees. Spectre here is going to......I don't fucking know what.
SolarDragon007 yeah they're just being evil and ominous and have no other type of escalation. You don't feel the stakes. And you could argue "well it's a personal vendetta." Fine but why involve a whole organization? At least with Silva it was just him and his men so you could still feel it was personal.
R.A.s Reviews And why the FUCK does it have to be personal every time ?! Why can't we just have an interesting villain who has his own worldview and backstory?
SolarDragon007 I don't know man. I hate how in movies these days they're like "oh villains have to be related to the hero so you can really be invested in their conflict." Like I don't know if you watched Luke cage but they did something extremely similar to what they did in spectre. Where the issues stem from "daddy didn't love me." That type of conflict can work. It works fine in the Thor movies. Difference being that Thor still sees Loki as his brother regardless of all the terrible things he does. Like he's always trying to talk to Loki and appeal to the good side of him. Bond doesn't do that here. He just sees blofeld as another bad guy to fight.
At least Tony Todd in Luke Cage chewed the scenery. Waltz is just completely wasted here. Also, I think it would have been much more interesting if they'd gone the Telly Savalas route and made Blofeld a mirror image/phyiscal equal of Bond. We haven't really had a major villain that can give Craig's Bond a run for his money in a fight
As much as I do like this film, I never really got why they had to hide the fact that Waltz was obviously Blofeld, even during the build-up to its release we had our suspicions but they kept denying it, practically *_lying_* to us. The jacket Waltz was wearing was a *_dead_* giveaway when I saw it in the trailer, anybody who is a die-hard Bond fan would recognize that jacket straightaway. The exact same thing happened with _Star Trek Into Darkness_ where we all suspected that Cumberbatch was playing Khan.
The Trek movies at least take place in an alternate timeline. It's tenuous but it's there. It's there in Star Trek, I mean. There's no alternate Bond timeline, yet...
Mission impossible 5: Rogue Nation had almost the exact same plot, and was released in the same year. And it was far, Far superior. Mission impossible 6: Fallout is also just as good if not better even. This? This is the lukewarm milk of spy thrillers
I object to the climax of this and QOS because of the way they turn Bond into a cookie-cutter hero who is suddenly above killing when he has the villain at his mercy. We watch Bond movies because of the unique nature of who Bond is, an assassin with a license to kill in cold blood, it would be nice to see him use it once in a while because he hasn't really made use of it since the opening of Casino Royale.
I've retitled the Daniel Craig movies: "Casio Royale", "Quantum of Quality", "Pretentious Contrivance" (AKA, "Batman: Overrated"), "Sphinctre" and "This Whole Reboot Thing Was a Pointless Waste of Time"...
The only plausible way of fixing this is if they do what Marvel did with Iron Man 3. My idea is that at the start of Bond 25, Waltz is visited (either in prison or after he escapes) by someone, and it's revealed to the audience that the visitor is the real Blofeld, and Oberhauser stole his identity to take over Spectre to find Bond to get revenge. Then, we have the real Blofeld, who has no connection to Bond at all.
Good idea, but I suspect the next film will completely ignore the events of Spectre and be an entirely standalone adventure. Then the series will be rebooted again for Craig's successor.
Or for Blofeld himself to admit he made up the step brothers story based on another person named Oberhauser that he had killed at some point in history.
In Connery third movie Goldfinger the Villain Goldfinger was not apart of Spectre so in Craig's 3rd film Skyfall the Villain in that movie Silva shouldn't have been apart of Spectre
I choose to negate that idea from the film in my mind. Silva DOES belong on his own, and I just put my brain into denial mode and say that Blofeld purposefully lied to Bond about it.
I simply refuse to believe Silva would work for any other person after being betrayed by his own MOTHER. why would he want to work with someone (let alone trust someone) after being thrown into a Chinese prison (and tortured) by the woman who raised him. I know I wouldn’t be able to and I highly doubt he would. Silva doesn’t need to work with anyone anyway because of how smart he was I just found it stupid trying to tie all the DC villains together
I mean, I too left the cinema having had a good time, it's just over time that all the flaws become more and more apparent and the cracks get bigger and bigger.
Bond parachuting out of the DB10 and then doing the trademark Bond thing of doing whatever to his suit and saying good evening was one of the best parts of the film
Absolutely love this review Calvin! I come back to it more than I do the movie! Your critique of Waltz's performance is spot on. The role calls for someone a little more campy and OTT, not Waltz's self-conscious understatement. Can't wait for your NTTD review!
Harry Flashman that’s quite a compliment! Thank you very much, Harry! I very much agree that more campy and OTT would have been better for the role. I see what Waltz was trying to do... but Bardem did such a great job with Silva he was up against stiff competition and he just didn’t succeed.
I personally think ‘The Dead Are Alive’ is the perfect opening statement. This film resurrects the memory and significance of Vesper, Le Chiffre, Greene and Silva, M and Franz Oberhauser, all dead and buried in Bond’s mind. It’s also a nice take on the famous Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico. I think it’s an outstanding beginning, and not at all pretentious. I do wish they hadn’t gone on to make the family link to Blofeld. But that’s a different story…
The “now we know what C stands for” should have just been left to our imagination, like as soon as you say that line we all think of what it could be and then when he says “careless” you’re just disappointed...
Late reply here. Like the previous reply, from DwRockett, I do wonder if the addition of 'careless' was a ratings thing. Perhaps even an implied 'c-word' would be enough to upset the censors and age rating panels. It's a pity because it ruins the joke a wee bit, but we all still know what he really means, so I think it still works.
I think the producers thought they'd get brilliant villains by hiring "Moriarty" and "The Jew Hunter". Of course, it turns out you need a brilliant script for a brilliant villain, not just the actor.
About 'secret villains', yes, but The World is Not Enough had a good twist villain... And although most people hate it, I LOVE Die Another Day and that also had a twist villain... Just the same as the movie before it in fact... Damn. And The Living Daylights and Goldeneye are my favourite two movies in the series and they have twist villains as well... You know what? No, I love all the movies with twist villains it seems. -_- Trevelyan is such a villain and he's a contender for the best Bond villain ever. Certainly the best Brosnan baddie, surely?
My only comment on the review would be the ending. My interpretation of Bond NOT killing Blofeld was M's comment to C. That the importance of a 00 agent was to know when and when not to pull the trigger. And in this instance bond found more value in not pulling the trigger.
I like to think that actually, yes, Madeleine *would* have been less into Bond if he'd just shot Blofeld there. The whole reason she wanted to walk away in the final sequence was because she didn't want to be with someone who resembled her father. So Bond choosing not to kill Blofeld and walk away from the spy world makes sense.
Good to see you back Calvin. I 100% agree with your review it was very meh in my opinion! What we need is an action/chase scene with John Barry's 007 theme in the scene similar to Moonraker or From Russia with Love. I did not receive it very well if I am honest but who knows may get better if I view it again.
The problem isn't in the directing. Sam Mendes and Martin Campbell directed very well but which always falls is the writing. In Casino Royale, the last 20 minutes was a letdown but didn't damage significantly the movie. For me, it was a good movie. Skyfall, well directed but the writing falls a bit. I mean these movies will always have "cliches" and it's not a big problem... The problem is the overuse of the clinches and convenience moments. Not good as Casino Royale but good. Quantum, bad directing, weak plot. It's watchable and a bit entertaining but the movie falls and will not be remembered. Spectre, was well shot but weak plot again. If you give good material to Sam Mendes and Martin Campbell they will probably make good movies.
OK, last comment from me. I've literally just watched it again.....probably for the last time. First thing....Calvin dear, your reviews are excellent. You must hear this all the time - but can't you do more movie reviews? They don't need to be connected to Bond or any of the actors, just any movie that takes your (our!) fancy. You are so good at it..... So I pretty much agree with everything said here. The brother story arc is indeed "beyond stupid"... it really is. All that talent, and at no point did someone say what a bad idea it is. I will say one thing..... the first scene in Mexico is ironically one of the best Bond intros ever. Craig is super cool, and the one-shot effect works so well. The helicopter scene is a bit daft though.... Anyway, I could bang on, but it's all been said, so I won't! Right.... No Time To Die (again) next! Take care all....👍🙂❤
I definitely don't always agree with your analysis, but you were exactly spot-on with this one. I happen to really like the opening helicopter fight, and I'm a bit surprised you seemed happy with Blofeld's desert crater "Lair" which to me looked like a generic suburban Business park, only more boring (Christ, if there was ever an appropriate moment for the series to get ambitious and at least try to pay tribute to Ken Adam with a set...) but other than those two minor quibbles you perfectly covered every beat of where Spectre goes wrong. Thing is, even aside from the massive misstep of making Blofeld Bond's jealous kid brother (God, did no one in the production ever describe the "big reveal" that way, listen to what they just said, and realize they were making a huge mistake?), much of the movie on a scene-by-scene level just doesn't click. No big dramatic reason like a double-taking pigeon or Sega Genesis-level CGI kitesurfing sequence to roll our eyes at, just scene after scene that is trying to be exciting or dramatic and just not pulling it off.
Thanks, Brian! Great post. Especially agree with the last bit. It's funny how there's not exactly one heinous moment to pin the blame on like the kitesurfing or pigeon so the whole thing just comes across poorly.
Yep. Thank you, this review summed up everything I felt about it as well. Sadly, when I heard the announcement that Spectre was the next Bond film, I got shivers. "Yes!" I thought. "They're going back to Blofled! Finally, they're going back to Spectre! This will be the second Bond reboot!" But this film was about as appetising as toad-brulée. It was a combination of unique and bamboozling blunders which actually ruined Bond and left an awful aftertaste. Spectre's true intrigue was that they were always there in the shadows, pulling strings, making calculated moves and never allowing Bond to get too close (at least that's how they should have been). They were elusive, and threatening. They were Spectre... When I saw this movie, I was laughing through most of it. The clinical and mysogenistic utility of Monica Bellucci, the Austin Powers Villain Summit, the dust-flavoured 'love interest', the unnecessary 'brother' link, and all the stupid, transparent tie-ins so clearly meant to make us go: "Oooh, aahhh, such planning! Such overarching vision! NOW it all makes sense!". It was just...a monumental waste of a cool idea. Cool review, though. Thank you!
This film had too many rewrites since the court gave up the name Spectre and the character Blofeld that they added both in the plot ( Kevin Mc Clory finally gave the rights of both Spectre and Blofeld during the making of this film and clumsy wrote both in the story . ) This brother theme was ridiculous with Bond and Blofeld as brothers made me think of Luke and his Father Dath though in Star Wars it worked , this film it didn't .
I don’t think making Bond and Blofeld brothers was the worst part, it’s the fact that they made Blofeld “the author of James’ pain” because of his dad teaching James how to ski. If their relation was just a coincidence, fine, but the fact that they made Blofeld some petty lost brother made it so stupid and cheesy.
I don't think either of these things was the worst part. This entire "reboot" thing was a completely pointless farce that became such a boring, pretentious and amateurly-written mess that even they had to kill Bond in the end just to get rid of the lame cringepile they bodged together. They tried to make every Craig movie an episode like a tv series yet didn't even bother planning it out. They just threw any old fanboy ideas into a blender and cobbled stories together that in fact make zero sense as a sequential story when you actually go back and try to fit all those supposedly linked stories and characters and events together. Just one initial example, James Bond going after Le Chiffre clearly has nothing whatsoever to do with Blofeld...yet supposedly Blofeld orchestrated the entire thing, eugh, whatever, just amateur fanboy writing. And is Quantum supposed to be SPECTRE btw? What was the point of "Quantum"? Just to have something to make the title more relevant for one movie? 🙄 Making everyone related to each other and everything part of one big plot (even though they actually didn't and none of it makes any sense) is the cheapest form of writing trick to try and force some sort of relationship and emotional depth and intrigue to stories. Then to make it all worse, they totally shoehorned in an apparently profound romantic love for Bond with some wooden character that does absolutely nothing whatsoever to warrant becoming the deep love of Bond's life. Essays can be written on how bad most of Craig's tenure has been post-Casino Royale. They didn't even use this whole reboot circus to even do anything new with the character, all they ended up doing was trying to go back to a retro-60s style! What was the point of any of it??
15:20 I'd like to think Ray Quinn got a phone call saying "your cover of New York, New York is going to be featured in the new Bond movie" only to watch the movie and realise they play two seconds of it lmao
I've read Hinx is gonna be back in the next Bond movie and that Bond and Madeleine are gonna be married at the start of it (*cough* OHMSS remake *cough*) also, I think Bond didn't want Madeleine to see the surveillance video because Bond basically gave White the gun and I thought Bond would think that Madeleine would think Bond's plan was to have White shoot himself... also also, I couldn't help but think of Austin Powers when I heard Bond and Blofeld are brothers
I have lots of thoughts on how Spectre could have been done better, but chief amongst them is how I feel like the brothers thing would have actually worked: Make the "brothers" thing metaphorical, and have Oberhauser (or indeed Blofeld, if you REALLY want to go that route or wanted to slam a studio mandate on me) be the one trying to initiate this relationship. Have him try to drive Bond to SPECTRE by severing his other connections after Quantum got stuffed. When Bond of course refuses to reciprocate, he makes an enemy for life of the man that never took no for an answer, always got what he wanted, until Bond indirectly ruins his life by being the one asset he doesn't control. If I was king for a day, this is what ruins Oberhauser and gets him killed, and sets up Blofeld to pick up where he left off, with his establishment as Bond's nemesis coming off the idea of being the one man to directly draw blood on SPECTRE, but either way, there you'd have it.
In a world where Spectre exists, I cannot see how people can be so hard on QoS. QoS starts off with such a great sequence and it has some great moments. It has flaws, I’ll give you that, but I can watch it- I feel obligated to watch it anytime I watch Casino Royale because of how QoS continues the end sequence. The only good things in Spectre are Ralph Fiennes and Dave Bautista.
Your review is spot on. I never got the praise the film got when released and only manged to watch the film once since. Spectre is ultimately.........boring.
Here's the thing. It's fair to say that there are valid reasons to criticize Spectre. I agree with most of the things Calvin pointed out, however, I think time will look back a lot more kindly on this film than people are willing to admit right now. I could imagine a hypothetical person walking out of the cinema circa 1983 and saying that Octopussy was the worst Bond film they've ever seen and that seeing Bond in the clown makeup and costume for the climax was a tremendously unforgivable sin vowing to never see another Bond film again. Today in 2017, Octopussy might be that hypothetical person's favorite Roger Bond film. Maybe they still don't like the clown bit, but over time they've learned to appreciate the parts of the film that they really like and not focus so much on the bit they don't like. I would argue that perhaps 20-30 years from now when many of us decide to look back on the Craig era, we will see Spectre as Daniel Craig's Octopussy. It's not a perfect film by any means, but there's enough to enjoy about it to look past the flaws. I could see Spectre becoming that "go to" Craig Bond film even if it's not necessarily the "best" of Craig's tenure which most of us agree will likely remain Casino Royale unless Bond 25 performs a miracle. In a previous video Calvin talked about how Octopussy is his "go to" Bond film. It happens to be my "go to" Roger film as well. I acknowledge that The Spy Who Loved Me is likely Roger's best but if I'm in the mood for a Roger film, I'm more likely to reach for Octopussy than Spy. I think 20-30 years from now, Spectre will be the film I'll probably put on if I'm in the mood for a Daniel Craig Bond film even though Casino Royale is far superior. "Well, it's all a matter of perspective," Bond says to Blofeld when asked why he decided to come there. When it comes to Bond movies, time and perspective are everything.
No matter how much time passes Spectre will always be quite dull and that plot twist with step brother Blofeld will always be ridiculous. Just like Bond in clown makeup will always be silly. Only difference is Octopussy was a fun, exciting Bond adventure
I agree with this. I have enjoyed every Craig movie. Spectre, for me, was excellent for its first 80%. Then it just goes off the rails in absurdity with the brothers plotline and the fixed net for James and Madelaine to land on from the tower as if Blofeld had set them up with an intentional gameshow's escape route. But its a fun "going off the rails". Still fun. Blofeld is utterly ridiculous in this movie. Madelaine saying "I love you" to James after knowing each other for approximately 3 days (maybe) is hilarious. Let's be honest... multiple James Bond movies and moments are just as ridiculous and we still love them. Roger Moore walking across the alligator backs? Connery's car on two wheels changing sides in Diamonds Are Forever? Brosnan's motorcycle dive to enter the airplane in Goldeneye in what must've been a five mile high cliff? Come on. Just have fun. Spectre is probably an average Bond movie.
Terrible ending, the whole script of the film with the - Bond and Blofeld have grown up together - twist is just mad, absolutely mad. When I saw this the first time I was almost hoping as the DB5 gear lever is shown Bond would press the ejector seat button and Miss Swan would fly off the car. In my mind there's zero chemistry between them though we are supposed to believe they are now lovers like Bond and Vesper were. This is just a horrible movie.
With the MI6 regulars helping out Bond in the finale, I think a better comparison is Mission Impossible. Just swap out Bond for Hunt, M for Luthur, Q for Benji, Tanner for Brandt and Moneypenny for Ilsa.
I can tell you the EXACT MOMENT Spectre went off the rails for me while watching it in the theater. It had great cinematography, fun moments, good storytelling and pacing - I was INTO it and enjoying the ride, including the fight on the train with the henchman and Bond and Ms. Swan being escorted to Blofeld's lair in the desert... and then they walked into that damn dark room with the meteorite and it's like the whole movie just died from there on out. Them as brothers? Please! Christof Waltz won TWO Oscars for playing villains entertainingly well, you can see why they considered him, but he was soooooooo boring... and then you've got this little guy in loafers and a Neru jacket standing there, no threat at all, no danger. (I also look forward to successfully flying a helicopter after having my head drilled into twice, but I digress). They escape, go back to London, ONLY to have Madeline be kidnapped AGAIN so Bond can have this final meet-up in the shell of MI6? (And I'm so glad Blofeld had the TIME to collect the headshots of M, Vesper, Mr. Green, Silva, etc., to hang them). Ugh. Yes, I loved the boat chasing the helicopter down the Thames, but that's it. The movie was clipping along fine and then fell apart. One of the things I LOVED about Skyfall was it was a stand-alone adventure with NO sequel feel, NO ties to Vesper or Quantum or anything... and it SHINED! and then with Spectre they tried to make us think Silva was mixed up in this whole arc too. Thanks for letting me rant - I just loved the whole feel of the movie until literally the second they walked in to meet Blofeld and then all the energy fell out fo the movie.
The 2 biggest problems with this film: Craig and Mendes. Neither should have ever been brought into the franchise. Mendes isn't an action director and no matter how pretentious the Craig films have been they're still supposed to be escapist actioners. Craig is just awful in the role. No emoting, no charisma (the whole Aston chase is one of many examples) - just all wrong in every way.
11:28 I think the point of this exchange (and the one with M) is that Bond is being uncharacteristically compliant because, as we find out, he’s keeping his motivations vague because of the message from Dench’s M.
This movie should've been amazing, the cast is amazing, it's finally bringing the classic Bond villain back, it has most of the team that made one of the all time bests in Skyfall.... But it just. falls. apart. so quickly. And then bursts into flames. And then crumbles to dust. And then the dust bursts into flames. Easily the worst movie of 2015, a good contender for worst Bond movie ever.
the final 25 minutes are a dream. They have to be! Bond gets that drill in his head and passes out. He dreams about a quick and easy escape and getting back to London to finish the job. It has to be! Please! Otherwise that last 25 minutes is a complete failure. There were more exciting episodes of the Professionals in 1978.
Spectre was such a massive letdown in so many ways. It managed to squander a potentially amazing & iconic villain re-introduction, & completely screwed up the overarching Daniel Craig Bond story.
I did actually enjoy Spectre and I didn't mind the whole Blofeld is Bond's brother subplot as much the first time I watched it. But as I watched it again and again, I realized it is pretty stupid. It reminds me of in Austin Powers Goldmember, where Michael Caine reveals that Austin is Dr. Evil's brother. The reason why I believe that subplot worked in that movie is because Austin Powers is a parody of the James Bond series and its supposed to be silly, whereas in Spectre its supposed to be taken seriously, even though its still stupid.
Great review, well worth the wait. Yeah, the final showdown definitely should have taken place at the crater and not back in London. Have you seen the "Every Bond Movie in 3 minutes" video? If you haven't you should, it proves just how nonsensical the whole Blofeld as Bond's brother plays out over the course of Bond's history. Just one question, surely the "dead are alive" title card was more of a reference to the Day of the Dead celebrations in the scene that follows rather than to the references to Vesper & co? Otherwise, great work!
"surely the "dead are alive" title card was more of a reference to the Day of the Dead celebrations in the scene that follows rather than to the references to Vesper & co?" It's both
I think it was a 4th wall break. Lea Sedoux played one of the farmer's daughters in Inglourious Basterds. Hence the line from Oberhauser about visiting her father.
Spectre gets worse every time I watch it. Craig is solid, and I love the locations and clothes. But the screenplay is so half baked yet over-ambitious the third act just wretches. Even at that it’s still superior to QoS. On every level. And that’s the very definition of damning with faint praise. It’s at this point I realize I’m in love with an IP that is badly mismanaged.
The villain plans in all Craig’s Bond movies have all been a lot less than “world domination/destruction” of the old Bond films. I mean - “Bolivian water rights”? That’s why I’ve always been kind of underwhelmed with this series. The Moore films got way over-the-top, but this was too extreme of a downsizing.
I suppose so - the plots in Craig’s Bond movies were closer to the Bourne stories, et al than the Bond movies I grew up with. I understand why many people like them but I guess I liked the world threatening villains and their grandiose plots better. Oh, well - it’s why Baskin Robbins has 31 flavors.
Honestly when I first saw this movie, I felt really confused the entire time. I thought that maybe the movie just needed another viewing and I would understand a lot of the real weirdness I felt in the plot. But nope--every time I see it those questions are still there. And these aren't the type of plotholes discovered by fans after overanalyzing the movie to a ridiculous extent--this is just basic storytelling logic that just gets thrown out the window time and time again in here. The needle during the torture scene is the perfect example. Blofeld sets up what the needle is for and what he's going to do with it, does exactly what he said he would do, and inexplicably it just doesn't do what he said it would. It's just like really bad storytelling. The revelation that Blofeld was behind everything from the previous movies is just flat out ridiculous. You can't just do this type of thing as an afterthought. There wasn't a single thread in any of those other movies that set this up--you can't just suddenly have a payoff of something you never set up even a little bit. And that ending....what the hell? I genuinely thought that this was an indication that the Craig era was over and the next one would start again in a completely different continuity with a new lead actor. I was extremely surprised to find out that the producers basically waited for Craig to say "yes" before making the upcoming one. At this point, literally the only story you can tell is Madeline getting killed and Bond on a revenge mission. Unless Bond 25 is going to be about domesticated Bond getting mad because his copy of The Guardian isn't delivered on time in the morning. The whole film just felt rushed, and I can't shake that sense every time I watch it. It's weird how Craig seems to be alternating between some of the best Bond films ever and some truly rushed and thrown together sequels. I have a feeling that a lot of this has to do with all the legal and financial issues that have definitely affected the production of these throughout the Craig era.
Among a myriad of other (perhaps more consequential) issues I have with the film, I cannot BELIEVE that they set up Blofeld torturing Bond by messing with his balance and perception, and then didn't follow through by having Bond's aim and ability be all over the place in the escape from the crater lair. It would've been great to see an extended sequence of Bond struggling to get past all the guards in the base because he can't shoot them and struggles in hand-to-hand combat. My only guess is that they didn't want people to think they were just rehashing the Skyfall moments, but boy, what a missed opportunity. Maybe Madeline could save Bond from the crater lair. That would help me believe their chemistry and relationship more.
A great review of Spectre Calvin ! I totally agree with EVERY point you make as regards this TERRIBLE Bond Movie ! ( imho) . Nothing much makes sense , and the family link between Blofeld and Bond is so cringeworthy and devoid of ANY reason ! The climax is weak , . But i had a belly laugh when you pointed out as regards why Blofeld would stick pictures of previous characters on the walls .. And Greenes picture being left out .. So funny 😅. The music was poor ..i totally agree . NTTD was poor too ! I miss the old movies from the 70s imo . TSWLM and FYEO being my faves . Keep up the great work Calvin !
When Blofeld said "I came to your home once to see your father", I was thinking yes he did, and it is on film. Back then Blofeld was known as SS Colonel Hans Landa.
It would've been funny if Idris Elba showed up at the end at Q's headquarters and was like "...where the fuck's my car?", implying that he's 009
oh boy indeed
No. James Bond is white.
CallOfEuropeanSpirit but he wouldn’t be James Bond, he would be another 00 agent
@@hansmichaelfanunal2545 Except a minority of feministo-ethnomasochists on twitter, nobody wants to see another agent, we want James Bond.
CallOfEuropeanSpirit it’s not like another 00 agent will replace James Bond in the franchise, but the idea of James Bind working with another 00 agent is interested, and something that hasn’t been done a whole lot in the James bind movies
The whole "brothers" thing is hilarious. It's as if they watched Austin Powers Goldmember and thought... LET'S DO THIS.
How is Austin powers tied to this ?
@@umairashraf5167 aren't Dr. Evil and Austin Powers brothers in that movie? It's related since Austin is a parody of James, and Dr. Evil is Blofeld
@@aarynminyard5325 I liked the idea
Yes I'm agree with you.
Still it’s great movie 4 half years later
I know why you don't like the Helicopter fight Calvin. There is no mention of a stainless steel delicatessen.
VictorWarmflash don’t kill me
Oh! You want to get off?
mr boooooooondd
Put me down!!
Can anyone explain what that meant. It's bugged me for years. Its the most random line from any film that's ever been made.
As much as I admire Lea Seydoux's performance, I honestly think Bond's relation with Camille in Quantum of Solace was more interesting and genuine than what we got in Spectre. And I didn't particularly enjoy Quantum on account of its horrid editing and generally boring characters.
RipleyVSXeno715 The thing that sucks the most about Quantum is the editing. After multiple viewings, you can finally figure out what's going on in each scene.
bond a clasy guy doesnt rape I mean bang a woman whos been already raped
Lea was garbage in this movie, Madeline is trash
@suny123boy1 I don't think it was her acting that was the problem. Her character was written all over the place that she couldn't portray Swan with any consistency. She is a good actress, but in a role that she can't give much in.
Quantum feels like a 2.5-3 hour movie edited down to an hour and a half.
I'd have made Blofeld an agent of Quantum who takes over the organization and re-brands it. I'd have also rewritten things to where Bond finds out from Mr. White that after the events of QOS, using the information Bond got out of Dominic Green, Quantum was largely dismantled by MI6. However Blofeld, along with Mr. White and the few surviving members of Quantum go off the grid and slowly rebuild the organization into Spectre in the 6 years in between QOS and this film. That would also play into the phrase "the dead are alive" at the beginning of the movie as well. This organization that was thought to be destroyed comes back to haunt the world as SPECTRE! The name would have made so much more sense as well.
I think I would have preferred your version much more!
I like the first act of this film so much because that story direction is the vibe that I get from it. But noooo...
Calvin - Bond Reviewer With a little more thought, the death symbolism/motif could have really worked. Spectre being the ghost of Quantum would have really tied it together. On a side note, I really like that Spectre's emblem is an Octopus since they look like and move similar to ghosts.
SolarDragon007 Fucking hell!!!! Now that I think about it. That would've made way more sense and would've been way better of a villain plot than what we got. Although where would Silva fit in in your version or would he even be included in your version at all?
irish91ify He'd be like Goldfinger in that he is unrelated, or they could have thrown in a line about how Spectre leaked the whereabouts of the data chip at the beginning of Skyfall. This would have been done as revenge against MI6 rather than against Bond specifically because I hate the adopted brothers thing.
I'm pretty sure Blofeld mentioning that he visited Madeleines house once was actually a reference to a similar scene that featured both of the actors in inglorious bastards
Ahhhh!! That never occurred to me but you're right... What a crap reference though. I loved Inglorious Basterds but, it's kind of a needless reference really.
....That was a completely different actress, so unlikely.
Jonathan Campbell watch the scene again, Lea Seydoux is merely an extra, but she is actually one of the sisters
Really? Wow- my mistake then 0_0
That's a bug not a feature, unfortunately, in this case.
It's pretty embarrassing when "Spectre" pretty much rips off the twist in "Goldmember" ;P
Goldenmemember?
The third Austin powers movie kelly.
I knew something was terribly wrong immediately when the movie opened with “the dead are alive”, it still baffles me that they thought it was a good idea
It's like a warning right off the bat isn't it? Just a signal of how pretentious the film is in places. Also ruined the gunbarrel opening into the film...
Could they not have just segued the gunbarrel into, I dunno, a sun? The sky? Any number of roughly circular white things you might see at a Day of the Dead parade?
obviously Star Wars didn't learn from it
This idea is 100x times funnier after seeing the new star wars
Isn't the point that is foreshadows Blofeld's return? Bond thinks he's long dead, but he's been behind everything all along.
The "Bond is Blofeld's brother" sub plot is kinda like Austin Powers is Dr. Evil's brother gag.
2013: EON Productions manages to finally secure the rights to Blofeld and SPECTRE from the estate of Kevin McClory after 42 years.
And that's why I have problems with 'Spectre'. Blofeld's inclusion is more because they could do it, rather than because they should have done it. I always felt Purvis & Wade wanted to use SPECTRE in 'Casino Royale' but couldn't because of the rights, so when they finally got the chance to use SPECTRE they wanted to make up for lost time, so did a ruddy big recon of the past films, as if they could alter the films that came before. Not to mention, using Blofeld also gave Broccoli & Wilson closure over the whole McClory debacle that their dad was forced to deal with for decades.
And why make Blofeld Bond's brother? Because probably the inane studio heads at Sony Productions thought it would be deep. I can see them, in their board rooms, saying something like: "Being a villain just for the sake of having a villain isn't good character development. If he truly is Bond's arch-nemesis like they say he is, there should be something more profound about Blofeld. Could they be long lost brothers? Yes, do that."
Ugh. The reason Blofeld is Bond's arch-nemesis, as opposed to any of the others, is because he has tenacity - and keeps coming back. He's the one guy Bond failed to kill. Not some cod personal-connection crap. The only villain before who had a personal-connection to Bond was Trevelyan in 'GoldenEye', and that worked because his grievance was with Britain, not with Bond himself. It wasn't a personal vendetta against Bond specifically. And that's why it worked, because it was the grand-scale master-plan that Bond villains are supposed to have. This "oh, daddy loved you more cuckoo" plan is just too weak. Look, I don't think emotional depth is a bad thing in Bond films - in fact, I think it can really richen a film's story if written well. That's why I like 'OHMSS' and 'Licence to Kill', because you see more of Bond as a person than just a conduit for action set pieces. But written poorly, it feels lazy. And that's what we have here. "Oh look at me, I'm being deep!" No you're not 'Spectre', no you are not.
Excellent post! Really great reading and I completely agree with you!
Calvin - Bond Reviewer Why thanks! I'm very glad you liked it! Blofeld is a character I find really interesting - his legacy as the only Bond villain to be the villain of multiple films; as the stereotypical Bond villain we see in pop culture (I mean, pretty much all parodies of Bond villains have a cat to stroke, or a rotating chair to spin, or a face we never see); and also the basis of the whole Broccoli/McClory feud - the one that got away, so to speak. And now, a 4th legacy: as the first Bond villain to survive the reboot. Hopefully also the last - as much as I love the classics like Goldfinger and Dr No, I also love innovation. If they retread all the old villains I might just march up to EON Productions and loudly shout "No!"
Anyway, I hope Bond 25 gives us a good spiral into insanity for Blofeld. It's an interesting character development that Fleming gave to us in 'You Only Live Twice', so, hopefully we'll get to see that. Purvis & Wade are Fleming geeks after all, so it's possible.
Also - did you know early drafts of 'Spectre' that were leaked online contained Irma Bunt? Might have been cool to see her rebooted too, but seeing how they treated Blofeld, maybe it's best she was cut.
Laying out the facts! 👍
@@themasher4821 What the hell are you on about?
@@themasher4821 No, I saw that, I was just confused as to why you brought up Greta Gerwig when she had absolutely nothing to do with Spectre, or any Bond film for that matter. So I’m not sure what the point you’re trying to make is.
I really hope the little mouse comes back for 25. James could try tracking it down across five continents to get the secret betamax tape of where the cheese is kept. On route Blofeld, now disguised as a cosplay cat, tells James (in an interesting and completely new twist) he's a relic of the past and its all done with computers these days or some such. No one mentions the cheese again once which is shame because most of us like a nice bit of cheddar. MI6 blows up. Where's my contract?
That would be fucking stupid
Spectre's shoddy screenplay doomed the film from the beginning. Bond going rogue, the entire character of C, and the nanoblood rubbish all never should have made it into the final script. The film derails after the Rome meeting and becomes an utter snoozefest by the third act. Blofeld should have been hyped as Blofeld all along without any of the Oberhauser rubbish. One of Spectre's biggest failures was Blofeld's character; ripping off Austin Powers in Goldmember was absolutely unforgivable.
Yep. The very worst thing in this mess is the Goldmember stuff. It's a big f*** U to the fans even if the rest of the film had been passable. Did Coppola & Mendes not know? Were they trying to be meta or something? It utterly wrecks the Craig era.
I’d rather watch FYEO, AVTAK, Octopussy, Goldfinger, FRWL, DAF, TND, TWINE, LALD, TMWTGG, or TLD. I’m not a big fan of Craig, Dalton, or Lazenby. I like Dalton and Craig in non-bond movies and tv shows. I just hate Lazenby. My personal favorite is Moore. I like campy bond compared to serious bond.
So Blofeld loves gold now?
AND BRITNEY SPEARS!
(God that film gave me good memories.
I would assume the C character was vital to the original script but by the time it was re-written and re-worked during filming the character was redundant. I would have dumped Monica Bellucci bit too. Nothing against her but given the film is slow and overlong her part really didn't need to be there.
They did it better in license to kill
It also didn't help that 2015 had other spy movies (Man From UNCLE, Kingsman and Mission Impossible Rogue Nation) that did what they were trying to do better than this film did.
Kingsman was 2014 FYI. Agree that it was great though, it's kind of a Brosnan movie done right.
Kingsman felt more like a proper Bond film than Spectre did.
@@rocketcon Austin Powers is more Bond than Specter
Mission Impossible Rogue Nation was the Bond movie Spectre should have been.
@@dereklewis4321 yeah and they did the brother thing first
"The dead are alive" sounds like a precursor to "The dead SPEAK" at the beginning of The Rise of Skywalker.
Both also have the problem of feeling like they’re fanfiction put up on the big screen.
Oh, yeah, Rise of Skywalker...that reminds me, that however bad Spectre, DAD and QoS are, there is still some rock bottom below.
@@johnweber4577 And both films bastardize the two big bads of their respective franchises (Blofeld and Palpatine) in equal measure.
@@johnweber4577
And not even good Fan Fiction at that!
@@Extra-dg7uv How was Palpatine basterdized? I didn't like Rise of Skywalker either, but Palpatine was undeniably still in-character.
Great review Calvin! Loved the bit where you were hanging up the posters as Blofeld, that had me laughing. You raised some valid points. I agree on the whole Bond and Blofeld stepbrothers relationship being dull. There's a lot I have drastically different opinions on though! But that keeps Bond fandom fun and diverse I like to think! Keep it up!
Sure! The Bond fanbase is like, the most auto-critical fanbase there is, wich is good! always down to earth
SURPRISED he and you did NOT pick up on the whole 3rd act of this mess - the whole taking place in Bonds head. Call yourselves fans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DutchBondFan cant wait for casino Royale on your channel !
I watched this again last night. I think that Bond's choice not to kill Blofeld on the bridge is supposed to be a pay off to a few lacklustre set-ups earlier on in the film. Also, the choice not to kill Blofeld is true to Bond's character as Fleming wrote it. By nature Bond hates killing in cold blood. I think this was mentioned in several places in the novels. It is also reiterated in TWINE where Bond has Renard on his knees and while he attaches the silencer to his gun he says, "I usually hate killing an unarmed man. Cold Blooded murder is a filthy business".
The set-ups for his decision were on the train with Madeline where she asks why a man chooses the life of a paid assassin, and continues to ask what Bond thinks would happen if he stopped "living in the shadows, hunting, being hunted, always looking behind you, always alone". He doesn't know the answer and feels he doesn't have a choice, but I feel we're meant to think that this question has made more of an impression on him than it comes across. She tells him he's wrong and that we always have a choice. Bond says he'll drink to that, then the fight with Hinx ensues, stopping us from paying any thought to what has just been said.
Perhaps this was supposed to be a profound moment in Bond's character arc, but it's so badly executed that it doesn't achieve what it was meant to. There is absolutely no sign whatsoever that Madeline's question or line of thought has had any kind of effect on Bond at all. A simple pause of deep thought from Bond to let us know that he is thinking about it would have helped this no end. Also, a shot of Bond looking at Madeline in deep thought would have told us that he was perhaps processing what she has said and developing feelings for her. If, during the fight with Hinx, madeline was knocked unconsious and actually needed Bond to perform CPR on her after Hinx was dispatched of, it would perhaps lend an emotional motive for Bond's and Swann's feeling toward one another to escalate as quickly as they do.
There is also the line from M, although Bond isn't present so wouldn't have heard it, where he says a licence to kill is also a licence not to kill. This line illustrates the attitude towards his licence to kill that Bond will have been trained to have. This is reminiscent of Oskar Schindler's line in 'Schindler's List', "Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't". It's noteworthy that Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler says this to Amon Goeth who is played by Ralph Fiennes.
The end of the film seems to be Bond resigning from MI6 and leaving for a life with Madeline. If this is the case, he wouldn't have wanted to start this new life with Madeline seeing him kill an unarmed man in cold blood. The problem is that the big picture is made of too many tiny, seemingly insignificant jigsaw pieces, that creating the jigsaw puzzle mentally from vague insignificant memories of poorly executed moments is arduous and not at all satisfying. This results in a film that appears to be a jumbled mess or silly ideas poorly executed, and thus an incompetent film.
My biggest problem is with the finale. there's no way a little .380 ppk can take down a helicopter past 50 yards. At that distance it couldn't even break glass let alone take down a helicopter. if only there was a high powered assault rifle that was hinted at in a Q scene.... oh wait.
Are you implying there was a set up in the movie that may have perhaps paid off at some point but gotten lost in the countless script revisions? ;)
Kaighen This film has one of the worst climaxes in the entire series. That shit with the heads of Vesper, Le Chiffre, etc. taped to the walls was the most childish thing ever.
Kaighen .32 not .380
Bond is a lot of things; The Man with No Name, he is not.
Fenrir TheDarkWolf - While in the books it is a .32 but in Skyfall when Q gives Bond a new PPK he says 9mm short which is .380.
Spectre felt like Craig's Bond was retiring, especially with that ending. I'm still surprised Craig came back for Bond 25.
Amazing what being offered a shit ton of $$$ will do in regards to wanting to slash your wrists. Artist credibility & integrity there Craig
Think he came back as he realised how bad this one was
@@davidbull7210 Spectre is a bad bond movie i will say that
With the amount they're paying him I don't blame him one bit for coming back
A ton of cash and Full creative control.
When Bond fought the 2 guys on the stairs in Casino Royale, he was battered bloodied and out of breath here he fights hinx who throws him around like he was nothing and he quickly has sex afterwards, you can see the realism has gone abit in the 4 films
He only battled one guy....the other died within seconds
@@youknowmyname9606 he still fought 2 guys????
"I came to your home once to see your father."
"Yes, I served you some of our milk and then you shot the people hiding under our floorboards!"
I feel like the movie would be better if they either had the villain be just oberhauser (my daddy loved you more than he loved me), or if they removed the family nonsense and made it just like a classic adventure with bond trying to prevent spectre's not-so-dastardly plan. Anyway, great review and nice to have you back :)
Very much agree! It's the fact they tried to shoehorn the Blofeld name in here that was my biggest issue. Guess they felt like they just had to use it since Eon got the rights back.
@@calvindyson I have a question. Let's assume they stick with the "Bond once lived in Oberhauser's house, so they were kinda-sorta brothers" plot point. But let's say they stick with one of the earlier drafts of the script, with C being Spectre's "Number One", and Oberhauser being more of an enforcer/field agent. Does that make it less stupid, more stupid, or fail to reduce the stupidity quotient?
Yeah, make the brother revelation just more head games by Blofeld.
@@calvindysonI would have rather they left Blofeld out of this I liked waltz’s performance of it but I think the writing effected it in poor taste.
It is hard to believe Mendes followed up Skyfall with this script which was hopeless to begin with. It kind of ruined Skyfall to know that Silva was working under Spectre. I prefer to delete that point in the timeline.
Waltz as a villain was wasted. Why would they send their henchman after Bond on the train if Blofeld wanted Bond at the complex?
And why is the bad guy's lair always so easy to destroy with a flick of a wrist? It seems there are always places for Bond to shoot to cause an explosion to destroy the whole place.
The ending with him taking down the helicopter was just lazy writing. It seemed silly Blofeld would wait for Bond to get out of the building. And why was Blofeld in London to begin with? His goons did not help protect the transfer of intelligence to MI5 or whatever. He was just there to toy with Bond who stole his father's affection?
I prefer to think that if Silva has any link to Spectre then its he was going undercover and got caught so thats the organisation that kidnapped and tortured him for months before he took the pill that didn’t kill him
it went from great to dull
Sky fall was a gay fest so screw ya little turd it’s past ya bed time sonny boy go ask your parents for allowance to see a film sweetie
Mendes was the director - not the writer. The shots, stage sets, camerawork and lighting in Spectre look beautiful. Mendes did his job.
It's the writers (and the producers asking the writers to rewrite the script numerous times) that resulted in this plot.
Yeah it blows my mind they went from Skyfall to this crap and then the alright no time to die movie.
Weird choices in this film. Despite her brief screen time ,the Monica Bellucci character was more interesting than Madeline Swann. Blofeld was no surprise and was actually just fine as Franz Oberhauser. It would have made more sense to have had Spectre be behind the death of Bond's parents in that unexplained climbing accident (perhaps Andrew Bond was a spy for MI6). Instead we got the "Brofeld" plot from Austin Powers: Goldmember. This review was very fair to the film, praising its strengths as well as pointing out its weak points. We only disagree on the Sam Smith theme. I'd rather get the brain drill than ever hear Smith's warbling again.
Indeed, Bellucci should have been given more to do. I’d have more bought Bond falling in love with her than Swann in this context. Thanks for the very kind comment! I’m happy it came across as fair despite me probably going on a bit of a rant towards the end 😅
You're right, I hated the development, I hated them being brothers, hated everything being wrapped up and connected. Hated Swan character. Loads of bad ideas in this film, if I was on the writing team I would be embarrassed, I REALLY hope the producers have learned their lesson for Bond 25.
They need to hire some new writers. The current team are clearly out of ideas.
Bond 25 will probably be even worse.
Swan being Mr White's daughter is completely pointless in the grand scheme of things, much like the brothers angle. Nothing against Léa Seydoux but a more charismatic actress might have made more of the characters [though she gets another shot in Bond 25]
Ironically, Jack Nicholson’s Joker murdering Batman’s parents is my least favorite aspect of the Burton Batman film. Same problem here with Spectre.
@@christophersuarez6490 Yeah, making the Joker the murderer of Bruce's parents reduces the Batman/Joker relationship to a simple revenge story. Really lame.
Terrific review, I agree 100 percent. In our Ultimate Bondcast on my channel (five of us ranked all 25 movies) this stinker landed at 20th place among our group average, and 23rd for me. Just gets worse every time I watch it!
I couldn't even get through the entire movie
I like how the title sequence didn't include Dominic Greene as if to imply, "Yeah let's just forget about Quantum of Solace. Greene wasn't memorable anyway."
He wasn’t memorable but his picture was shown at the end in the ruins of MI6.
@@Ludwig1970 no it wasnt
Who?
@@LexVanguard2004 Exacly. :D
I have better memory of the extra brooming the air than Greene himself.
This movie is SOOO dreadfully boring! Technically, it's a superb film; Masterfully shot by Hoyte van Hoytema, and directed well with some good acting. The action scenes are alright. The stand-out sequence being the train fight. I really hate how they reuse a lot of the music, which is really lazy, and I hate the 'twist' and how the films are tied up. It's just a really boring film.
I agree. It's the Thunderball of the Daniel Craig era.
I think the movie would have been better with a David Arnold Score and better editing. Everything is so slow in the action scenes, we don't need rapid fire editing but it's completely dull.
Great point. The directing was good, the acting was on point, it looks fantastic and some of the locations are gorgeous. But the movie had no soul. It was made to check the typical Bond movie boxes and to make a horribly lazy attempt at tying the other movies together. Nothing like Skyfall and Casino Royale, hell, even Quantum was at least TRYING to be different.
How do the writers think up all those villain names? Mister *_White_* , Mister *_Green_* ? Willard *_Whyte_* , no relation.....
And how could Bond walk away from Monica on the bed, then be seen in public with that fat ass and bleach blond mannequin Madelaine Swan? Then they bring her back with the wimpy brother Blofeld? The new 007 girl is a snotty bitch, this new movie will be a real box office bomb, I can smell it all the way to November, if people ever go to theaters again.
For me, it's good enough until the train fight ends. I'm still in the story up until this point. Then the rest of the movie is so shit it's almost beyond belief how lazy it becomes.
The worst thing about the Blofeld reveal is that everyone of a certain generation (or who's watched the old films) could see it coming from quite some distance, whereas the casual viewer only familiar with the newer films wouldn't really have cared. With regret, this is the point at which Spectre ceased to be about good v evil/espionage and became about the Bond films.
It's the same problem with Star Trek Into Darkness. The whole Khan reveal only works with people of a certain generation. I didn't see Wrath of Khan before so it went over my head. Those who saw Wrath of Khan were upset because how tacky the reveal was. It's like the cheapest form of nostalgia that harms the film you are watching by reminding you of a better film you could be watching.
With Bond's rather strange outburst at Blofeld showing off the tape, I always assumed that the original idea was to have the interrogation of Vesper Lynd be shown here instead of the Mr. White suicide tape: as you pointed out, we see Bond briefly pick and examine the tape at L' American before putting it down, so that later on, Blofeld would play this both to torment Bond and to show Madeline what happens to those that get close to Bond, hence why he says "This is important" in reference to what is otherwise something very unimportant. Perhaps it's just the poor writing of the film but it's an interesting idea. Great review, by the way.
I can only assume Eva Green said no to a cameo or some point pointed out she'd be obviously 9 years older and it wouldn't work. As you say, the change to Mr White was clumsy.
@@jamesatkinsonja I don't think the filmmakers would really care about the nine years thing because it would be glossed over by the important of the scene
On the contrary, I think Mr White's inclusion in the film was a good touch. They just shouldn't have made Lea Seydoux his daughter or Blofield Bond's brother. The unnecessary connections seemed forced
Been a Bond fan for decades but the Mission Impossible films got better as Bond films got worse to the point where both are getting boring but the stunts in the MI are still alot better than Bond films .
My take on the Q scene: Q is delivering the message his superiors told him to say, which is, we can monitor your vital signs and see if you are okay. Q then says it is a post-Mexico insurance policy, which I believe is Q going off-script and hinting that the real reason for the tracking is to keep tabs on where Bond is. (You can also see that one of the vital signs is alcohol level, implying that they are keeping track of Bonds drinking habits, suggesting they might think he is an alcoholic.) Q also says it was a direct order from M, which is his way of telling Bond that Q personally does not agree with this. When Bond says he completely understands, he is telling Q that he gets it is M wanting to spy on him and no hard feelings to Q.
[30:10] I think Bond's reaction is not just that Madeline will see her father shoot himself, but also she will see that Bond enabled it. Of course, it is still something of an over-reaction given that we know White was dying anyway. The only way it makes any sense is if Madeline had not seen her father for some time and did not know what condition he was in, not what his relationship with Bond was. It's probably another continuity error caused by either editing or script changes.
[31:40] You almost went full-gollum there. We hates this scene Baggins.
SPOT ON IMO
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. My favorite scene is when Bond interrogates the mouse at gunpoint.
why?
@@ZombyMammoth funny
@@ioankibble8866 I saw a similar scene in a John Wayne picture where he actually shoots the mouse. It's so much better.
That scene seems like a homage to Diamonds are Forever
Also it just me or did the big Brother surveillance story element be done better in winter soldier and rogue nation?
R.A.s Reviews In Winter Soldier Hydra was going to blow up a bunch of cities with the helicarriees. Spectre here is going to......I don't fucking know what.
SolarDragon007 yeah they're just being evil and ominous and have no other type of escalation. You don't feel the stakes. And you could argue "well it's a personal vendetta." Fine but why involve a whole organization? At least with Silva it was just him and his men so you could still feel it was personal.
R.A.s Reviews And why the FUCK does it have to be personal every time ?! Why can't we just have an interesting villain who has his own worldview and backstory?
SolarDragon007 I don't know man. I hate how in movies these days they're like "oh villains have to be related to the hero so you can really be invested in their conflict." Like I don't know if you watched Luke cage but they did something extremely similar to what they did in spectre. Where the issues stem from "daddy didn't love me." That type of conflict can work. It works fine in the Thor movies. Difference being that Thor still sees Loki as his brother regardless of all the terrible things he does. Like he's always trying to talk to Loki and appeal to the good side of him. Bond doesn't do that here. He just sees blofeld as another bad guy to fight.
At least Tony Todd in Luke Cage chewed the scenery. Waltz is just completely wasted here. Also, I think it would have been much more interesting if they'd gone the Telly Savalas route and made Blofeld a mirror image/phyiscal equal of Bond. We haven't really had a major villain that can give Craig's Bond a run for his money in a fight
Finally! Spectre is decent but feels kinda anticlimatic! 5/10
As much as I do like this film, I never really got why they had to hide the fact that Waltz was obviously Blofeld, even during the build-up to its release we had our suspicions but they kept denying it, practically *_lying_* to us. The jacket Waltz was wearing was a *_dead_* giveaway when I saw it in the trailer, anybody who is a die-hard Bond fan would recognize that jacket straightaway. The exact same thing happened with _Star Trek Into Darkness_ where we all suspected that Cumberbatch was playing Khan.
They probably wanted to keep the twist a twist.
I Was going to bring up the Khan thing , it’s so daft
The Trek movies at least take place in an alternate timeline. It's tenuous but it's there. It's there in Star Trek, I mean. There's no alternate Bond timeline, yet...
Mission impossible 5: Rogue Nation had almost the exact same plot, and was released in the same year.
And it was far, Far superior.
Mission impossible 6: Fallout is also just as good if not better even.
This? This is the lukewarm milk of spy thrillers
There would probably be no mission impossible if it wasn’t for James Bond
From the future to tell you Bond 25 was bad too and the next Mission Impossible was great by default.
I think the idea of making giving Bond and Blofeld a history is an interesting one that could really work... if executed properly...
I thought the film was okay but at times very dull. Also that ending...ugh. (Spoilers) For me, Blofeld should have got away.
Completely agree. They should have just had him make his getaway and have Bond showdown with Hinx or some other villain instead.
I object to the climax of this and QOS because of the way they turn Bond into a cookie-cutter hero who is suddenly above killing when he has the villain at his mercy.
We watch Bond movies because of the unique nature of who Bond is, an assassin with a license to kill in cold blood, it would be nice to see him use it once in a while because he hasn't really made use of it since the opening of Casino Royale.
Red Pill Intelligence Honestly, I bought it when Craig didn't kill the guy at the end of Quantum. But here, not really.
But that happens all the time. Maybe we’ll see him escape from prison in a future film?
G Kroll He was just trying to intimidate bond. But why so homophobic?
I've retitled the Daniel Craig movies:
"Casio Royale", "Quantum of Quality", "Pretentious Contrivance" (AKA, "Batman: Overrated"), "Sphinctre" and "This Whole Reboot Thing Was a Pointless Waste of Time"...
The only plausible way of fixing this is if they do what Marvel did with Iron Man 3. My idea is that at the start of Bond 25, Waltz is visited (either in prison or after he escapes) by someone, and it's revealed to the audience that the visitor is the real Blofeld, and Oberhauser stole his identity to take over Spectre to find Bond to get revenge. Then, we have the real Blofeld, who has no connection to Bond at all.
Good idea, but I suspect the next film will completely ignore the events of Spectre and be an entirely standalone adventure. Then the series will be rebooted again for Craig's successor.
@@rocketcon hah that aged badly
Or for Blofeld himself to admit he made up the step brothers story based on another person named Oberhauser that he had killed at some point in history.
In Connery third movie Goldfinger the Villain Goldfinger was not apart of Spectre so in Craig's 3rd film Skyfall the Villain in that movie Silva shouldn't have been apart of Spectre
I choose to negate that idea from the film in my mind. Silva DOES belong on his own, and I just put my brain into denial mode and say that Blofeld purposefully lied to Bond about it.
@@StarWarriorCentral I do the same thing.
I think Silva was working on his own and he just borrowed money from Spectre to fund his vendetta.
I simply refuse to believe Silva would work for any other person after being betrayed by his own MOTHER. why would he want to work with someone (let alone trust someone) after being thrown into a Chinese prison (and tortured) by the woman who raised him. I know I wouldn’t be able to and I highly doubt he would. Silva doesn’t need to work with anyone anyway because of how smart he was I just found it stupid trying to tie all the DC villains together
I liked it well enough when I saw it in cinema but I will gladly concede that everything surrounding Blofeld was incredibly underwhelming.
I mean, I too left the cinema having had a good time, it's just over time that all the flaws become more and more apparent and the cracks get bigger and bigger.
Anders Enggaard Same here. My precise sentiments.
Spectre might be the most meh movie I've ever seen which is especially disappointing because I absolutely adore Skyfall.
2:37 so this is what inspired the first words in Star War: The Rise Of Skywalker opening crawl. Those first words being “The Dead Speak!”
Bond parachuting out of the DB10 and then doing the trademark Bond thing of doing whatever to his suit and saying good evening was one of the best parts of the film
Absolutely love this review Calvin! I come back to it more than I do the movie! Your critique of Waltz's performance is spot on. The role calls for someone a little more campy and OTT, not Waltz's self-conscious understatement. Can't wait for your NTTD review!
Harry Flashman that’s quite a compliment! Thank you very much, Harry! I very much agree that more campy and OTT would have been better for the role. I see what Waltz was trying to do... but Bardem did such a great job with Silva he was up against stiff competition and he just didn’t succeed.
I personally think ‘The Dead Are Alive’ is the perfect opening statement. This film resurrects the memory and significance of Vesper, Le Chiffre, Greene and Silva, M and Franz Oberhauser, all dead and buried in Bond’s mind. It’s also a nice take on the famous Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico. I think it’s an outstanding beginning, and not at all pretentious. I do wish they hadn’t gone on to make the family link to Blofeld. But that’s a different story…
"The only thing that would have made that more perfect would be if the man was drinking and looked at the bottle and a double taking pigeon"😂
The “now we know what C stands for” should have just been left to our imagination, like as soon as you say that line we all think of what it could be and then when he says “careless” you’re just disappointed...
I almost wonder if they felt they had to say it so that the joke wouldn’t push the envelope too much
Late reply here. Like the previous reply, from DwRockett, I do wonder if the addition of 'careless' was a ratings thing. Perhaps even an implied 'c-word' would be enough to upset the censors and age rating panels. It's a pity because it ruins the joke a wee bit, but we all still know what he really means, so I think it still works.
Interestingly, in the French dub, they make C stand for Clown, which I thought was kinda funny and was surprised to not be in the original.
CALVIN BACK IN ACTION WITH ANOTHER JAMES BOND REVIEW THIS TIME WITH SPECTRE KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK CALVIN,COLTON
PLEASE DO NOT YELL
When they said they were brothers, I was thinking really?? You are going down the Austin Powers route?
I think the producers thought they'd get brilliant villains by hiring "Moriarty" and "The Jew Hunter". Of course, it turns out you need a brilliant script for a brilliant villain, not just the actor.
About 'secret villains', yes, but The World is Not Enough had a good twist villain... And although most people hate it, I LOVE Die Another Day and that also had a twist villain... Just the same as the movie before it in fact...
Damn.
And The Living Daylights and Goldeneye are my favourite two movies in the series and they have twist villains as well...
You know what? No, I love all the movies with twist villains it seems. -_-
Trevelyan is such a villain and he's a contender for the best Bond villain ever. Certainly the best Brosnan baddie, surely?
My only comment on the review would be the ending. My interpretation of Bond NOT killing Blofeld was M's comment to C. That the importance of a 00 agent was to know when and when not to pull the trigger. And in this instance bond found more value in not pulling the trigger.
I like to think that actually, yes, Madeleine *would* have been less into Bond if he'd just shot Blofeld there. The whole reason she wanted to walk away in the final sequence was because she didn't want to be with someone who resembled her father. So Bond choosing not to kill Blofeld and walk away from the spy world makes sense.
Good to see you back Calvin. I 100% agree with your review it was very meh in my opinion! What we need is an action/chase scene with John Barry's 007 theme in the scene similar to Moonraker or From Russia with Love. I did not receive it very well if I am honest but who knows may get better if I view it again.
i hope somewhere in the near future they bring back Martin Campbell to direct
Punished Shia oh man me too. I'm surprised he hasn't been asked back (at least not to my knowledge)
The problem isn't in the directing.
Sam Mendes and Martin Campbell directed very well but which always falls is the writing.
In Casino Royale, the last 20 minutes was a letdown but didn't damage significantly the movie. For me, it was a good movie.
Skyfall, well directed but the writing falls a bit. I mean these movies will always have "cliches" and it's not a big problem... The problem is the overuse of the clinches and convenience moments. Not good as Casino Royale but good.
Quantum, bad directing, weak plot. It's watchable and a bit entertaining but the movie falls and will not be remembered.
Spectre, was well shot but weak plot again.
If you give good material to Sam Mendes and Martin Campbell they will probably make good movies.
@@JoseMoreira-xm6qn Bring back Paul Haggis.
OK, last comment from me. I've literally just watched it again.....probably for the last time. First thing....Calvin dear, your reviews are excellent. You must hear this all the time - but can't you do more movie reviews? They don't need to be connected to Bond or any of the actors, just any movie that takes your (our!) fancy. You are so good at it.....
So I pretty much agree with everything said here. The brother story arc is indeed "beyond stupid"... it really is. All that talent, and at no point did someone say what a bad idea it is. I will say one thing..... the first scene in Mexico is ironically one of the best Bond intros ever. Craig is super cool, and the one-shot effect works so well. The helicopter scene is a bit daft though....
Anyway, I could bang on, but it's all been said, so I won't!
Right.... No Time To Die (again) next! Take care all....👍🙂❤
I definitely don't always agree with your analysis, but you were exactly spot-on with this one. I happen to really like the opening helicopter fight, and I'm a bit surprised you seemed happy with Blofeld's desert crater "Lair" which to me looked like a generic suburban Business park, only more boring (Christ, if there was ever an appropriate moment for the series to get ambitious and at least try to pay tribute to Ken Adam with a set...) but other than those two minor quibbles you perfectly covered every beat of where Spectre goes wrong.
Thing is, even aside from the massive misstep of making Blofeld Bond's jealous kid brother (God, did no one in the production ever describe the "big reveal" that way, listen to what they just said, and realize they were making a huge mistake?), much of the movie on a scene-by-scene level just doesn't click. No big dramatic reason like a double-taking pigeon or Sega Genesis-level CGI kitesurfing sequence to roll our eyes at, just scene after scene that is trying to be exciting or dramatic and just not pulling it off.
Thanks, Brian! Great post. Especially agree with the last bit. It's funny how there's not exactly one heinous moment to pin the blame on like the kitesurfing or pigeon so the whole thing just comes across poorly.
Nice! 45 minutes of Calvin Bond goodness! This must have been a lot of work! Great work mate! Admire your dedication and keep up the great content!
Thanks, buddy!
Yep. Thank you, this review summed up everything I felt about it as well. Sadly, when I heard the announcement that Spectre was the next Bond film, I got shivers. "Yes!" I thought. "They're going back to Blofled! Finally, they're going back to Spectre! This will be the second Bond reboot!" But this film was about as appetising as toad-brulée. It was a combination of unique and bamboozling blunders which actually ruined Bond and left an awful aftertaste.
Spectre's true intrigue was that they were always there in the shadows, pulling strings, making calculated moves and never allowing Bond to get too close (at least that's how they should have been). They were elusive, and threatening. They were Spectre... When I saw this movie, I was laughing through most of it. The clinical and mysogenistic utility of Monica Bellucci, the Austin Powers Villain Summit, the dust-flavoured 'love interest', the unnecessary 'brother' link, and all the stupid, transparent tie-ins so clearly meant to make us go: "Oooh, aahhh, such planning! Such overarching vision! NOW it all makes sense!". It was just...a monumental waste of a cool idea. Cool review, though. Thank you!
This film had too many rewrites since the court gave up the name Spectre and the character Blofeld that they added both in the plot ( Kevin Mc Clory finally gave the rights of both Spectre and Blofeld during the making of this film and clumsy wrote both in the story . ) This brother theme was ridiculous with Bond and Blofeld as brothers made me think of Luke and his Father Dath though in Star Wars it worked , this film it didn't .
I don’t think making Bond and Blofeld brothers was the worst part, it’s the fact that they made Blofeld “the author of James’ pain” because of his dad teaching James how to ski. If their relation was just a coincidence, fine, but the fact that they made Blofeld some petty lost brother made it so stupid and cheesy.
I don't think either of these things was the worst part. This entire "reboot" thing was a completely pointless farce that became such a boring, pretentious and amateurly-written mess that even they had to kill Bond in the end just to get rid of the lame cringepile they bodged together. They tried to make every Craig movie an episode like a tv series yet didn't even bother planning it out. They just threw any old fanboy ideas into a blender and cobbled stories together that in fact make zero sense as a sequential story when you actually go back and try to fit all those supposedly linked stories and characters and events together. Just one initial example, James Bond going after Le Chiffre clearly has nothing whatsoever to do with Blofeld...yet supposedly Blofeld orchestrated the entire thing, eugh, whatever, just amateur fanboy writing. And is Quantum supposed to be SPECTRE btw? What was the point of "Quantum"? Just to have something to make the title more relevant for one movie? 🙄
Making everyone related to each other and everything part of one big plot (even though they actually didn't and none of it makes any sense) is the cheapest form of writing trick to try and force some sort of relationship and emotional depth and intrigue to stories. Then to make it all worse, they totally shoehorned in an apparently profound romantic love for Bond with some wooden character that does absolutely nothing whatsoever to warrant becoming the deep love of Bond's life. Essays can be written on how bad most of Craig's tenure has been post-Casino Royale. They didn't even use this whole reboot circus to even do anything new with the character, all they ended up doing was trying to go back to a retro-60s style! What was the point of any of it??
@@AD-kv9kj And the fact that killing Bond was Craig’s idea shows he’s got a big ego
15:20
I'd like to think Ray Quinn got a phone call saying "your cover of New York, New York is going to be featured in the new Bond movie" only to watch the movie and realise they play two seconds of it lmao
And didn't include it for his vocal!
I've read Hinx is gonna be back in the next Bond movie and that Bond and Madeleine are gonna be married at the start of it (*cough* OHMSS remake *cough*) also, I think Bond didn't want Madeleine to see the surveillance video because Bond basically gave White the gun and I thought Bond would think that Madeleine would think Bond's plan was to have White shoot himself... also also, I couldn't help but think of Austin Powers when I heard Bond and Blofeld are brothers
Alex McFly at least in Austin powers, it was both touching and funny
they were married no hinx
I have lots of thoughts on how Spectre could have been done better, but chief amongst them is how I feel like the brothers thing would have actually worked:
Make the "brothers" thing metaphorical, and have Oberhauser (or indeed Blofeld, if you REALLY want to go that route or wanted to slam a studio mandate on me) be the one trying to initiate this relationship. Have him try to drive Bond to SPECTRE by severing his other connections after Quantum got stuffed. When Bond of course refuses to reciprocate, he makes an enemy for life of the man that never took no for an answer, always got what he wanted, until Bond indirectly ruins his life by being the one asset he doesn't control.
If I was king for a day, this is what ruins Oberhauser and gets him killed, and sets up Blofeld to pick up where he left off, with his establishment as Bond's nemesis coming off the idea of being the one man to directly draw blood on SPECTRE, but either way, there you'd have it.
I'm a little late to the party, but your content is really great. I thoroughly enjoyed this video! Thank you for creating and posting it.
Thank you so much for watching and for leaving such a positive and kind comment! Appreciate it :)
@@calvindyson where is your skyfall content??
Dang, I remember that Blofeld was a son of Pole and greek lady, born in Gdynia in 1908 (as stated in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" novel).
The old photo of Blofeld is in reality a picture of a 23 year old Christopher Waltz
Has anyone else noticed that the impact mark in the bullet proof glass near the end of the movie is the spectre emblem?
I did. And I found it pretty ridiculous.
In a world where Spectre exists, I cannot see how people can be so hard on QoS. QoS starts off with such a great sequence and it has some great moments. It has flaws, I’ll give you that, but I can watch it- I feel obligated to watch it anytime I watch Casino Royale because of how QoS continues the end sequence.
The only good things in Spectre are Ralph Fiennes and Dave Bautista.
My favorite part of the movie is when Bond interrogates the mouse at gunpoint.
Don’t think I click on something so fast
Hope it doesn't make you too angry... Controversial opinions lie within!
Wait til the final one comes out. I am ready to click now.
Your review is spot on. I never got the praise the film got when released and only manged to watch the film once since. Spectre is ultimately.........boring.
Here's the thing. It's fair to say that there are valid reasons to criticize Spectre. I agree with most of the things Calvin pointed out, however, I think time will look back a lot more kindly on this film than people are willing to admit right now. I could imagine a hypothetical person walking out of the cinema circa 1983 and saying that Octopussy was the worst Bond film they've ever seen and that seeing Bond in the clown makeup and costume for the climax was a tremendously unforgivable sin vowing to never see another Bond film again. Today in 2017, Octopussy might be that hypothetical person's favorite Roger Bond film. Maybe they still don't like the clown bit, but over time they've learned to appreciate the parts of the film that they really like and not focus so much on the bit they don't like. I would argue that perhaps 20-30 years from now when many of us decide to look back on the Craig era, we will see Spectre as Daniel Craig's Octopussy. It's not a perfect film by any means, but there's enough to enjoy about it to look past the flaws. I could see Spectre becoming that "go to" Craig Bond film even if it's not necessarily the "best" of Craig's tenure which most of us agree will likely remain Casino Royale unless Bond 25 performs a miracle. In a previous video Calvin talked about how Octopussy is his "go to" Bond film. It happens to be my "go to" Roger film as well. I acknowledge that The Spy Who Loved Me is likely Roger's best but if I'm in the mood for a Roger film, I'm more likely to reach for Octopussy than Spy. I think 20-30 years from now, Spectre will be the film I'll probably put on if I'm in the mood for a Daniel Craig Bond film even though Casino Royale is far superior. "Well, it's all a matter of perspective," Bond says to Blofeld when asked why he decided to come there. When it comes to Bond movies, time and perspective are everything.
Well said. I'm incredibly harsh on Spectre but then start to think of how the plots are in the earlier Bond films. They're not often that great.
No matter how much time passes Spectre will always be quite dull and that plot twist with step brother Blofeld will always be ridiculous. Just like Bond in clown makeup will always be silly. Only difference is Octopussy was a fun, exciting Bond adventure
I agree with this. I have enjoyed every Craig movie. Spectre, for me, was excellent for its first 80%. Then it just goes off the rails in absurdity with the brothers plotline and the fixed net for James and Madelaine to land on from the tower as if Blofeld had set them up with an intentional gameshow's escape route. But its a fun "going off the rails". Still fun. Blofeld is utterly ridiculous in this movie. Madelaine saying "I love you" to James after knowing each other for approximately 3 days (maybe) is hilarious. Let's be honest... multiple James Bond movies and moments are just as ridiculous and we still love them. Roger Moore walking across the alligator backs? Connery's car on two wheels changing sides in Diamonds Are Forever? Brosnan's motorcycle dive to enter the airplane in Goldeneye in what must've been a five mile high cliff? Come on. Just have fun. Spectre is probably an average Bond movie.
I actually adore the first act of this film to the degree I forget the second and third acts are kind of crap.
SIngli6 The first act is actually pretty good. Once they go to that hotel, then the film starts to get boring.
Terrible ending, the whole script of the film with the - Bond and Blofeld have grown up together - twist is just mad, absolutely mad. When I saw this the first time I was almost hoping as the DB5 gear lever is shown Bond would press the ejector seat button and Miss Swan would fly off the car. In my mind there's zero chemistry between them though we are supposed to believe they are now lovers like Bond and Vesper were. This is just a horrible movie.
With the MI6 regulars helping out Bond in the finale, I think a better comparison is Mission Impossible. Just swap out Bond for Hunt, M for Luthur, Q for Benji, Tanner for Brandt and Moneypenny for Ilsa.
Largo is gonna be Bond's cousin in the next movie
I can tell you the EXACT MOMENT Spectre went off the rails for me while watching it in the theater. It had great cinematography, fun moments, good storytelling and pacing - I was INTO it and enjoying the ride, including the fight on the train with the henchman and Bond and Ms. Swan being escorted to Blofeld's lair in the desert... and then they walked into that damn dark room with the meteorite and it's like the whole movie just died from there on out. Them as brothers? Please! Christof Waltz won TWO Oscars for playing villains entertainingly well, you can see why they considered him, but he was soooooooo boring... and then you've got this little guy in loafers and a Neru jacket standing there, no threat at all, no danger.
(I also look forward to successfully flying a helicopter after having my head drilled into twice, but I digress). They escape, go back to London, ONLY to have Madeline be kidnapped AGAIN so Bond can have this final meet-up in the shell of MI6? (And I'm so glad Blofeld had the TIME to collect the headshots of M, Vesper, Mr. Green, Silva, etc., to hang them). Ugh. Yes, I loved the boat chasing the helicopter down the Thames, but that's it. The movie was clipping along fine and then fell apart. One of the things I LOVED about Skyfall was it was a stand-alone adventure with NO sequel feel, NO ties to Vesper or Quantum or anything... and it SHINED! and then with Spectre they tried to make us think Silva was mixed up in this whole arc too. Thanks for letting me rant - I just loved the whole feel of the movie until literally the second they walked in to meet Blofeld and then all the energy fell out fo the movie.
This. I can buy Greene and *maybe* Le Chiffre being involved with Spectre, but SILVA? Hell no.
@@jaycie586 👍👍
The 2 biggest problems with this film: Craig and Mendes. Neither should have ever been brought into the franchise. Mendes isn't an action director and no matter how pretentious the Craig films have been they're still supposed to be escapist actioners. Craig is just awful in the role. No emoting, no charisma (the whole Aston chase is one of many examples) - just all wrong in every way.
The way he slid onto the couch is the same way Connery did in you only live twice.
11:28 I think the point of this exchange (and the one with M) is that Bond is being uncharacteristically compliant because, as we find out, he’s keeping his motivations vague because of the message from Dench’s M.
With Silva’s involvement with Spectre, I think that they helped him finance and equip the technology he had in Skyfall
This movie should've been amazing, the cast is amazing, it's finally bringing the classic Bond villain back, it has most of the team that made one of the all time bests in Skyfall....
But it just. falls. apart. so quickly.
And then bursts into flames.
And then crumbles to dust.
And then the dust bursts into flames.
Easily the worst movie of 2015, a good contender for worst Bond movie ever.
Your not wrong. the white tuxedo is amazingly spectacular.
2015 was the YEAR OF SPIES-Spy, Kingsman:Secret Service,Mission Impossible:Rogue Nation, Spectre
Spectre turned out to be the weakest of them all
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was also 2015. Very underrated !!
the final 25 minutes are a dream. They have to be! Bond gets that drill in his head and passes out. He dreams about a quick and easy escape and getting back to London to finish the job. It has to be! Please! Otherwise that last 25 minutes is a complete failure. There were more exciting episodes of the Professionals in 1978.
It would make sense actually if they did it. They could. And I would like it.
I always assumed the “been to your house when you were a little girl” was a nod reference to inglorious bastads
Spectre was such a massive letdown in so many ways. It managed to squander a potentially amazing & iconic villain re-introduction, & completely screwed up the overarching Daniel Craig Bond story.
I did actually enjoy Spectre and I didn't mind the whole Blofeld is Bond's brother subplot as much the first time I watched it. But as I watched it again and again, I realized it is pretty stupid. It reminds me of in Austin Powers Goldmember, where Michael Caine reveals that Austin is Dr. Evil's brother. The reason why I believe that subplot worked in that movie is because Austin Powers is a parody of the James Bond series and its supposed to be silly, whereas in Spectre its supposed to be taken seriously, even though its still stupid.
Great review, well worth the wait. Yeah, the final showdown definitely should have taken place at the crater and not back in London. Have you seen the "Every Bond Movie in 3 minutes" video? If you haven't you should, it proves just how nonsensical the whole Blofeld as Bond's brother plays out over the course of Bond's history.
Just one question, surely the "dead are alive" title card was more of a reference to the Day of the Dead celebrations in the scene that follows rather than to the references to Vesper & co? Otherwise, great work!
"surely the "dead are alive" title card was more of a reference to the Day of the Dead celebrations in the scene that follows rather than to the references to Vesper & co?"
It's both
I think it was a 4th wall break. Lea Sedoux played one of the farmer's daughters in Inglourious Basterds. Hence the line from Oberhauser about visiting her father.
So that is a technical spinoff of bond🤔
GronkMusic
That’s quite good actually.
Spectre gets worse every time I watch it. Craig is solid, and I love the locations and clothes. But the screenplay is so half baked yet over-ambitious the third act just wretches. Even at that it’s still superior to QoS. On every level. And that’s the very definition of damning with faint praise. It’s at this point I realize I’m in love with an IP that is badly mismanaged.
movie just isn't good enough and it could have been
The X-Factor "New York, New York" was probably much cheaper to license than Sinatra's
The villain plans in all Craig’s Bond movies have all been a lot less than “world domination/destruction” of the old Bond films.
I mean - “Bolivian water rights”?
That’s why I’ve always been kind of underwhelmed with this series.
The Moore films got way over-the-top, but this was too extreme of a downsizing.
Craig's Bond movies were always about things becoming personal
I suppose so - the plots in Craig’s Bond movies were closer to the Bourne stories, et al than the Bond movies I grew up with.
I understand why many people like them but I guess I liked the world threatening villains and their grandiose plots better.
Oh, well - it’s why Baskin Robbins has 31 flavors.
Honestly when I first saw this movie, I felt really confused the entire time. I thought that maybe the movie just needed another viewing and I would understand a lot of the real weirdness I felt in the plot. But nope--every time I see it those questions are still there. And these aren't the type of plotholes discovered by fans after overanalyzing the movie to a ridiculous extent--this is just basic storytelling logic that just gets thrown out the window time and time again in here. The needle during the torture scene is the perfect example. Blofeld sets up what the needle is for and what he's going to do with it, does exactly what he said he would do, and inexplicably it just doesn't do what he said it would. It's just like really bad storytelling. The revelation that Blofeld was behind everything from the previous movies is just flat out ridiculous. You can't just do this type of thing as an afterthought. There wasn't a single thread in any of those other movies that set this up--you can't just suddenly have a payoff of something you never set up even a little bit.
And that ending....what the hell? I genuinely thought that this was an indication that the Craig era was over and the next one would start again in a completely different continuity with a new lead actor. I was extremely surprised to find out that the producers basically waited for Craig to say "yes" before making the upcoming one. At this point, literally the only story you can tell is Madeline getting killed and Bond on a revenge mission. Unless Bond 25 is going to be about domesticated Bond getting mad because his copy of The Guardian isn't delivered on time in the morning.
The whole film just felt rushed, and I can't shake that sense every time I watch it. It's weird how Craig seems to be alternating between some of the best Bond films ever and some truly rushed and thrown together sequels. I have a feeling that a lot of this has to do with all the legal and financial issues that have definitely affected the production of these throughout the Craig era.
Among a myriad of other (perhaps more consequential) issues I have with the film, I cannot BELIEVE that they set up Blofeld torturing Bond by messing with his balance and perception, and then didn't follow through by having Bond's aim and ability be all over the place in the escape from the crater lair. It would've been great to see an extended sequence of Bond struggling to get past all the guards in the base because he can't shoot them and struggles in hand-to-hand combat. My only guess is that they didn't want people to think they were just rehashing the Skyfall moments, but boy, what a missed opportunity. Maybe Madeline could save Bond from the crater lair. That would help me believe their chemistry and relationship more.
"The dead are alive" just refrence "Dia del muerto" that are in the opening the movie.
A great review of Spectre Calvin !
I totally agree with EVERY point you make as regards this TERRIBLE Bond Movie ! ( imho) .
Nothing much makes sense ,
and the family link between Blofeld and Bond is so cringeworthy and devoid of ANY reason !
The climax is weak , .
But i had a belly laugh when you pointed out as regards why Blofeld would stick pictures of previous characters on the walls ..
And Greenes picture being left out ..
So funny 😅.
The music was poor ..i totally agree .
NTTD was poor too !
I miss the old movies from the 70s imo .
TSWLM and FYEO being my faves .
Keep up the great work Calvin !
wait ..... isn't this the plot to Goldmember?
When Blofeld said "I came to your home once to see your father", I was thinking yes he did, and it is on film.
Back then Blofeld was known as SS Colonel Hans Landa.
“And with Bond 25 _slowly_ getting into gear…” could not have been more accidentally prophetic 😂