007 Journals: Spectre

Well here it is. For years we've seen James Bond tangle with the sinister organization known as Spectre, but now we see it retold in the new rebooted Daniel Craig Bond universe. And that's exactly what this is, a connected universe. I alluded to it in my Skyfall review but Marvel has become so successful with it's cinematic universe that now every franchise has to do the same thing. Quantum of Solace was the first time we ever saw a direct sequel to a James Bond film and since Casino Royale was a reboot we've managed to see Daniel Craig take us through Bond's entire career up until this point. Now for years the Spectre rights were held up in a lawsuit that was finally settled so we never saw Daniel Craig battle the famed secret organization from the books but instead got a stand in with Quantum. Now that the rights are free it's all come full circle and finally it's time to introduce Bond to his greatest 

rival of all time for the first time in the modern era. Now for the whole year before Spectre released I went back and watch and reviewed all of the Bond movies in a row so this was the first time that I was following the hype for the new movie and having only recently taken in all of Bond lore in one huge chunk, this movie had a lot to live up to in my eyes. What was delivered was an enjoyable Bond that was missing only a few elements to make it amazing.

So the first three Craig films an all be lumped together as one big origin for Bond. It took three films to get the character to a place that he needed to be, and introduce his team players. In a way it was the perfect way to approach the franchise, with a fresh perspective, and bring us to the point that Bond fans had been waiting for. But not quite. This is the first time a Craig film has followed the more traditional Bond formula but it's not quite going off the exact blueprint of the old films. The old formula was simple, a cold open, leading to Bond getting a mission and dossier, Bond then gets his gadgets from Q, leading to Bond on his mission where he beds women and takes down a super villain. Well we get all of this for the most part with some twists. We get our action packed cold open but right away Bond is taken off of active duty by M. This naturally leads Bond to going rogue (again) meaning that in every Daniel Craig Bond film he has gone solo to some degree. However with this one it's not as dramatic as the past. So what I was looking for out of this plot was some great secret organization action and there is a good amount of that. The highlight being the secret meeting room that Bond sneaks into. I love the table with everyone watching and Waltz being draped in shadow. There's actually a lot of people being obscured by shadow in this movie and it totally works for me because that's what I expect from something like Spectre.

The only other thing I expect from a secret organization is a lot of string pulling and there's a little bit of that but mostly it's just hinted at. We are told that the villains from the three previous Bond films (Le Chiffre, Greene, and Silva) were all arranged by Waltz's character which is all well and good. It honestly helped make him seem like he carries some power and really is kind of spooky, but there's little of that kind of action actually happening in this movie and that's really my biggest problem with it. We finally get the big baddie in Spectre and they don't do a whole lot with it which is mind blowing considering this is the longest Bond film so where does that run time go? Quantum of Solace (which in this film we learn Quantum is a subdivision of Spectre) actually does a better job of making a secret organization feel like they are everywhere controlling everything. While the Spectre stuff they have in this movie is good, I just wanted more. There's also this side plot with Mi6 and Mi5 being merged with a new security force called the Nine Eyes which is obvious from the beginning that it will be a Spectre scheme and really they don't do anything with this side plot. It's amazing how long the movie is and how little the story gets fleshed out. It really just feels like all Bond all the time and the B story is there for necessity of run time. 

I've heard some people complain about the action in this film being kind of mediocre but I have to disagree. For one there was more action than I thought there would be. The cold open for instance has some great stunts and whether it was done on green screen or they really had people hanging off of the helicopter and looked great and was a fun action set piece. I even really enjoyed the chase in the snow with the twist being Bond was in a plane chasing some trucks. It was a fun scene and pretty creative. I think the one action scene that will stand in people's minds though is the giant explosion at the end which set a Guinness World Record. A second time for a Daniel Craig Bond movie. While that's all great I have to point out the fight on the train as being my favorite action moment. For one Mr. Hinx is a pretty good henchmen. Dave Bautista plays a silent but imposing henchman that gives Bond a hell of a fight and it feels like a call back to the great train fight in From Russia With Love. However the same characters have  a car chase that is fine but feels a little lacking. There's just some fast driving and no real stunts to the scene. Entertaining but bland. The best part about the chase is how he calls Moneypenny and we get the casual phone call talk while he's having a high speed chase. Her checking the fridge is a funny moment.

One thing Skyfall did was set up Bond's supporting players and they all return here and they are all still great in their roles. Ben Whishaw had a great debut as Q in Skyfall but I feel like he is even better this time around. Moneypenny is left with less to do but Naomi Harris still fills the role splendidly. All of the cast is really at the top of their game but I have to say this about Craig. Before the movie was coming out he was very vocal about wanting to be done with Bond and there is definitely some fatigue in his performance but he still puts in a better job than most. I wouldn't see he was at Connery levels of bland but you could sense that he was ready to move on and I know he was originally contracted for one more film but honestly I could see this being his last film and if they decide to just have the four Craig films as one arc Spectre has a fitting ending, even if it's not 100% satisfying. The one actor that gets the short end of the stick is Christoph Waltz. He puts in an amazing performance but he has less screen time than Javier Bardem did as Silva. Monica Bellucci is another big name actress they bring in for what seems like less than five minutes of screen time. The new Bond girl played by Lea Seydoux is a pretty good character but we don't get a lot of time with her which just seems to be the theme of this movie. No wonder Craig was fatigued, he's on screen like 99% of the time. I like the character of Madeleine Swann and they certainly do the best they can with trying to make us see how she and Bond could fall in love but I feel like the romance is just rushed. After Vesper Lynd it's hard to imagine Bond falling for a girl that way again in such a short time. I think it's believable enough that it doesn't seem completely unreal but I was left just wishing to see more of them together. 

So I need to get something out of the way. While Christoph Waltz is billed as Franz Oberhauser it's very obvious that he's Blofeld. You can't have a movie called Spectre and not expect everyone to know immediately that the villain is Blofeld. Star Trek Into Darkness tried to pull the same trick with Kahn but I feel like Bond suffered for it less. Even though I had that gut feeling he was Blofeld I still hoped he wouldn't be but I have to say I did like the reveal when the cat jumps on Bond's lap. It was played serious enough that it was still an "oh shit" moment because it does come out of nowhere and ends up being a very satisfying reveal. Especially since it comes during an intense torture scene and I wasn't expecting it at that moment. And since I'm here I might as well talk about the torture scene. A lot of people seem to be down on it but I liked it. It was creative and ridiculous the way you expect a James Bond torture scene to be and it actually made me cringe. To me that was an effective scene but I can see where people would have problems with it.

Sam Mendez has said that Spectre would be his last Bond film and I do think it's time to move on. Skyfall and Spectre are both spectacularly directed but I can't imagine what Mendez would do with three in a row. While the single camera tracking shot may be something that's getting outplayed I have to say that I immediately fell in love with the first five minutes of this film. Everything about the opening scene of the film is just masterfully cut together. Everything from the long camera pan through the crowd up to the rooftops, down to the music, all the way to the Day of the Dead costumes and festival it was all just magically executed. While Skyfall was a beautiful looking film, Spectre may give it a run for it's money. There's a lot of great camera work and production design, not to mention some beautiful locations, that Spectre is just as much a feast for the eyes as Skyfall was. One thing to note is the return of the Bond humor. There are multiple scenes where with some pretty straight up obvious jokes where in the previous Bond films there were only the driest hints at humor. The score however, while I feel is good and has some great moments, is slightly less memorable than the previous films. While I can listen to the score for Casino Royale and Skyfall I would find myself only hitting certain tracks on the Spectre soundtrack. One of them would probably not be the Sam Smith song, The Writings on the Wall. Now I think Sam Smith is an incredible singer and the song isn't terrible it just doesn't do much for me. I didn't like it until about four listens and I doubt I will ever love it. It just falls somewhere in the middle for me. The opening title sequence wasn't one of the best either but there was a lot of great and creepy octopus motifs. 

So where does Spectre fall in my ranking? Honestly I think it's really good and only slightly disappointing. A top ten Bond film for sure. Now the thing about the movie having the longest run time doesn't bother me because the movie is paced pretty well and never felt long. What bugs me is that they don't utilize the run time. I feel like Spectre needed to be two movies just to fit everything in. Waltz needed more to do and we needed more interaction between Bond and Swann to make the love story more believable. Now the film ends a little open ended, Bond is leaving with Swann, Blofeld is left alive and arrested (maybe the first Bond villain to survive?) so he could come back. I just hope Craig comes back for his last film and we get another run in with Blofeld before he wraps up his tenure as Bond. I just feel like the way the ending kind of drags out that they may have wanted to have a cliffhanger ending and drag out the plot in a second movie (which for me would have been great) but I feel Craig possibly not returning could have been a worry. You also have to wonder if modern movie goers would have had the patience for a two movie plot. While Spectre is great it's just not amazing but I feel is worth a four out of five.

007 Journals: Diamonds Are Forever

Oh Sean Connery, I really took you for granted. I admit I was getting pretty tired of Sean Connery, who was caring less and less, as Bond but after suffering through Lazenby I was happy to be back to someone more suited for the role. Honestly he felt more into it this time around too but maybe that was because it was one film and Connery receive a record making (for the time) 1.2 million dollar salary. That's 6 billion dollars today because that's how inflation works right? Well coming off of On Her Majesty's Secret Service Bond was in a dark place. He had a grueling battle with his arch nemesis only to have him return and kill his wife on their wedding day, only for the film to abruptly end before we see Bond getting any revenge. A dark (kinda awesome) and odd ending for a major film. I can't imagine how audiences at the time reacted to it and I assume it didn't help the reviews any because at least for us we have hindsight and know there's a next film. Back then they had to wait and see what happened. Now we enter Diamonds Are Forever.

I've heard a lot of mixed feelings on this film, either a love it or hate it relationship mostly, and I can say from the beginning I was skeptical. This movie has one of the strangest openings I've ever seen and comes off almost like a cartoon. We open with Bond on a revenge spree trying to track down Blofeld. I love that they didn't mess around and went right into Bond wants revenge, even though we get no mention of his dead wife or anything like that. For all we know Bond wants to kill Blofeld because he ruined his coffee maker. Good thing we saw the last film. The director decides to not show us Bond's face until he's well into his fist punching for information so we get a lot of awkward scenes of bad looking punches and reactions. Maybe this was to offset the idea that it wasn't Lazenby anymore so there may be some disconnect. This all leads to just one ridiculous moment. We now have another new looking Blofeld due to some extensive plastic surgery, and this is probably my favorite incarnation of the character. I like his look and hes the most competent, but then Bond automatically drowns him in this mud he's laying in. Then we find out that Bond only killed a double so then he has to kill the real Blofeld by throwing him into a steaming mud pit. This is just a ridiculous opening and we might as well skip ahead (assuming you've seen the movie) and say that this is all pointless since Blofeld ends up being the main villain of the movie anyway. Bond kills two body doubles in the beginning and even at the end we get another body double with the real Blofeld. I just don't see the point in the opening swerve. You could argue that yeah you think Blofeld is dead and won't be in this movie but the end throws all of that out the window. Though I do really like the banter with the two Blofelds at the end despite them using the same trick they already did earlier in the movie. The ending encounter in the Whyte House is great. Let me just say this though, I'm more willing to believe in DNA Therapy than all this plastic surgery. We'll get there.

Honestly I actually really enjoyed this film. A lot more than I ever thought I would given its reputation. I know it's the last official Connery (I will be watching Never Say Never Again when I get to it's release year) and I know the Roger Moore films deal more in the camp and silliness that I'm not a huge fan of so maybe it was just Connery's last hoorah that made me like the film so much but I think there is plenty of enjoyable moments and aspects. The first thing I'd like to point out are the henchman Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd. These two guys are weird and creepy and I love them. Two great henchman and while they are stated as being homosexual in the book they don't specify in the film but it's clear there's something going on with these two. Their sideways glances and just the way they talk to each other, it's clear love is in the air. One character I did have issues with was the Bond girl Tiffany Case. Actually both Bond girls were fairly intolerable. Plenty O'Toole is rather pointless to the plot other than looking beautiful and uh . . . plenty. Tiffany Case is serviceable but honestly has some of the worst lines I've ever heard. Her whole distraction dialogue at the gas station is awful and telling a small child to blow up his pants? What? What does that even mean?! She plays her character well but there really isn't much character there. Even Bond calls her a stupid twit which is kind of a funny moment. She also has a very pointless scene with Q (who she just inexplicably knows?) as he is committing crimes in Vegas casinos.Maybe Q was the real villain all along!

This might be the first time since Goldfinger that a villains plan actually gets anywhere in the grand scheme of things which was kind of nice. However this also marks the about the third time in a row that we end the film with one army battling another army on an awesome super villain base, this time an oil rig. These are all great scenes and this one is easily in my top list but it's starting to feel repetitive. It didn't top the last one however in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Blofeld's plan this time is to hold the world hostage and have a nuclear superpower auction. He creates a laser satellite using stolen diamonds and starts destroying nuclear deposits in different parts of the world. It's an interesting plan and he actually gets quite far into it before Bond is able to stop him. However it does give us a lot of bad visual effects. The action in this film works better when it's more personal like the awesome fist fight in the elevator and the two gymnastic girls near the end, which is an idea I love and would love to see tried in the modern era because these girls couldn't pull it off together. Also I just want to point out that Bond driving away in a moon rover is just ridiculous and why is that there?!

There is plenty of bad stuff in this film. A lot of bad visual effects, some horrible American stereotyped characters, and plenty of horrible dialogue to go around. On top of all of that though, there is a solid plot that never gets too far in the realm of ridiculous, Connery feels more earnest this time, and there are some decent spy moments. Bond climbing the tower was a cool moment and even gave me a little anxiety (I don't like heights.) This actually seemed like a movie to stay away from if you have some phobias. In this film Bond gets locked in a coffin and almost burned alive, buried alive underground, and hangs from the top of a tower by ropes. It's amazing what he survives in this film, especially with an older Connery.

Overall I give Diamonds Are Forever a three out of five. This isn't a great Bond film but I found it entertaining. This feels like one that's harder to love for a lot of fans, and I can't really explain how it clicked with me but I never felt bored and actively liked a lot of things going on in this film. I know I haven't talked about any of the theme songs really but I would like to point out that this is one of the ones I really enjoy. There are a lot of bad things with the script and production, but overall it's an okay film that I would possibly give another shot but wouldn't miss it if it never crossed my path again.

007 Journals: On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Well after the long stretch of Connery films I was finally ready for a change to the James Bond franchise. Unfortunately George Lazenby was not the change I was looking for. Now I can see why when they wanted to replace Connery that they went with Lazenby. The man looks good when he's throwing a punch or shooting a gun, but he just doesn't have the charisma or the charm to be James Bond. Not to mention Lazenby's acting talent, well there's little of it. Also I'll just go on record and say the more I had to look at his face I just didn't like it.

Now I know the general opinion of Lazenby that he wasn't a very good Bond so I'm sure I'm not alone there, but I do know of some people that legitimately like On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I can easily say that there are parts of this film that I really enjoyed but it really felt like there were two movies going on at the same time. One of these movies is actually really good. The other adds a significant arc to the Bond character and expands the Bond mythos. Now the whole marriage sub-plot can honestly just go. It is heavily featured in the beginning of the film, only to disappear until the end with little explanation. Tracy just accepts that Bond is going to be gone for a long time and then she shows up very conveniently for the plot. There's a lot of "what are the odds" moments throughout the film, even with Blofeld not recognizing Bond through his cheap disguise, even though he had him captured in the last film and got a good look at his face the whole time. At least for Bond it made sense because Blofeld had some plastic surgery to alter his look and this time around he seems less like a super villain.

Blofelds plan is also a mixture of good and bad. This time he's not looking for money, but a pardon from all of his previous crimes. How is he going to get this? By sterilizing the worlds food supply if his demands aren't met. He could even sterilize the human race if he wants. That's a pretty decent plan. How is he going to accomplish it? He sets up a clinic where they claim to cure allergies of women who work at different food sources around the globe but while he's helping them he throws in some hypnosis to turn them all into sleeper agents. What?! I was with you before but that second part, kind of ridiculous. Honestly, this is a film they could easily remake in the Daniel Craig era because there is a story here. Just lose the ridiculous parts, cut out or play down the love story and you could have a decent script. I mean a lot of things that are a big deal happen here, I mean Bond gets married, but I don't think it's needed. Especially since his wife is killed seemingly out of nowhere for one of the darkest endings I've ever seen.

Now I wasn't big on Tracy as a Bond girl at the beginning but she did grow on me by the end. She is the first Bond girl that I can remember holding her own in a fight. Well as far as the ones that aren't initially a villain. Lazenby however is just the weirdest version of Bond I could imagine outside of a parody. One scene the man is sitting while reading a Playboy magazine. Just so weird. He keeps the same tone of voice through the entire film and there's really no acting happening unless a punch is being thrown. He has a good throwing a punch face. I just can't believe him as Bond. Honestly after You Only Live Twice I was completely ready for a new James Bond, but about halfway through this movie I was glad that Connery is back in the next one.

There are at least some great action scenes. A pretty awesome car chase through the snow was highly enjoyable. The end battle is also fantastic. Blofeld has a great looking fortress and having it get stormed by a criminal army in tune to the James Bond theme was easily my favorite part of the movie. It made me just want an audio track of James Bond's theme laid in with gun fire. While these stands stand out we do get a way too long ski chase before this and a boring and absurd bobsled chase to close the film. Just another example of "What form of transportation has Bond not used yet? Put it in this movie". The awesome scenes just barely outweigh these ones that drag the film out. I also feel I should mention that a British secret agent, knowingly marries into one of the largest crime syndicates on the planet, Mi6 agents and even M are at the wedding. They even have a line where Tracy's mobster dad and M are sharing stories of being on the opposite sides of the same conflicts. A good laugh for all of our fallen comrades we used trying to kill each other. I give On Her Majesty's Secret Service two stars out of five. It has some ideas and some great action scenes but over all it was hard to sit through. Mostly for Lazenby's wooden acting. That face too!