Spectre

Daniel Craig said that he'd rather "kill himself" than star in another Bond film – and in "Spectre," released in 2015, his torture's evident. He's always been a different type of Bond – more human, more tough, cooler – but here he looks facially bored. I agree with Max Weiss when he said in his review, "Someone needs to remind Craig that there’s a difference between “unflappable” and “not able to muster any facial expressions.”" 

Weiss goes on to say, "This is particularly ironic because, with Spectre, Craig has been gifted (trolled?) with the cheesiest opening credits sequence of any Bond film in recent memory. I’m talking Octopussy levels of cheesy. Suffice it to say, it involves Craig shirtless, bronzed, and draped in octopus tentacles and hot babes. Sam Smith’s disco-flavored theme song adds to the wonderful awfulness." 

Weiss continues, "There’s some real cognitive dissonance between those retro-cheesy opening credits and the film itself—which is slick, expensive-looking, and largely bloodless." The tone is made right from the start. The starting Bond scenes are supposed to be eye-popping, so dangerously over-the-top that you laugh with enjoyment. Instead, we're given a standard rooftop chase scene, an explosion, and a fight on a falling helicopter, everything that looks pretty basic by Hollywood action standards. Weiss said, "At least the backdrop to all of this—Mexico City’s Day of the Dead parade—creates some arresting images. Director Sam Mendes sure knows how to frame a pretty scene." 

From there, it's the same thing we're used to seeing, but done in a surprisingly boring way. There's a new M (Ralph Fiennes (wasted)) and a new villain (Christoph Waltz (predictable)), and some story involving the same subject of global surveillance. Weiss mentioned, "There’s much globetrotting—Austria, Rome, Tangier, and London are among the locales—all ticked off in a workmanlike way, with skyline shots to prove they were really filmed on location (the film showed us the London Eye so many times, I assumed it would eventually become part of the action—no such luck)." As always, Bond goes solo and his friends at MI6 (including Ben Whishaw's Q and Naome Harris's Mrs. Moneypenny) cover up for him. As always, he crashes fancy cars, hunts down the villain and his henchmen (Dave Bautista is believably scary as the head henchman), and sleeps with two women – Monica Bellucci and Léa Seydoux (both really hot) - the latter which he falls in love with. Sadly, the romance with Seydoux is as unbelievable and boring as the rest of the film. (When she tells Bond she loves him, even he looks a little surprised.) 

For a Bond film, there are surprisingly a few gadgets – despite there is a funny part involving a car that Bond steals from Q's lab that hasn't been checked for any sort of mistakes – and when the loving, dashing Bond theme interrupts the action, it actually feels misused. 

Weiss commented, "Here’s the deal. These days, Bond films are competing with the likes of Mission Impossible, the Bourne series, and even the Fast and Furious franchise for action supremacy. If they can’t top them, action wise, they better take advantage of their inherent Bondness." The cars, the women, the tuxes, the martinis, the jokes – these are the traits we're watching for. It's all meant to be enjoyable entertainment, on top of a wink, not dry and serious stuff. A Bond that takes itself too seriously is not a Bond to watch. 

Despite all of this that is mentioned above, this one isn't as bad as "Quantum of Solace." It's actually enjoyable compared to that, but when comparing it to "Skyfall" or "Casino Royale," this isn't on the same level of enjoyment that we get from a Bond movie like that. If you want to check it out, you can, but it won't be really that memorable, I'm sorry to say. 

Now that concludes "James Bond Month." I wonder what's next for the Bond series. When will the next one be released? Will Daniel Craig reprise it again, or will they switch actors? If they do, who will they select? What will the next story tell? The possibilities are endless, and we will see when that time comes. I hope everyone enjoyed these reviews, and hopefully those who have never seen any Bond film will be motivated to watch them after reading my reviews. 

Stay tuned next month to see what I have in store for everyone next. In the meantime, I'm going to take a well needed vacation after posting reviews everyday this month.