Spectre

Skyfall was actually a very different take on the typical Bond films and it did open up a debate. Some of my friends criticized it for not being that fancy – gadget spy thriller. Sam Mendes’s second outing with agent 007, Spectre is also in the similar zone of Skyfall when you look at the emotional and less gadget aided protagonist. Even after being wonderfully real, the torturing length and the lack of an interesting suspense pulls the movie backwards.

The film this time starts off with James Bond going to Mexican city to kill a man as per the last message of his late dear superior M. The event sort of creates more curiosity in Bond’s mind as a few names came up during the operation. Ultimately the research behind that leads him to a criminal organization named spectre. The movie tells us about Spectre and also that link between the man who lead that organization and James Bond.

Like I said, Spectre is also a less gadget friendly deal. Daniel Craig has this incredible energy in his portrayal and because of that we won’t mind Bond going the Ethan Hunt way of execution. Spectre has beautiful construction of situations and scenes in my opinion. You get to see a well executed single shot in the beginning of the movie which leads to one hell of a helicopter sequence which looked pretty damn cool. Bond then starts his investigation and somewhere during the process, the emotional quotient starts to come. While skyfall had those emotional slices soaked in intrigue, here that excitement was missing. By the time Blofeld captures James, the plot becomes very clear and the remaining half an hour that lingers on the cat and mouse game just becomes a visually appealing part.

Daniel Craig in my opinion is the most physically eccentric Bond actor. The typical womanizer stuff is definitely there in his portrayal, but the physicality definitely adds something extra. You can’t say that they have used Christoph Waltz with a real bad ass character. It was much of a usual performance. Thanks to the censors, Monica Bellucci’s brief role got briefer when the film reached India. Lea Seydoux was nice as the bond girl. Ben Whishaw as Q adds a bit of humor in to the content.

Sam Mendes once again clubs his art house treatment to enhance the quality of this Bond episode. That opening sequence in that magnitude is visually stunning. The director also manages to add that grey in to the treatment which makes it a little more deep. But what is annoying is the length of the film that sort of look excessive once we realize the character of the antagonist. It becomes dramatic and less enticing for almost half an hour or so and that was a serious drawback in my opinion. The cinematography was good and so was the edits. The minimal background score and the impressive set pieces do create a good impression.

On the whole Spectre is definitely below Skyfall for me as the latter had an edge in being engaging and emotional. For those who thoroughly enjoyed the Skyfall, this one is surely a good action packed entertainer. The rating for the Sanskari Bond’s Spectre is 3/5.