Movie Review: Spectre

credit: Spectre

It does feel as though a person could say that a lot of Bond movies are the same, James foils a sinister plot, he gets the girl, or he gets multiple women during the movie, depending on the situation, and he ends up looking pretty cool while doing all of it. Spectre gets a little more personal than a few other movies thanks to the connection that James and the main villain share, but throughout this movie, it’s still made obvious that Bond follows his own beat and doesn’t always appear ready to do as he’s asked or even ordered to do. It would be nice to say that with the death of M that he became even more rebellious, but that wouldn’t be accurate since he’s always been a bit of a rebel and doesn’t ordinarily do exactly as he’s ordered since he appears to know better at times.

There are upsides and downsides to this since Bond does know what he’s doing at times, but he often gets himself into more trouble since the manner in which he operates tends to go against what MI6 wants, even if the final result tends to benefit Bond and those he works for, in some way. Spectre is pretty much the same way, but there are difficulties that need to be addressed. 

credit: Spectre

Going off mission is kind of normal for Bond. 

This has become one of the most prevalent parts of any Bond movie, the fact that 007 will go above and beyond to do his duty and will even go against the wishes of his handlers to make sure that he gets the bad guy somehow. The problem with this is that the fantasy does eventually wear a bit thin since, even in a fictional sense, it becomes a tired idea that makes it easy to predict what will happen in each given movie.

One could say that James Bond has been a highly predictable character for a lot of years, not to mention the fact that because of this, Bond movies have lost a bit of their wonder and their appeal, even if they are still seen as insanely popular. 

The hatred that Oberhauser had for Bond feels like it should have worn off eventually. 

Had Bond done something outwardly vile and even evil to Oberhauser and his father, it feels as though his hatred would be justified, but simply being adopted and given attention feels like a very childish reason to hate anyone for so long. There’s likely more to the story that wasn’t placed in the script, but it still shows that Oberhauser is a far more juvenile character than most since he can’t let his hatred die down and has to kill his own father just to find some measure of peace.

Not only that, but the fact that he couldn’t talk to either of them and had to take such drastic measures moving forward is the kind of act made by someone that has serious emotional issues and has no interest in figuring out how to handle them. Out of the many different Bond villains that have been developed over the years, Oberhauser is a very personal villain who knows how to strike at Bond and proves this since he used so many others to do his bidding. But despite being intelligent, he’s still kind of a childish character that feels like he’s lashing out more than anything. 

credit: Spectre

Mr. Hinx probably should have been able to end Bond. 

Bond is a highly-skilled agent and is, therefore, quite deadly when it comes to hand-to-hand combat. But looking at Mr. Hinx and realizing that he’s a top-level assassin makes one think that Bond shouldn’t have been able to walk away from this fight since, quite honestly, Hinx has size, strength, and is not unskilled.

Plus, to become a world-class assassin means that one knows how to fight when one needs to and knows how to dispatch people in a number of different ways that are usually all unpleasant and quite final. That means that Hinx should have been able to take Bond out in a manner either silent or loud and messy, especially since he has no compunction about killing. It’s easy to say that Bond doesn’t care either, but without help, it’s fair to think that Hinx might have been more than he could handle. 

Like a lot of Bond movies,  this goes way over the top. 

From the death-defying stunts to the fight scenes that might have been a little nuts, most Bond movies end up being kind of out of control with the stuff they depict. But the fact is that people enjoy the movies and are bound to do so for as long as they’re going to be made. If nothing else, they are kind of fun, even if the story gets a little stale now and then.