About a week ago I saw the latest James Bond Film Spectre and had a lot of high hopes and high expectations for the film, but my initial impression was of great disappointment and honestly I expected so much more. James Bond is hunting down a lead that "M" (Judi Dench "M") gave him before she died, and it leads him through a tidal wave of intrigue that circles all the way back to the events of Casino Royale. During this investigation he comes across the organization Spectre which seems to be at the center of many of his previous enemies and the cause of many deaths as well. There is no denying the excellence of Daniel Craig as James Bond, though not in my opinion his best of the four he has now done, though there was a lot of potential for it to be one of the finest. Actually now that I think about it, there wasn't anyone in the cast that really stood out in my opinion. Granted Christoph Waltz was the villain and he was good, but he didn't really have enough screen time to really stand out and define himself as an excellent character. Ralph Fiennes as the new "M" wasn't that impressive, but I think that had more to do with the writing, and Naomie Harris as Moneypenny was okay as was Ben Whishlaw as "Q". The Bond girls that Monica Bellucci and Lea Seydoux played were also okay, but nothing really interesting or special, although I wish that Ms. Bellucci's character would have had more depth and prominence as her character was far more interesting, but what can you do. Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy) was a secondary villain, but didn't say a word; he was pretty useless. The remainder of the cast was good, but as I mentioned none of them really stood out.
Now Bond films are usually action films, and there was plenty of action in this film, but I think that it generally sucked across the board. There were a lot of foot chases and car chases sequences, as well as shooting sequences and running sequences, but I cannot recall any of them being dynamic or interesting all I was thinking of was..."oh goody, another car chase..." and then it was back to drama and dialog which were not written very well. All of this is what directs me to my perception of the film being mediocre at best after the initial viewing, but who knows perhaps I will grow to like it....possibly. Honestly, I just didn't really care for the direction that Sam Mendes (the director of this film and Skyfall) took in regards to the Bond franchise. Personally, I think Casino Royale is the finest of this series of Bond films; excellent dialog and characters, good writing, dynamic action sequences, original, and it retains that balance of new Bond with old Bond quite well. I may have to watch all of the Bond films again, but Casino Royale and Tomorrow Never Dies (first Bond film I ever saw) I think are the finest Bond films of the ones out there. Anywho. It was entertaining, and if you like action and James Bond then you'll love this, but if you don't see then don't worry you aren't missing a whole lot.Sam Smith's Bond song "The Writing's on the Wall"
Daniel Craig on Spectre
Gods of Egypt trailer (could be good potentially.
