SPECTRE Review Thread

[Troll2fan]

Originally Posted by MovieKing101

Why do polls on here never have a 0?

Not saying this movie deserves a 0 but damn - its annoying sometimes.

I agree. There have been a couple of movies that I would've happily given a 0 to. Not this one, but I agree with your point.

[notops]

I always felt like the Craig movies were apologizing for being Bond. This is the first of his that I felt had many of the classic Bond elements to it.

To the people lamenting it's lack of similarity to Skyfall, I ask:
Do you even really like the (pre-Craig) Bond pictures?

[Batmanuel1987]

Originally Posted by Makarov

I thought they did do that pretty much? At least I remember him saying that.

He kind of said it? All I remember was him saying that whenever Bond interfered he punished him through his women or something. Here's what I felt would have been a great twist and revelation:

They used Dominic Greene for SPECTRE's terror destabilization thing to push global surveillance. SPECTRE funded Dominic to achieve his takeover. Waltz's character then reveals that Quantum and Mr. White are the Counter Intelligence section of SPECTRE as well. Bond got in the way looking for revenge and answers for Vesper's death. SPECTRE realized they need to disband the 00 program as well as getting rid of M.

This is where Silva comes in. The attempt on M's life didn't work in QoS, so SPECTRE finds someone capable who really wants her and Bond dead. Silva wants revenge and SPECTRE is all about that and they fund him and let him loose. He succeeds in killing M, blows up MI6, leaks info about the agents on the field but fails to kill Bond, and a new M takes the old M's place. The 00 program is shaken up and up in the air thanks to the exposure Silva put on their agents and the destruction of their home base which is the perfect time for SPECTRE to make their move.

[Show spoiler]With the help of C they push the global surveillance hard, it gets through thanks to some terrorism and the 00 program is cancelled.

[Zivouhr]

Christoph Waltz will be the reason I may check this one out.
I'm a fan of Bond's Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and a couple others, though the one with the least charisma seems to be Daniel Craig in my opinion, but in his defense, he's a secret agent, so being cold like ice and without much expression probably helps him stay alive as 007. With very few exceptions, he almost always seems to have a blank face though, probably as part of his intended character. It would be nice if he smiled now and then, just so we know he's still human.

So the reviews on this one are pretty good then from the look of it.

[Vlad Draculi]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

The title song has grown on me. I dunno if it's because I've seen the movie or just heard it about a half-dozen times now, but I'll say that I like it. Solidly middle-of-the-pack when it comes to Bond songs, and a damn sight better than the travesties we got with Quantum and Die Another Day. (The instrumental version on the OST is nice, but it's truncated.)

Skyfall is an awesome song and Adele can sing far better than this low life loser that got kicked in the balls. They should have gotten Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga to sing it. They can at least sing.

Originally Posted by iScottie

I hate how everyone is comparing this movie to Skyfall as if Skyfall is the standard.

You do know that it is compared to Skyfall BECAUSE that was the last movie to come out, right? Not to mention Skyfall set the bar pretty high for the future. I agree that it should not be compared to Skyfall because that is spilling its own downfall and those people are idiots, but saying it isn't as good as Skyfall is not saying that is the standard for Bond movies. Skyfall is the fourth best Bond movie in the franchise for me. Nevertheless, it is going to be years before they manage to outdo it when it comes to story and character development.

Every scene, including the action scenes, felt like they were on cruise control. Nothing more, nothing less.

I will agree. They played the movie way too safe.

Originally Posted by Ironhorse75

[Show spoiler]The brother aspect didn't add any emotional value. Hell, it didn't even add any emotional value for Bond's character. I think they could have cut that out and even the character C. I know C was supposed to represent how far Spectre's reach is but I don't think he surprised anybody.

Yes it did. It made

[Show spoiler]Blofeld a far more compelling character than he was in the original movies. All he was in Connery's era was a thug, nothing more, nothing less. Here, he actually had development. He had character.

[quote=notops;11485940]I always felt like the Craig movies were apologizing for being Bond. This is the first of his that I felt had many of the classic Bond elements to it.[/spoiler]

I disagree. Craig's movies feel like they are trying to get back to the basics of the books.

To the people lamenting it's lack of similarity to Skyfall, I ask:
Do you even really like the (pre-Craig) Bond pictures?

Not sure what you mean, but yes, I do love the pre-Craig movies.

My top 10 Bond movies go:

1. From Russia with Love
2. Casino Royale
3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
4. Skyfall
5. Thunderball
6. License to Kill
7. Goldfinger
8. The Living Daylights
9. Spectre
10. Goldeneye

[LegacyCosts]

This movie has its issues but I keep on thinking about it and reading about it which is a fantastic sign. I can't say the same for more then 4-5 movies this entire year.

[Ironhorse75]

Originally Posted by Vlad Draculi

Yes it did. It made

[Show spoiler]Blofeld a far more compelling character than he was in the original movies. All he was in Connery's era was a thug, nothing more, nothing less. Here, he actually had development. He had character.

Right.

[Show spoiler] But I'm talking about within the context of this movie, not to the other portrayal of Blofeld.

Blofeld being revealed as Bond's so called brother should have felt like a revelation to the audience. To Bond's character it should have been a game changer but once he found out, it kind of seemed like nothing more than a tidbit. Usually information like that turns the movie on its head like a Hitchcockian reversal.

Bond finding out didn't affect anything. Take that information out and Bond is still going to take him down because he was the head of Spectre.

It wouldn't even change how the final moment between them happened. As toddly pointed out, he didn't spare his life because he was his brother but because he was ready to move on from that life.

2 hours and 30 minutes. You can give us something more than a photograph to make this brotherhood have any value

[Cliff]

Originally Posted by Makarov

It's really not a complicated thing that needs exposition.

[Show spoiler]

[Show spoiler]Bond was searching the room, then saw the mouse run into the hole, and realized there might be something there that he might not have checked, went over and investigated by pouring the drink and then feeling around the wall, then he punched through it.

No explanation is necessary for that. The audience even laughed at the joke in that scene. There's a lot of stuff I could nit pick about the movie but not that part.

It's nonsense. The pouring of the drink doesn't help. I could pour a drink at the base on my refrigerator... it doesn't mean there's a

[Show spoiler]secret room behind it. That drink could literally go almost anywhere and it wouldn't provide any evidence of a giant room behind the wall. SPECTRE's script is the laziest kind... it provides the protagonist with everything he needs without explanation or justification. It just assumes audiences won't think enough to ask questions, but I had a ton of questions. Where, for example, does Bond get the airplane he uses for the big chase? Now before you say, "it's the plane he arrived on." - no, it's not (this was verified by someone during a second showing) and how did Bond manage to get that plane at the top of a mountain where the primary access was by gondola lift. Yes, there were cars... but I don't remember there being an airstrip up there with a fleet of planes. Nope... we're just supposed to accept that Bond has found an airplane in record time at the top of an Austrian mountain.

Just because it didn't notice the lack of logic in the movie doesn't mean there WAS logic in the movie. I can assure you, there wasn't. There's suspension of disbelief... this was a total suspension of logic in screenwriting.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by MovieKing101

Why do polls on here never have a 0?

Not saying this movie deserves a 0 but damn - its annoying sometimes.

Because it would be stupid to reward a film 0. There's no film without merit in my opinion, unless ultimately you've made a film that was better than the one you had watched.

Just be happy with 1 star, the message still comes across clearly.

[SleeperAgent]

Gave it a 4. It was good, but it was no Skyfall.

Agree with those saying Blofeld needed to be more of the movie. He had little to no screen time until the end where he didn't really do anything.

[V40LLY]

Originally Posted by SleeperAgent

It was good, but it was no Skyfall.

Was Skyfall a Bond movie?

[Member-320773]

Originally Posted by LegacyCosts

This movie has its issues but I keep on thinking about it and reading about it which is a fantastic sign. I can't say the same for more then 4-5 movies this entire year.

That's exactly the way I feel about the movie. And as good as SKYFALL was I'm glad SPECTRE emerged as a different beast.

[Mr. Chaverria]

Originally Posted by V40LLY

Was Skyfall a Bond movie?

Yes?

[imsounoriginal]

Originally Posted by Vlad Draculi

Skyfall is an awesome song and Adele can sing far better than this low life loser that got kicked in the balls. They should have gotten Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga to sing it. They can at least sing.

The day Taylor Swift does a Bond song is the day I question where humanity is going. I dunno why so many people hate Sam Smith; this is still the only song of his I've heard and my only beef with it ever was the lyrics. Meh, it's grown on me. Not a hall of famer, but good enough. Kinda the same reaction I had to TWINE's song when I first heard it.

Originally Posted by V40LLY

Was Skyfall a Bond movie?

Originally Posted by Mr. Chaverria

Yes?

Don't feed it.

[Kevin Holly]

Originally Posted by MovieKing101

Why do polls on here never have a 0?

Not saying this movie deserves a 0 but damn - its annoying sometimes.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by Foggy

Because it would be stupid to reward a film 0. There's no film without merit in my opinion, unless ultimately you've made a film that was better than the one you had watched.

Just be happy with 1 star, the message still comes across clearly.

First, on a scale from 0/5 to 5/5, a "0 star rating" would not imply no merit. It would imply the film having between 0% quality (i.e., no merit) and 10% quality. So very little, but still some. And a 1/5 would mean between 10-30% (instead of the "between 0-30% it currently does), 2/5 would mean between 30-50% (as it currently does), and similarly for 3, 4 and 5/5.

That is the nature of a discrete rating system of ANY number of points, each rating implies some range, and even a "0" on ANY such system allows for some measure of finite quality (i.e., in a 100-point system, such as 0-10 where a single decimal place is allowed, a 0.0/10 would include the range 0-0.5%). Indeed, depending on how deeply you want to interpret it, it may well be the case that for ANY rating on any dicrete rating system, the films actually quality is not equal to the number implied by the rating. For instance, on the 5-point scale currently employed, a 3/5 implies a 60%, but in fact represents a range of 50-70%.

Furthermore, the 0/5 would make the scale more balanced. As I noted above, the current setup gives the following scores and ranges:
1/5 - 20% implied score - 0 - 30% actual range
2/5 - 40% implied score - 30 - 50% actual range
3/5 - 60% implied score - 50 - 70% actual range
4/5 - 80% implied score - 70 - 90% actual range
5/5 - 100% implied score - 90 - 100% actual range
So the 1/5 rating is currently overworked since its range is so much larger, whereas with a 0/5 rating, the 0/5 would cover 0-10% and 1/5 would cover 10-30%, thus having the same size of range as 2, 3 and 4/5.

Also on the note of balance, I submit that arguing against a 0/5 is equivalent to arguing against a 5/5, because one could just as easily say "no film is perfect, therefore 5/5 is useless and 4/5 gives an appropriate indication of what was meant." By arguments nearly indentical to those I gave above, the fact that a 5/5 does not necessarily imply perfection follows. However, to have a 5/5 on the scale implies the need for a 0/5 for balance, otherwise the only scores should be 1, 2, 3 and 4/5.

Finally, I have to disagree with the original reason given for not having 0/5 anyways. "There is no film without merit." You may well think this, and thus shy away from a 0 score, but many people disagree and would be well-served. For instance, depending on ones tastes and tolerances, I have heard films as disparate as Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, A Serbian Film, Gigli, The Human Centipede 2, Fat Slags, InAPPropriate Comedy, and so on, all be referred to as a "true 0-star film," i.e., not only should they be given a 0/5 (or 0/whatever) rating, putting them in the lowest possible range (I do not consider the cases of films worse than 0% or higher than 100% becaue I do not know what this would mean), but that they are actually worthless, have no merit, and deserve a literaly 0%. Myself, I do not know of any film I would say that about, but the fact is, Jack & Jill may well be it for me, although I doubt I'll ever be morbidly curious enough to find out.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by Cliff

It's nonsense. The pouring of the drink doesn't help. I could pour a drink at the base on my refrigerator... it doesn't mean there's a

[Show spoiler]secret room behind it. That drink could literally go almost anywhere and it wouldn't provide any evidence of a giant room behind the wall.

If you were

[Show spoiler]searching for a secret room at the time like Bond was, then

yeah you'd have reason to suspect it. Everything in that scene followed fine. As for the

[Show spoiler]plane, he probably saw one up there somewhere and kept it in mind

, but that could have used a short set up I guess.

[imsounoriginal]

Originally Posted by Makarov

If you were

[Show spoiler]searching for a secret room at the time like Bond was, then

yeah you'd have reason to suspect it. Everything in that scene followed fine. As for the

[Show spoiler]plane, he probably saw one up there somewhere and kept it in mind

, but that could have used a short set up I guess.

Isn't the plane he uses the one that he comes in on? We see it fly by in that establishing shot of the clinic on top of the mountain (same shot in the trailers).

[Vlad Draculi]

Originally Posted by LegacyCosts

This movie has its issues but I keep on thinking about it and reading about it which is a fantastic sign. I can't say the same for more then 4-5 movies this entire year.

Really? This year has been phenomenal for movies. I keep thinking about several movies such as Ex Machina, Inside Out, The Martian, It Follows, Mad Max, Avengers 2, and Kingsman.

Originally Posted by Ironhorse75

[Show spoiler]Bond finding out didn't affect anything. Take that information out and Bond is still going to take him down because he was the head of Spectre.

What is there to affect him?

[Show spoiler]His adopted brother was dead for 20 years. Is he supposed to break down in tears and be happy he is alive? Because that is unrealistic and no one is that emotional.

Originally Posted by Foggy

Because it would be stupid to reward a film 0. There's no film without merit in my opinion, unless ultimately you've made a film that was better than the one you had watched.

Just be happy with 1 star, the message still comes across clearly.

Not entirely truly. The Psycho remake and Battlefield Earth are 0 star movies.

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

The day Taylor Swift does a Bond song is the day I question where humanity is going. I dunno why so many people hate Sam Smith; this is still the only song of his I've heard and my only beef with it ever was the lyrics. Meh, it's grown on me. Not a hall of famer, but good enough. Kinda the same reaction I had to TWINE's song when I first heard it.

I'm not a fan of Swift or Gaga, but they can actually sing. Sam Smith must have been the winner of a karaoke contest or something and was required to be given some sort of musical career per contracts. The Writing is on the Wall is the worst Bond song since Octopussy's theme.

[Foggy]

People mentioning Fat Slags and Battlefield Earth. They are exceptions that prove the rule.

[Mahatma]

Originally Posted by Kevin Holly

Agreed.


First, on a scale from 0/5 to 5/5, a "0 star rating" would not imply no merit. It would imply the film having between 0% quality (i.e., no merit) and 10% quality. So very little, but still some. And a 1/5 would mean between 10-30% (instead of the "between 0-30% it currently does), 2/5 would mean between 30-50% (as it currently does), and similarly for 3, 4 and 5/5.

That is the nature of a discrete rating system of ANY number of points, each rating implies some range, and even a "0" on ANY such system allows for some measure of finite quality (i.e., in a 100-point system, such as 0-10 where a single decimal place is allowed, a 0.0/10 would include the range 0-0.5%). Indeed, depending on how deeply you want to interpret it, it may well be the case that for ANY rating on any dicrete rating system, the films actually quality is not equal to the number implied by the rating. For instance, on the 5-point scale currently employed, a 3/5 implies a 60%, but in fact represents a range of 50-70%.

Furthermore, the 0/5 would make the scale more balanced. As I noted above, the current setup gives the following scores and ranges:
1/5 - 20% implied score - 0 - 30% actual range
2/5 - 40% implied score - 30 - 50% actual range
3/5 - 60% implied score - 50 - 70% actual range
4/5 - 80% implied score - 70 - 90% actual range
5/5 - 100% implied score - 90 - 100% actual range
So the 1/5 rating is currently overworked since its range is so much larger, whereas with a 0/5 rating, the 0/5 would cover 0-10% and 1/5 would cover 10-30%, thus having the same size of range as 2, 3 and 4/5.

Also on the note of balance, I submit that arguing against a 0/5 is equivalent to arguing against a 5/5, because one could just as easily say "no film is perfect, therefore 5/5 is useless and 4/5 gives an appropriate indication of what was meant." By arguments nearly indentical to those I gave above, the fact that a 5/5 does not necessarily imply perfection follows. However, to have a 5/5 on the scale implies the need for a 0/5 for balance, otherwise the only scores should be 1, 2, 3 and 4/5.

Finally, I have to disagree with the original reason given for not having 0/5 anyways. "There is no film without merit." You may well think this, and thus shy away from a 0 score, but many people disagree and would be well-served. For instance, depending on ones tastes and tolerances, I have heard films as disparate as Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, A Serbian Film, Gigli, The Human Centipede 2, Fat Slags, InAPPropriate Comedy, and so on, all be referred to as a "true 0-star film," i.e., not only should they be given a 0/5 (or 0/whatever) rating, putting them in the lowest possible range (I do not consider the cases of films worse than 0% or higher than 100% becaue I do not know what this would mean), but that they are actually worthless, have no merit, and deserve a literaly 0%. Myself, I do not know of any film I would say that about, but the fact is, Jack & Jill may well be it for me, although I doubt I'll ever be morbidly curious enough to find out.

Couldn't one describe in words what the score system fails to convey if one feels the movie was so attrociously bad that it goes off the chart?

I hope I gave Skyfall 5/5 because it was a much better movie than this one.Considered giveing 3/5,but landed on 4/5 since I liked the way the movie looks and the soundscape.Consider it a weak 4/5 though.