Recently my boyfriend and I went to see the newest James Bond hit. I want to say now that I have never been a fan of the James Bond movies – the only ones I have seen are the Daniel Craig ones but the action genre also seems like a bore to me and is too similar to every other action movie out there.

However, my boyfriend likes James Bond and even he was disappointed. And, well, I just didn’t like it. Here’s why…

I feel like if you’ve watched one James Bond you’ve watched them all. A pretty girl, a bad guy, some sort of CIA or Government conspiracy or issue and James saving the day, always, saving, the day!

I saw on Twitter some making the comment ‘if you sit through the opening scene of James Bond you see a great movie if you leave after that’ and I have to agree with them. Even though the opening scene opened up doors for the rest of the movie it was still much more inviting than the rest and had a better pace and structure to it than the rest of the movie.

The movie had moments of boredom and the pace slowed to nearly a halt. The Bond cars that he is so famous for was scrapped in the first half of the movie and there were so many interlocking bad guys it was hard to tell who James was really fighting (even though they all came to a head with one of them).

The Bond girl within this movie was actually quite refreshing as she wasn’t a usual ‘damsel in distress’ but more a character that could handle herself. She also *spoiler* gets to live at the end which is a change to how the Bond girls nearly always die.

I must say though some of my favourite parts were the cinematography, editing and sound. Of course Bond travels to some beautiful places but the places and camera angles used to show the beauty was amazing! The scenes were all shot so well it really added an artistic feel to the whole film. The editing was brilliant during the fight scenes as it meant you as the audience could make out what was happening but still be on the edge of your seat. The sounds were used amazingly especially to add tension to certain scenes and the opening theme with Sam Smith was stunning (if a bit confusing to someone who doesn’t really understand James Bond. This was explained as the film went on however)

One of my favourite scenes has to be the one on the train where James is fighting one of the larger bad guys. There is no music or sound in this scene which gave it a brutal honesty and made the scene seem much more real. I loved how the only sounds you could hear was the train on the tracks and the two men fighting, it was a beautiful piece of cinema!

If you are a media student or someone who enjoys critiquing movies I recommend it as the behind the scenes aspects of the movie were beautiful, however, if you are a die hard Bond fan I’d say I can imagine this film will not be one of your favourites. The storyline is slow, the action scenes are far and few between and the script is full of exposition and can be clunky at times.

What did you think of Spectre? How did it hold up to other James Bond movies?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding