Bond 24: SPECTRE (2015)

I’m pretty pumped to see Andrew Scott in this (he’s Moriarty from the recent BBC Sherlock adaptations). I hear tell he’ll be a villain of some sort, and he was just delightfully vile in Sherlock.

I wonder if they’ll try to tie in the Big Bad Evil Org from Casino Royale/Quantum of Solace (wasn’t it called Quantum?) or will they drop it entirely now that they have the rights to use the SPECTRE name again? I know a lot of folks (including many here, apparently) consider QoS a major misstep, but I thought the worldbuilding they were leaning toward with the first two movies could be turned into something interesting or salvaged somehow.

I read somewhere (and I forgot where, or I would link) that Mr White from Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace would be making an appearance in this movie. If true, I would think Quantum must be linked somehow with Spectre. Personally, I liked QoS just fine, though not as much as Casino. And much as I like Javier Bardem, his villainnl was about the only thing I didn’t like about Skyfall which unfortunately kicks that film down a peg or two.

I thought the dude who played Mr. White hated the role and disliked the experience in general.

People don’t like Casino Royale because it involved Texas Hold’em, and was extremely basic, instead of the simplistic but tense nature of Baccarat. I understand why the filmmakers made the change, just saying I remember back in the CR thread here that people were pretty upset about the depiction and use of Texas Hold’em.

— Alan

I get all that, but it would surprise me if that made much of a difference to the average movie-goer.

I find it incomprehensible that anyone could have liked Skyfall, unless they are solely and sufficiently entertained by its production values and how it looked. Worse than even the most indulgent Roger Moore movies.

If anything, given the resurgent popularity (at the time) of Texas Hold’em due to the WSOP fracas over everyday Joes winning it all, the change in game probably made those scenes more accessible to the average person, allowing them to get a sense of the (perhaps limited) drama inherent in the card game.

It’s overly long, the plot meanders too much, and way too much screen time spent on poker games. Eva Green buys CR a lot of forgiveness, though.

Quantum was horrible, though, no argument.

I rewatched QoS recently; it was less terrible than I remembered. Still the weakest of the lot. In hindsight, my main complaints were Olga Kurylenko is no Eva Green, Mathieu Amalric is no Mads Mikkelsen, and Quantum is no SPECTRE (which was never that interesting in the first place).

Never change, alexli- err, Desslock.

I wish in Casino Royale the super-skilled master poker player might just possibly have had a slightly less obvious tell than crying tears of blood. Sunglasses and a visor just doesn’t help when that’s your problem. Come on now, that makes popping open an oreo in response to a strong hand seem like the height of subtlety. The only way you could ever win with that disability is against your own evil minions.

The poker scene is way worse than that, because the way Bond wins demonstrates no skill whatsoever. It’s just a preposterous cold deck.

That said, I don’t blame them for switching to something more known to the audience than Baccarat.

The last third of Skyfall is so ridiculous, even by Bond standards, that it seems like a satire. Descending past Moonraker and View to a Kill depths just 2 movies after the most grounded, serious Bond movie in 3 decades was a really strange turn, but Sam Mendes has always made very pretty, imbecilic, movies.

A View to a Kill had Walken.

FACT

so did Peter Pan

Oh, yes. Yes it did.

<weeps>

Well yeah, but in movies poker is won with improbable hands, so I took that as a given. I seem to recall in Casino Royale the book Bond is pretty much tapped out too and has just go with luck to survive the game.

Skyfall was better than A View To A Kill. That Wes Anderson parody of the Star Wars trailer was also better than A View To A Kill.

I wonder what edgy chanteuse will get the nod for the SPECTRE theme song? I’m going with Lana Del Rey.

Yeah, the ending of Skyfall is obviously much less realistic and incredibly dumber than, say, taking on an entire army of bad guys in a fake volcano caldera or a space laser battle between US Marines and goons or fighting a blimp atop the Golden Gate bridge or directly lifting from the end of Rambo III.

— Alan

Skyfall is, hands down, the best Bond movie.

-Tom

The always fun “rank the Bond films” game. My favorites are, in order, Casino Royale, Goldfinger, From Russia with Love, You Only Live Twice, Skyfall, and The Spy Who Loved Me. The last is a guilty pleasure, the only Moore Bond film I enjoy. It’s easily the best of his smirky, excessively gadgeted outings. Goldeneye, Thunderball, and On Her Majesy’s Secret Service are also good.

Ranking the worst is harder. How does one pick between dreck like Octopussy, A View to a Kill, or Moonraker? It’s not worth the effort.

Where does the David Niven Casino Royale fit in?

I’ve never seen it, but I’ve never heard anything good about it, either. I doubt I’ll ever watch it.

Good things about the 1967 Casino Royale:

  • A catchy main theme by Burt Bacharach, plus the debut of the sultry classic “The Look of Love,” written by Bacharach and performed by Dusty Springfield.
  • Peter Sellers
  • Orson Welles making fun of Orson Welles
  • An early role by Woody Allen
  • It’s a old-school cameo spotters delight - in addition to Niven and the above there’s William Holden, Deborah Kerr, Charles Boyer, Peter O’Toole, George Raft, John-Paul Belmondo, plus Jacqueline Bisset and Ursala Andress as Bond girls.
  • Film geeks will get a kick out of knowing it has sequences directed by John Huston and was shot by Jack Hildyard (Henry V, Bridge on the River Kwai) and Nicholas Roeg (director of Performance and The Man Who Fell To Earth.)

It is in no way shape or form a good movie, but it embodies the phrase “only in the 60s” in a way few other films can. And warts and all it’s still about five times better than Easy Rider.