A Movie Review: Spectre

Spectre. I suspect that re-watching the previous Daniel Craig movie versions of the James Bond series would have been useful. There were various references that one knew had to deal with the prior movies, but I personally just couldn't recall the specifics. To me, it is a little unfair to reference Quantum of Solace, which was way back in 2008. James Bond isn't like the Harry Potter series where a new movie came out every 18 months.

Anyways, James Bond (Daniel Craig) is on a mission in Mexico. The former M (Judi Dench) sent him on the mission. The current M (Ralph Fiennes) knows nothing about this and therefore places Bond on suspension for making a serious mess in Mexico.

Bond will not allow a suspension to take him away from his mission. Bond attends a funeral in Rome of one of the individuals he killed. The widow of the man gives Bond info on a secret organization called Spectre. With this information, he begins to unravel the true nature of Spectre.

As hinted above, I found this movie a touch hard to follow as there are references to previous Bond movies. I think if one really wants to get into the background of the movie, re-watching the previous Daniel Craig movies would be useful.

There is one thing that really got me irritated about this movie. That one thing has to do with how the Bond girl, Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), character is portrayed. We know before she is introduced to us that she knows how to take care of herself. We also learn that she knows how to handle a weapon. She even takes a major part in saving James Bond from an assassin. And yet, when the second to the last big action scene takes place, she is basically just the hot Bond girl being protected by James Bond. Mercy, she knows how to shoot, why doesn't she pick up a weapon?!?! There are weapons all over the place, next to dead bad guys. I swear I saw Bond pick up a gun from a dead bad guy. What, she couldn't pick up one, as well?!?! To me, this is a serious flaw in the movie. If you're going to write a character who knows how to handle a weapon, then let that character handle a weapon when the need arises.