Haiku Revieu | Spectre

Spectre
★★★★

Hello Bond, James Bond
Daniel Craig has charisma
Let's have a car chase

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A cryptic message from Bond's past sends him on a trail to uncover a sinister organization. While M battles political forces to keep the secret service alive, Bond peels back the layers of deceit to reveal the terrible truth behind SPECTRE.

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WARNING: Possible spoilers ahead.

First and foremost: I'm a fan of Daniel Craig as James Bond. As my mother mentioned the other day when we were talking about this movie, he's not the most attractive of Bonds—I'm not trying to be superficial, mind you, I'm merely stating a fact that Bond is typically played by a super handsome dude—but I think there's an undeniable swagger and charisma (to steal from my haiku) that Craig has more so than any Bond before him. This appeal is in full force in Spectre. Craig's James Bond is a man of few words, but so much action.

I'm not sure if this was Craig's last time playing Bond (he says it might be) but there was a finality to Spectre that surprised me a little. It tied all three previous films (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, and Skyfall) together nicely, in a way that was a little unexpected, but, admittely, I might not have been paying attention to all the clues dropped in the previous three movies, if they were there. The movie also payed homage to the earlier non-Craig Bond films more so than before, even going so far as to reuse a villain/give a villain an origin story. (I'm not sure if these latest movies are a reboot or prequels or what.)

The supporting cast, as is often the case often with Bond movies, is somewhat overshadowed, but they did have more integral roles than before, serving more as backup for Bond than people he sees only when he stops in to get new gadgets from Q. Although I miss Judi Dench, I think it's fun to have Ralph Fiennes play M. Ben Whishaw is an adorable Q. And could Naomie Harris (Moneypenny) be any more gorgeous? The new additions to the cast—Andrew Scott in the very Moriarty-like role of C, Dave Bautista as the strong and silent Mr. Hinx, and Christoph Waltz as the villain [REDACTED, even though IMDB totally spoils it]—were fantastic. Particularly Waltz, who I adore in pretty much everything he does, but especially when he's playing a villain.

The Bond girls, Léa Seydoux and Monica Belluci, were good. Nothing really special, but that's basically the Bond franchise's longest-running issue and largest fault.

If you're a Bond fan, you should definitely go see Spectre. And even if you're not, you might consider it, since it's a fun action movie with a little intrigue underneath all of the explosions and car chases, and it's hard for that to be a bad thing.

Check it out: