11/07/15
3/4
The newest film of the franchise was an action thriller of the highest quality... or at least the highest quality we see in mainstream cinema. I can imagine a James Bond film that's much better, but my fantasies can't take away from my experience: I completely enjoyed each of the 148 minutes, felt a very strong emotional gravity at times, got invested in ways I didn't think possible for me anymore. Spectre defies with a strong hand the notion that I can't experience full immersion into things anymore due to my consuming introversion. I sat vulnerable and desperate in my chair like an adolescent boy would. I loved entirely my experience of this film.
I think that this film could be better. For me it spits out more quality and content than most modern films in its vein, including its predecessor, but yet it stays relatively within the confines of this trajectory of contemporary franchise action cinema. The best way I can put it is this: the movement from Casino Royale and Batman Begins to Skyfall and The Dark Knight Rises demonstrates what is happening in the best action film franchises (if there are any others); things are becoming a bit scattered, more epic, more complex in plot but more poorly-controlled, powerful but proud, sharp and witty at the cost of human relatability.... Do you remember how humble and brutal in its humility Casino Royale was? Beautiful in its humility. Spectre shows many signs of this devolution, but it has a classic quality that hasn't yet been tainted. It has a power I truly don't remember feeling in Skyfall. It goes without saying that for whatever reason Casino Royale is irreplicable, but if we side that comparison Spectre provides us with a lot of great stuff to feast on.
I have a hundred more opinions I could write down, but I'd rather leave it at this: I loved Spectre, and find it a scattered but spectacular item of experience.
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