Saw this movie last night and it left me very perplexed.
As far as Daniel Craig Bond movies go, it was probably my second to least favorite, better than Quantum of Solace only.
But as far as James Bond movies go, well it's a fucking classic Bond movie.
And that's what I don't get.
Casino Royale was, by all means, a soft reboot of the franchise. James Bond becomes 007 at the beginning of it, and we are introduced to this new version of 007, a much colder killer than the elegant and smooth Brosnan or some of his previous counterparts. The movies embraced the Bond heritage of luxury cars and hot women, but also broke some of the clich?s and tropes typical of Bond movies.
Spectre, however, embraces all these clich?s and is a Bond movie of the 60's, except it was made for 2015. It had everything that the oldest Bond movies had and have had for decades, everything that has been parodied in Austin Powers and so many other spy movies, every trope in the book.
Bond bangs women he just met five minutes ago, despite the context being terrible for it : check
Luxury cars for EVERYONE : check
Muscle-bound mute-type mini-boss dude : check
Impractical locations for strange constructions : check
Villain's outlandish lair : check
Villain's overly slow torture device holding Bond captive : check
Villain revealing his entire plan slowly : check
Now, I know the last previous movies had some of these clich?s in them too, but the point is that it kept some and modernized some, and broke some down to surprise the viewer. But this one throws it all away and goes back to the old roots, for better or worse, your mileage may vary.
It's like all the modernity of the 3 previous Bond movies vanished and we are now back to square one, old classic tropes of Bond movies. Besides, I'm not sure the intent of Casino Royale was to officially BE a reboot, mostly a soft reboot since yes 007 was new but we still had the old M and Q... but now it's officially a reboot since Blofeld is a new character in that universe, while Bond already fought and killed him decades prior.
I'm not sure what the studios intended for this movie, and since it's a huge franchise I'm sure a lot of people oversaw this being made and agreed with it, but I cannot really understand what was the intent.
Perplexed indeed.