Film No. 7 (2016) Spectre January 24th.

Film No. 7 (2016) January 24th.  8.00 PM CAMELOT Outdoor Mosman Park. 

"And I thought you came here to die" (Is the summation from the mouth of "bad guy" Franz (Christoph Waltz) in a short exchange with 007 (Daniel Craig))

Why did I find Spectre so underwhelming? Is it because Goldfinger is still my favourite Bond film of all time and nothing will ever change my mind about this? Or is it that because action films are now so encrusted with CGI images that money isn't available for script development? or is it just the fact Spectre is merely a mediocre, 007 effort?


Honestly, I think there are elements of truth in each of the above questions but in the main, Spectre tries too hard to encapsulate every aspect a Bond movie has and comes up as a master of none of them. It's a shame because if this is to be Daniel Craig's exit performance from the franchise, then he'll be disappointed he didn't exit on a high. 


Right, so what happens? We catch up with Mr Bond, in Mexico at a Parade of the Dead. Prior to the opening titles Bond wreaks havoc on a mega scale, as we would expect, after which he is relieved of his duties. While in the naughty corner he receives a cryptic message which leads him on the trail of Spectre, an evil organization controlled by Blofeld (Christoph Walz). Meanwhile M (Ralph Fiennes) and Q (Ben Whishaw) are battling C (Andrew Scott) to prevent the shutting down of MI6 and the 00 program. Director Mendes takes us from the moody, linear story-line (Skyfall) to a parallel narrative. 


And then there are the girls. Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), Dr Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux) and Lucia (Monica Bellucci) are gorgeous and talented like all good Bond girls should be but there is nothing original about their presence. It may be however, that I might have nodded off at an odd key moment, so I'm not certain the girls were under achievers throughout. The few awards it has won or been nominated for relate to the music, best song (Sam Smith) won a Golden Globe. The song runs for 4 minutes so maybe that is the highlight. As previously stated, perhaps at the impressionable age of nine, Goldfinger made too big an impression on me.  6GUMS.