'Spectre' review

"You're a kite dancing in a hurricane, Mr Bond."

Spectre is the 24^th outing for Ian Fleming’s iconic James Bond, and the fourth for Daniel Craig’s portrayal of the character. Bond is flung into yet another international crisis when a mysterious message puts him on the trail of a dangerous organisation that seek world domination.

Bond returns to head off the villainous 'Spectre'.

The plot of Spectre returns somewhat to the spectacle and outlandish stories of the classic Bond films whilst still retaining the gritty modern edge and reflecting real world issues.  It should come as no surprise that the titular organisation Spectre come out of the shadows for the first time in Craig’s gritty relaunch of the series after a legal dispute over copyright held the Spectre name away from the films. However the series hasn’t exactly been subtle about attempting to slyly reuse or replace the hole Spectre left. Bond found himself facing off against the eerily similar Quantum in the first two instalments, and unsurprisingly Spectre has the organisation return and revealed as a mere subsidiary of the larger villainous scheme. When one considers that there was no way the prior three films were written to tie in to the latest, it’s hard not to give the script credit for tying them all together rather neatly. If Skyfall was the true coming together of Daniel Craig’s origin of the hero, then Spectre wastes no time in setting up his antagonist so that the four films come together as an almost perfect origin of the James Bond mythos.

Dave Bautista shines as the intimidating henchman Hinx.

However, Skyfall proved to be a tough act to follow, and despite Sam Mendes returning to direct, splutters in trying to escape the shadow of the predecessor. There is still a distinct style lingering from Skyfall, and that’s a compliment. The combination of Mendes’ directing, Newman’s score, returning screenwriters and the supporting cast creates a similar feel here that is more than welcome. The first two acts do a superb job of setting up a terrifyingly vague villain for Bond to fight against, spearheaded by Christoph Waltz’s Oberhauser with Dave Bautista’s Mr Hinx providing the muscle. Both actors manage to be intimidating in their own way. Waltz’s mystery and calmness is a worthy foil to Bond, and Bautista’s silent yet brutally deadly Hinx proves to be more than just a thorn in the hero’s side. Léa Seydoux’s performance is also notably interesting, and Craig’s Bond is serviceable yet there feels like missed opportunity to show more range from him in certain scenes with Oberhauser. The action is masterfully directed (the opening shot is proof enough of that). The pacing is incredibly swift. The story is extremely intriguing to say the least. But then towards the end of the second act, a major plot point comes into play and the film grinds to a halt as the creative team clearly struggle with how to continue.

Christoph Waltz's Oberhauser doesn't live up to all it could be.

Perhaps the reasoning behind the third act problems ironically lie with one of the film’s incredible strengths. The blending of classic Bond iconography with the modern gritty reimagining manages to work successfully for the most part. Classic Bond fights through here more than it ever has with Craig as the frontrunner, and there are more than just a few tidbits that are sure to excite fans of the older Bond generation. But when it comes to blending in more heavy parts of the classic mythos, the film struggles to maintain interest as it undergoes teething issues. There are also some issues with the antagonists in the third act. The problem with trying to establish Spectre as the puppet masters behind all the villainy in the Craig movies is that you insinuate the organisation has deviously unstoppable intelligence, and their plans are relentless if not unstoppable. This puts incredible pressure on the screenwriters to create a tangible threat for Bond to tackle in the climax whilst also maintaining the illusion behind Spectre, and they don’t manage to have it pay off. When compared to the raid on Skyfall in the previous film, the climax to Spectre is unfortunately bland and predictable, even compared to its own earlier action sequences.

'Spectre' has issues towards the end, but is still an incredibly fun experience.

Predictability is perhaps one of the key issues with Spectre, as the film attempts to have a twisting narrative when in fact every plot point is painfully obvious. Even without the script leaks of the Sony hacking, there would be no hiding any surprises in this script. Despite this, and key issues with the characterisation of Oberhauser and his organisation in the third act,  Spectre remains a fun and exciting entry into the Bond franchise that hopefully lays the groundwork for bigger and better things for the character. 

Spectre  -  7 / 10

'The Martian' review

"I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this!"

'The Martian' is the latest directorial effort from Ridley Scott which follows Mark Watney, portrayed by Matt Damon, who finds himself stranded on Mars when a storm strikes during a manned mission. After a slew of critical disappointments, many fans were waiting to see how Ridley Scott's latest feature panned out, and whether it could promise a return to form for the legendary director. With a popular novel as source material and a spectacular cast, it was looking hopeful. Just as an important side note, if you have not yet seen the trailers for 'The Martian', I highly recommend you skip them. They spoil a lot of details in the film that would have otherwise provided dramatic tension, and they actually even spoil some content from the third act of the film.

With all that said, it feels great to finally say that 'The Martian' really demonstrates Ridley Scott back on form. The film struck similarities among the general public with recent films such as 'Gravity' and 'Interstellar' (especially given shared cast members with the latter), but perhaps the best compliment I can pay 'The Martian' is how unique the experience feels. Scott trades the glum and ultra-serious tones that similar films use, and instead presents us with something genuinely fun and entertaining to watch while masterfully blending in just enough drama to keep up the suspense. This is undoubtedly due to three main aspects: Scott's masterful directing comeback, Matt Damon's extremely likable portrayal of astronaut Watney, and a damn near perfect screenplay by Drew Goddard. The three work so well together to ensure that scenes following one abandoned character avoid the pitfalls of becoming overlong and dreary, and instead become the most entertaining parts of the film.

The film, of course, has a little more going on to it than simply following Damon trying to survive. And without going into too much detail, the scenes that don't follow him are almost as entertaining as the ones that do. Once again, a stellar supporting cast really helped these scenes. The film uses huge and recognizable names for some really small roles that helped to develop what could have easily become cliche forgettable characters into memorable highlights. I won't mention specific actors regarding small roles, both for the sake of keeping the surprise as well as not hyping up such small roles, but I will call out Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean and Chiwetel Ejiofor for their larger roles. One thing the film handled especially well in these sequences was the conflict between characters. Again, without going into detail, the film handled both sides of an argument equally and let the audience decide what the best viewpoint was, and didn't have to fall back on a cheap "evil" character reveal to create conflict like another certain space exploration film did.

As if an astonishing screenplay, cast and director weren't enough to hook you in, 'The Martian' is also a visual marvel. The 3D actually added a layer of depth to the film and helped to draw you in to Mars. The juxtaposition of scenes set on Earth, which usually had a drab grey look, and the ones on Mars with the vivid red was also an interesting use of visuals, and one which made Mars seem less of a desolate hell and more of an attractive scenery. The CGI was always extremely convincing, and sequences never looked fake or poor. And perhaps most importantly, the film was shot beautifully, especially the scenes on Mars. Throw in an awesomely nostalgic soundtrack that almost rivals 'Guardians of the Galaxy' for oddball space mixtape and some pretty damn spot on science that was presented in an interesting matter, and 'The Martian' is perhaps the best space exploration film we've seen in a long time.

The Martian  -  9 / 10