directed by Sam Mendes
The movie opens in Mexico City as James Bond (Craig) chases a man through the streets and then on to a helicopter. They fight as the helicopter flies above Mexico City. Bond takes the man's ring and then after a struggle throws first the man and then the pilot from the helicopter.
Bond gets reprimanded by M (Ralph Fiennes) when he returns to London. Bond tries to claim that he was there on vacation but M isn't buying it. He suspends Bond from active duty. Bond goes to see Q (Ben Whishaw) who injects him with a tracking device.
Bond is supposed to stay in London but he goes to Rome, to the funeral of the man whom he ejected from the helicopter. Lucia (Monica Belluci), the man's wife, expects to be killed by her dead husband's employer. Bond saves her from that and urges her to contact Felix Leiter.
Bond infiltrates a meeting of the secret organization known as Spectre. He sees Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista), their new top assassin, kill a man in cold blood in the middle of the meeting. Hinx chases Bond through the streets of Rome in a car chase. Bond loses his car but escapes unscathed.
Bond travels to Austria where he finds Mr. White (Jesper Christensen), who was last seen in Quantum of Solace. Mr. White is dying, he's been poisoned with Thalium. He asks Bond to take care of his daughter. He tells Bond where he can find her, shows him a picture, and then kills himself.
Bond finds the mountain top hospital where Dr. Madeline Swann (Léa Seydoux), Mr. White's daughter, works. He is unable to talk her into coming with him for her own safety. She is instead kidnapped by Hinx and some of his men. Bond comes after them in a small propeller plane. The plane is destroyed but Bond rescues Dr. Swann.
Bond has a clue that he doesn't fully understand but Dr. Swann does. It leads them to a hotel in Tangiers where her parents used to stay. There they find a secret room with Mr. White's secret files, including a video tape of Vesper Lynd. Bond chooses not to look at the video tape. The information he finds in the secret room leads them out into the desert.
They take a train to a remote spot in the desert. They are attacked while they are still on the train by Mr. Hinx. He almost throws Bond off the train but in the end it is Hinx who gets dragged off the train while it is still moving at high speed.
A car meets Bond and Swann in the desert. It takes them to a research facility in a crater. There they meet the man behind Spectre, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz). He knew Bond when he was younger and blames Bond for some of the misfortune in his life. He also reveals that he was the one behind the deaths of many of the women in Bond's life including Vesper Lynd.
Blofeld restrains and attempts to kill Bond but he escapes thanks in large part to an explosive watch that Q gave him. Bond and Swann escape from the desert facility and blow it up. They go to London. Bond reunites with his MI-6 mates (M, Q, Moneypenny, Tanner). Together they plan to stop C (Andrew Scott) from implementing his plan to tie together all security networks worldwide.
Swann decides she's had enough and says goodbye to Bond. Bond gets captured by men who work for Blofeld. They take him to MI-6 old building which is getting ready to be demolished. Blofeld is there. He's captured Dr. Swann. He escapes. Bond rushes around madly trying to find Swann and rescue her before the building blows up. They escape in the nick of time and then have to go after Blofeld.
Thoughts
Felix Leiter is mentioned but does not appear in this move. I know Andrew Scott best from the second season of Fleabag.
I enjoyed this movie but in some ways it is either a little or way too much. There are a lot of scenes and moments that reminded me of old school Bond, specifically Sean Connery's version of the character. The fight scene on the train made me think of From Russia with Love. There is no moment like the chase scenes in Madagascar (Casino Royale) or Istanbul (Skyfall) that really got me excited. I did enjoy the chase scenes they just didn't reach quite the heights that those two did.
I actually got kind of emotional at a few moments in the last 20-30 minutes of the movie. It does seem like, when I look back on it after the fact, that they crammed an awful lot into the end of the movie. It didn't seem that way when I was watching it but as I was writing my summary of the movie I realized that there were a ridiculous number twists in the tale.
The movie didn't drag at all for me but I did watch it at home and I took a few breaks but I watched the whole thing over the course of an afternoon.
This might work better for old school bond fans.
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