10 Reasons Why Spectre Doesn’t Top Skyfall

Sam Mendes' Spectre, the 24th entry in the James Bond franchise, is not a bad film. Critical consensus indicates it's flawed, but still basically enjoyable and artfully made by a director who's proven surprisingly adept at blockbuster filmmaking. Nevertheless, Spectre has the misfortune of following one of the greatest Bond movies of all-time: Mendes' own Skyfall. A Bond film made to simultaneously bring 007 up-to-date and celebrate 50 years of the character, Skyfall is comfortably the best of the Daniel Craig Bonds. Spectre comes in at a respectable third.

Brogan Morris

Published: Nov 5, 2015 05:55 pm

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1) The Third Act Is Just Not Good Enough

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Skyfall suffered from third act problems, but it at least wrapped its story up satisfyingly. Spectre, on the other hand, almost falls apart in its own final stretch. It’s a sign of the talent of everyone involved – cast, director, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and composer Thomas Newman included – that it doesn’t quite feel like an unmitigated mess, but Spectre‘s third act is still just not good enough.

The generic, reconstituted action set-pieces, the two damp squib showdowns (between Bond and Oberhauser, and M and Scott’s Denbigh), and the romantic conclusion of Bond and Swann’s affair – it’s all finalized too neatly.

You can tell why execs weren’t happy with Spectre‘s finale, as revealed in the Sony hack: the film isn’t concluded nearly as gracefully as Skyfall was.

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Author

Brogan Morris