What is it with 2015 blockbusters and an almost flippant approach to pacing? Fantastic Four was so clearly made in the edit and Avengers: Age Of Ultron barrelled along faster than Quicksilver (bar that extended stop off at Hawkeye's farm), and now Spectre arrives with a scattershot plot that speeds and stagnates in all the wrong places. The film is essentially following Bond tracking down a couple of loose threads from the opening (and the end of Skyfall, sort of), but he's also a good few paces ahead of the audience, in possession of knowledge we have no way of being privvy to. Because of this we jump from on pretty backdrop to another without ever really knowing the full reason why, or what to expect when we get to the new destination. At points Bond himself doesn't know exactly what's going, which is refreshing, but the speed here (and the general relaxation when an action scene comes along) make Spectre's narrative hard to invest in. In particular, character motivations fall flat; they are often stated without proof, something that effects Oberhauser, Mr. Hinx and definitely Monica Bellucci's Lucia Sciarra, although the biggest casualty is Madeline Swann. Léa Seydoux is phenomenal as this multi-layered Bond girl, the best female companion since Vesper Lynd (and one of the few things in the film that is better than the Skyfall equivalent), even though every single step in her arc (and she does go through a transformation) comes out of left-field. On film twenty-four it's a given that the attractive woman will fall for the government-sanctioned killer, but, with such an expanded role from the norm, Swann needs time to mature.
