Spectre Reviews: 11 Early Reactions You Need To Know

4. Christoph Waltz Is A So-So Villain (But It's Not His Fault)

There's been an incredible amount of hype and jubilation surrounding the fact that the venerable Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz was cast to play villain Frans Oberhauser, even ignoring the fact that many are dead-convinced that he's going to be a modern day version of legendary baddie Ernst Stavro Blofeld (but we'll neither confirm nor deny that here). Reception to Oberhauser has actually been relatively mixed, for though Waltz is commended for his performance, criticism has been aimed at his belated arrival in the movie (his first significant appearance coming "late in the third act"), and the fact that Waltz is by design asked to deliver a turn that's referential to both classic Bond villains and his own award-winning antagonists from other movies ("he€™s working to match comforting series archetypes rather than transcend them"). HeyUGuys said that Oberhauser is "perhaps at the mercy of being, well, a little too mysterious, not quite utilising Waltz€™s sinister, savage sensibilities in a way that had been expected", while Indiewire groaned that "he€™s giving the same performance he always does". Also unexpected and downright worrying is that several outlets compared Oberhauser's character to something out of a Bond spoof, with Digital Spy remarking, "he's a malevolent force hampered by credibility-straining motivation that's right out of Austin Powers." It sounds very much like Waltz was written into a corner, and try though he does, his villain has been almost universally seen as inferior to Javier Bardem's Raoul Silva from the previous film.