A Night with James Bond and Omega

There’s no doubt I enjoy some of the perks of being a watch blogger. Getting watches to review, and being afforded special access to new releases is fun, but last night was a real treat. In partnership with Omega, Shreve, Crump & Low, a local Boston jeweler and authorized dealer, invited me to the premier of SPECTRE. As I’ve mentioned in a few other articles, I’m a huge Bond nerd, and combined with Omega being one of my favorite brands, I was quite excited to get the invite. This is going to be a bit of an odd article for us, what with giving my take on a movie more so than a watch, but bear with my fandom for a few hundred words. And for those afraid of spoilers, I’ll keep this as spoiler-free as possible.

Overall, I can safely say I enjoyed the film. My immediate reaction when the film ended was that it was awesome, but having some time to reflect, I’d drop that down to somewhere between a “good” to “very good”. The action sequences were fantastic throughout, but the script could have used some tightening up. Certain aspects of the plot felt a bit underdeveloped, specifically with the villain side of things. It’s possible the early script leak played a big part in later re-writes, or maybe the writers just tried to fit too much into the 148-minute runtime.

Of all the Bond movies, SPECTRE utilized the most callbacks to the older films, from subtle to not so subtle. I loved the callbacks, especially the more subtle ones, but I wonder how those will play with less enthusiastic fans. One of the things that might not play well with non-Bond fans is the return of Roger Moore-esque campiness. Don’t worry, it’s not over the top, but definitely expect a few more cheap jokes than Craig’s previous Bond films.

The cast of SPECTRE is arguably one of the strongest yet, which is mostly because of the addition of Christoph Waltz as Hans Oberhauser. He’s obviously become one of the hottest actors in the last few years, and for good reason. Unfortunately, his role in the movie is one of the underdeveloped parts. I’ll leave it at that before I spoil his role further. I thought Léa Seydoux was fantastic as the lead Bond girl. She was a solid mix of Diana Rigg from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Eva Green from Casino Royale. I can’t stand useless Bond girls, but Seydoux was smart, capable, and absolutely stunning. The highlight for me on the character side was Dave Bautista as Mr. Hinx; he was menacing. There was a point where, even though I knew Bond would survive (obviously), I didn’t think it was possible. Bautista is such a freaking giant, Craig looked like a ten year old fighting his ‘captain of the varsity football team’ brother. From that highlight, the lowlight had to be Monica Bellucci. She was given very little screen time, and I wonder how many of her scenes were left on the cutting room floor.

So, how about that Omega? Well, I’d say the Seamaster Master Co-Axial got the most blatant screen time of any other Omega, save for maybe Brosnan’s laser-clad Omega in Goldeneye. From the early set photos, I was quite sure Craig was wearing the standard Master Coaxial, but the movie showed the newly released SPECTRE edition. Q issues the watch to Bond, who had been wearing his Aqua Terra prior to that point, and of course, Q being Q, the watch is outfitted with an additional functionality that most certainly is not featured in the version available at authorized dealers. I really hope Omega continues to create limited edition versions that Bond actually wears in the movie.

Now that my excitement has died down a bit, I probably should watch SPECTRE again. I’m afraid it won’t fare as well upon multiple viewings, but I could be wrong. If nothing else, I’ll be able to focus on picking up even more nods to previous Bond films. If I had to rate SPECTRE amongst its predecessors, I’d give it a 7.5/10, and say it’s absolutely worth the price of admission. The scenery and cinematography is on par with Skyfall, and the action scenes are probably best viewed on the big screen with big sound. Thanks again to Shreve Crump & Low for letting this Bond fan in on last night’s fun.

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