In my campaign review of Spectre I wrote:
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the campaign and think it does its job well in setting up some larger mystery that’s tied to Bond’s past. And I’m a fan of how the Craig movies are all building off one another, with this potentially serving as the culmination of those stories. But it might be reaching just a bit too far since the marketing works really hard to make everything seem really big in a way that the movie itself may not be able to deliver on.
And yeah…it was a bit bloated. More specifically, there were three big kind of ideas that the movie presented to the audience but it never really delivered on any of them, one of which is that “larger mystery” the campaign sets up. Oh, it deals with it but it doesn’t really explore what that means and what repercussions it might have for Bond.
That being said, the campaign doesn’t differ in tone or focus from the movie itself so I can’t say that it’s misleading to the audience and don’t feel anyone’s expectations based on the campaign should be unmet. The marketing promises a good time with James Bond on some world-spanning adventures and it delivers on that. I just wish that the mysteries and character moments that are hinted at in the marketing had better payoffs.
