Spectre
Directed by: Sam Mendes
Written by: John Logan and Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth - Based on the characters by Ian Fleming
Starring: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Dave Bautista, Monica Bellucci, Ralph Fiennes, Andrew Scott, Rory Kinnear, Jesper Christensen
Action/Adventure/Thriller - 148 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 3 Nov 2015
Written by: John Logan and Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth - Based on the characters by Ian Fleming
Starring: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Dave Bautista, Monica Bellucci, Ralph Fiennes, Andrew Scott, Rory Kinnear, Jesper Christensen
Action/Adventure/Thriller - 148 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 3 Nov 2015
Spectre is the fourth James Bond film starring Daniel Craig and I hope you remembered to take notes on the first three because they’re all coming back. All of the villains and most of the women are mentioned at least once, if not a few times, and an important character pops up from Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, but I, like 99% of the audience, do not remember who he was or what he did. While Spectre is a medium-term memory test only the most hardcore Bond fans may hope to pass, it will still entertain the casual Bond fan with a stunning opening action sequence in Mexico City and some by the numbers bits in Rome, Austria, North Africa, and London. Spectre is nowhere near as gut-wrenching as the superb Casino Royale (2006) and not as memorable as Skyfall (2012). Thankfully, it is not as miserable as Quantum of Solace. Spectre does what is required to fill in the gaps and gives us all another adventure to hang our hats on for the next couple years before they throw Bond 25 down the chute. However, it does not go above and beyond.
The name Spectre reminds those of us who have seen the films from the ’60s and ‘70s of the evil, global shadow organization James Bond repeatedly confronts. In the new Bond timeline begun in 2006 with Casino Royale, Spectre has been curiously absent but now confidently strolls onto center stage. There is a central arch villain, his henchmen Army, one dominating physically distinct thug, and a couple of women who will for the rest of their lives be known as Bond girls. There is also a 2015 Aston Martin which gets more screen time than one of the Bond girls, a new M, and easily the worst opening song in the franchise’s very long history with Sam Smith’s wretched “Writing’s on the Wall.” Coming on the tails of Adele’s Skyfall, this song can’t end soon enough. I can already hear you saying, "But what about 'The Living Daylights' and 'Never Say Never Again'?" Yes, those are all musical crimes in their own way, but these opening numbers should be getting better every time. "Writing's on the Wall" backslides all the way back to "All Time High", the atrocious opening to Octopussy.
The name Spectre reminds those of us who have seen the films from the ’60s and ‘70s of the evil, global shadow organization James Bond repeatedly confronts. In the new Bond timeline begun in 2006 with Casino Royale, Spectre has been curiously absent but now confidently strolls onto center stage. There is a central arch villain, his henchmen Army, one dominating physically distinct thug, and a couple of women who will for the rest of their lives be known as Bond girls. There is also a 2015 Aston Martin which gets more screen time than one of the Bond girls, a new M, and easily the worst opening song in the franchise’s very long history with Sam Smith’s wretched “Writing’s on the Wall.” Coming on the tails of Adele’s Skyfall, this song can’t end soon enough. I can already hear you saying, "But what about 'The Living Daylights' and 'Never Say Never Again'?" Yes, those are all musical crimes in their own way, but these opening numbers should be getting better every time. "Writing's on the Wall" backslides all the way back to "All Time High", the atrocious opening to Octopussy.
Kicking off during Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico City, the opening sequence is perhaps the film’s best. The camera stalks Bond in what appears to be a long, unbroken shot but with some clever edits mixed in so you don’t notice the cuts. Spectre is reportedly the most expensive Bond film yet made falling somewhere in between $300 and $350 million and I can see why. There must be a couple thousand extras all dressed to the nines celebrating the Day of the Dead and Mexico City has never looked so good. There are rumors the Mexican government paid Sony to portray Mexico in a positive light, but even so, director Sam Mendes knocks it out of the park. The film also begins with the words, “The dead are alive,” perhaps more foreshadowing than merely setting up the Day of the Dead.
007 gets in trouble for his Mexican hiatus as none of it was sanctioned by MI6, undergoing bureaucratic hell as MI5 moves in to take it over. M (Ralph Fiennes, 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel) walks on eggshells around C (Andrew Scott, 2014’s Locke) who considers the 00 program obsolete and relishes how easy Bond is making it for him to kill the program. C is fashioning a new global super-intelligence association and is the impetus behind Spectre’s main theme, government surveillance, a hot button contemporary topic just as cyber-terrorism featured in Skyfall three years ago.
The bad guy Bond dispatches in Mexico leaves a widow to be interrogated and consoled played by Monica Bellucci (2011’s The Whistleblower), one of the very rare times a Bond girl is actually older than the womanizing spy. The widow is merely a brief interlude before we reach Bond’s central love interest for this installment, Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux, 2012’s Farewell, My Queen). Lucky for us, Madeleine is not the sort of doctor we endured when Denise Richards played nuclear scientist Dr. Christmas Jones in 1999’s The World Is Not Enough. Madeleine is vulnerable, not a certified action hero, yet can hold her own against the world’s foremost misogynist.
Bond’s necessary supporting cast do not disappoint either. Moneypenny (Naomie Harris, 2013’s Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom), who now has a backstory from Skyfall negotiates the treacherous territory amidst London’s espionage infighting and Q (Ben Whishaw, 2012’s Cloud Atlas) is subtly Bond’s most loyal backer even though he offers strict neutrality to the execs in public. It’s all old vs. new; big data and supercomputers against field agents getting their hands dirty, with the more than occasional vodka martini.
More memorable than the chorus line of girls though are the Bond villains. Christoph Waltz (2014's Big Eyes) stays hidden until well into the film and strategically stationed in shadows at the world's largest conference table. His German-accented English brings to mind his cruel character, Col. Hans Landa, from Inglourious Basterds, in how much of a good time he is having playing cat to Bond's mouse. We've seen Bond get tortured before, but this one hits a new, more clinical tone, involving precisely placed needles. We'll all find out together if this is truly Daniel Craig's final go around as Bond and the filmmakers were clever to wait and see. Spectre wraps up this four film series but it does not entirely shut the door either.
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