Solid if unspectacular Bond flick.
By Chris Tilly
The spectre of James Bond’s past looms large over this latest instalment in the billion dollar franchise. There are old scores demanding to be settled. Characters speaking from beyond the grave. And proceedings even open with the somewhat ominous words ‘The dead are alive.’ But while the new film neatly connects the Daniel Craig features, it never quite hits the highs of predecessor Skyfall; SPECTRE – the 24th official entry – delivers entertaining if unspectacular thrills.
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The dead are most definitely alive during the opening scene, with the drama taking place in Mexico City during Dia de los Muertos. And while it’s not the best of Bond’s pre-credit sequences, director Sam Mendes has crafted what might just be the coolest; James strutting the streets to a toe-tapping percussive score, weaving in and out of thousands of extras, and scaling the outside of a building in what looks like a single unbroken take. He then hunts his prey in an adrenaline-fueled chase, the scene only slightly spoiled by some dodgy CGI during the concluding punch-up in a helicopter.
The action then segues into Sam Smith’s dirge – accompanied by some great visuals that are filled with clues for what’s to follow – before SPECTRE starts proper, with two storylines unfolding side-by-side.
At home there are changes afoot, with Bond causing an international incident at much the same time as MI6 is facing the biggest shake-up in British intelligence history. A new facility is being built, while the slippery Max Denbigh (Sherlock’s Andrew Scott) has been made Head of the Joint Security Service.
Denbigh – whom Bond nicknames ‘C’ – believes 007 and his like to be prehistoric, and wants to take the department “out of the darkness and into the light” by replacing them with drones. Giving the story some post-Snowden, post-Wikileaks relevance, he also plans to utilise centralised surveillance to turn the agency into what one character calls “George Orwell’s worst nightmare.”
Meanwhile James is still reeling from his failure to save Judi Dench’s M at the end of the last film, and so when a shot at redemption rears its head, he defies Ralph Fiennes’ M in this one, embarking on a dangerous mission that, somewhat predictably, involves both beautiful woman and locales, and more mysteriously revolves around a character called ‘the pale king’ and Bond’s own personal effects recovered from the Skyfall explosion.
We want to hear it.
Then however, it feels like the film goes through the motions for what feels like an age. And this being the longest movie yet, at whopping 148-minutes, it pretty much is; the screenplay by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth dragging out each and every story beat.
James heads to Rome for a sequence that’s filled with opera, sexual tension, and a Monica Bellucci cameo. While there he discovers clues that send him to Austria, where he meets an old foe, another beautiful woman, and picks up more clues that lead him to Tangiers, where romance slowly blossoms and his efforts uncover a series of clues that send him to… well you get the picture. It’s a formula that’s turned the series into a global phenomenon, but one that feels like it needs freshening up a couple of hours into proceedings.
The investigation does eventually lead to the discovery – or rediscovery if you know your Bond history – of shady criminal organisation SPECTRE. And the introduction of its even shadier boss Franz Oberhauser, who is played by double Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz. His arrival is heavily hyped, the character talked about in hushed tones and initially only appearing in the shadows.
He certainly shares some great scenes with Craig; the two going toe-to-toe as 007 endeavours to understand his past to deal with this very present threat. But while Waltz infuses Franz with the charm and dry humour that’s become his trademark, he lacks the menace of Bond’s last foe, Silva; the character initially seeming creepy, then becoming somewhat goofy, but never transforming into the terrifying monster he’s built up to be, even when administering some admittedly quite painful looking torture.
Oberhauser is aided and abetted by a henchman who looks the part but also fails to seal the deal. Played by Guardians of the Galaxy star Dave Bautista, Hinx makes a great entrance by pulling off an imaginative kill that harks back to the days when Bond baddies used their teeth or a hat to take down their victims. But the character fails to make much of an impression after that, featuring in a car chase that pits Aston Martin DB10 against Jaguar C-X75 but ends up being pretty dull, and a train carriage brawl that harks back to a similar sequence in From Russia With Love but is over all too soon.
We want to hear it.
The rest of the ensemble fares much better. Jesper Christensen’s Mr. White makes a welcome return and shares a stand-out scene with 007, while Lea Seydoux lights up the screen as Madeline Swann, a character who is anything but a ‘Bond girl,’ giving as good as she gets and challenging James, his attitudes, and his behaviour at every turn. Seydoux could do with more screen time, but makes the best of what she’s got, and sparks certainly fly between her and Craig.
Back home the main players seem less like MI6 and more like the Mission: Impossible crew, with everyone playing their part. Naomi Harris’s Moneypenny becomes Bond’s confidante and most trusted ally while Ben Whishaw facilitates his globe-trotting efforts and even takes to the field himself. As for M, he goes toe-to-toe with C as the threat to national security turns into a full-blown crisis and those two storylines slowly merge.
But while SPECTRE builds to a conclusion that smartly ties-up multiple loose ends, it fails to pack the emotional punch of Skyfall and Casino Royale before it. There’s no lack of the spectacle and drama that we’ve come to expect from a Bond film, punctuated by several great one-liners, and cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema ensures that the visuals are never less than ravishing. But it lacks the memorable villain that 007 films demand, a stand-out action sequence that pushes you to the edge of your seat, or a moment of pure emotion to make the story truly resonate.
If the rumours are to be believed and this really is the last Bond for both director Sam Mendes and star Daniel Craig, the storyline neatly brings proceedings full circle. But while it’s a stylish feature, the film lacks true substance, with SPECTRE a solid effort but one that falls frustratingly short of greatness.
