‘Spectre’ – A Shadow of Bond At Its Best

    Spectre, double-0 Craig’s supposed last foray into the franchise, is just Bond-y enough to be quite good; but it seriously misses a trick and fails to build at all upon the brilliance of Skyfall. In my memory, the latest portion of Bond’s filmic saga can flexibly be stated as: Casino Royale – An exciting new, modern Bond with a few less gadgets and a few more punches

Quantum of Solace – A confusing let-down of a sequel obviously building up to something bigger

Skyfall – The long awaited Bond with a new dark atmosphere and insidious villain that aptly reflects the times.

Thus, Spectre can be shortlisted as a conservative reversion to formula and pap that seems completely mis-sold (as is often the case) on the tone of its trailer. Frankly, Spectre fails to explore the most interesting avenues that it presents and could have done with a considerable darker and more brooding mood for the case of 007 turning rogue and being blacklisted. My thoughts, without giving too much away.

While some of Spectre’s attempts to revert to type and give little nods to its predecessors, including Ernst Blofeld and the classic cars of Bond, it feels tacked on and was already done to more success in its predecessor. Most notably, the attempt to reintroduce the classic henchman figure slowly morphs predictably into just another large thug who is treated to an inevitable and innovative death. Sigh. The laughs are, however, well placed – a small victory. Other actors too, such as Rory Kinnear and Naomie Harris, may as well not have been in this film and the creative team behind Léa Seydoux’s character as the love interest should be fired for their predictability in the creation of a thoroughly 2d character.

The sex, even, is more interesting and evocative of the suave almost-lasciviousness expected of Bond in its occurrence, surprisingly, not with the “Bond-girl”. The inevitable sex scene between Craig and Seydoux literally follows the line: ‘what shall we do now?’ The promise o the long, opening tracking-shot, reminiscent of that famous rooftops scene in The Godfather Pt.II, is rounded off with an overly-long high octane sequence in a helicopter – big vehicles set-pieces having, frankly, too much screen time by the end of the film.

But perhaps Spectre’s most unforgiveable fault is its bizarre neglecting of the only interesting parts; it is so nearly a good film. The villain, the name of which I will retain for fear of having hinted too much already, develops a truly interesting Batman-Joker style obsession with Bond – leading him through a maze littered with the visages of his dead friends and lovers through the burnt ruins of MI5; now that’s villainous. Again the lurking insidiousness of Spectre as organisation (the hint’s in their name for Christ sake) during their meeting where Bond is discovered (as seen in the trailer) is foregone for the classic ‘I’m a villain, I want money/power’ trope which bafflingly offers no motivation here. Potentially most interesting aspect of Spectre basically comes out of nowhere and fades into the background of insignificance (the true Spectre in this film) in aid of a tonal disjointed film that is ultimately, at best, enjoyable.