Spectre opens in spectacular fashion. Bond films have always been famous for their pre-credits action sequences, and director Sam Mendes serves up a whopper. Beginning with a Touch of Evil meets Goodfellas tracking shot that's simply mindboggling, as James Bond (Daniel Craig) makes his way through a ravishingly elaborate Dia de los Muertos parade in Mexico City, culminating in the most amazing helicopter stunt sequence in the history of helicopters. It's a scene most movies would kill for in their finales, and Spectre dares to start there. So it's a hell of a shame the rest of the movie never quite matches that sublime start.
Designed as a direct sequel to the superior Skyfall, Spectre also aims to knit-up threads from all the previous Daniel Craig Bond outings - to suggest that one nefarious entity has been pulling the strings all along. Great concept. And for the first fortyish minutes, Spectre is downright engaging and entertaining. In an obvious bit of casting, the minute we lay eyes on Andrew "Moriarty" Scott, we know he's going to be in league with the larger Shadowy Them. There's a crackerjack car chase with the new Aston Martin DB10, and Hoyte Van Hoytema's cinematography (Her, Interstellar) is sensational.
But we've got script problems. Not quite Quantum of Solace problems, because at least Spectre is trying everything but the kitchen sink. But the good will of that first act quickly evaporates and we're left with a very muddled segue into a frankly daft and silly grand finale. Part of the problem is actress
Léa Seydoux, who I'm sure is a perfectly lovely person, but who takes a quantum step backwards in the lineage of useless Bond-girls. She's no Rebecca Ferguson, that's for sure.
The hands of way too many writers are painfully evident here, as the tone careens all over the place. A mid-point airplane stunt pales woefully in comparison with that earlier helicopter work. Dave Bautista is exudes threatening charisma as a villain cobbled from the Jaws/Oddjob mold. There's a tremendous fistfight on a moving train that very deliberately tries to out-punch the threat level of Robert Shaw in From Russia with Love. And that's a big part of the problem with Spectre - it's so deliberate and intentional in its repeated call-backs to earlier Bond motifs that it starts to feel less like a movie and more of an exercise in generating Easter Eggs for audience recognition. Where that was done with aplomb and wit in Skyfall, here it seems to be pandering broadly to the cheap seats, which is likely why the lackluster reviews haven't hurt the box office. Spectre absolutely looks and walks and mimics all the iconic beats of a classic old school James Bond movie, but it feels like Bond-by-committee, and loses enormous swaths of the grounded realism the previous Craig films have worked so hard to establish. A gag involving a slow-moving car and an airbag sends us careening right back into Roger Moore territory.
We tend to judge a Bond picture by its villain, and Christoph Waltz gets a great introduction that hearkens back to the heyday of Thunderball. Bathed in shadow, indistinct, Waltz radiates quiet menace that's genuinely unsettling. Which is what makes his later transformation to sockless wide-eyed clown all the more baffling. He never recaptures that initial threatening stillness, and his keyboard torture of Bond is just completely off-putting and lame.
And we haven't even made it to the end yet. Yes, the title song is as lackluster as you've heard, and the love interest is just a crashing bore. I don't fault Daniel Craig here, as he's resolute and convincing, while more glib with the dialogue than we've previously heard. But he sells it, and it's very likely his star quality that's pushing the movie past its eye-rolling impediments into box office success. If this is his last outing as Bond, it's a bit of a shame, as Spectre's something of a buzz-kill after the seamless intelligence of Skyfall.
Spectre is a fun night out, and you could do a hell of a lot worse. It's crazy entertaining at times. And crazy-crazy at others. Bond fans should definitely check it out and decide for themselves. Adjust your expectations accordingly.
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