Spectre movie review & film summary (2015)

Or maybe—blasphemy alert—the problem is Craig's performance. He might be the most drop-dead-serious actor  to play Bond, and he probably comes closer than anyone to making the character seem plausibly human (Pierce Brosnan had his moments, even though the scripts were even less inclined to support his efforts than Craig's). But as the character has become increasingly opaque and recessive—so much so that Mendes and company seem less interested in Bond as a cold but complex person than as a sculptural object to light and pose—you may wonder what the point is. This Bond is a sinewy husk of a man, pursing his lips and staring into the middle distance. He's turned into the narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" but with a sidearm. The actor and the writers give us so little to grab onto that it's hard to sense Bond's feelings, much less feel with him. Late in "Spectre," we're supposed to believe that Bond is truly attached to his love interest, Lea Seydoux's Madeleine Swann (nice double Proust reference there). She reciprocates the craggy killer's affection even though, as she rightly observes, she was living in hiding for years until Bond led the bad guys straight to her. But there's little in this film's writing of Bond, or in Craig's performance, to imply that the character is capable of investing in anything more emotionally fraught than a martini mixed with house vodka. 

Or perhaps the problem is historical fatigue. Even the better bits of "Spectre," such as a close-quarters fistfight on a passenger train between Bond and a thick-necked henchman (Dave Bautista of "Guardians of the Galaxy"), and a mostly wordless, almost one-take stalking/assassination sequence set during a Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City, pale in comparison to their Bondian inspirations (respectively, "From Russia with Love," and "Live and Let Die" by way of "Octopussy"). We've been assured by the producers that "Spectre" contains homages to every previous Bond picture. That's great if you go to films mainly for Easter egg-style trivia in the form of situations and props. But it's not so great if you're inclined to take the makers of these films at their word, and expect a Bond film like "Casino Royale," something with more brains and nuance than the usual, as opposed to a film that purports to be that kind of movie but is content to posture and strut rather than doing the necessary dramatic spadework.

Whatever the explanation(s), "Spectre" is the third Bond film in a row to write conceptual and dramatic checks that the movie itself can't cash. We're at the point now where these films are consistently more fun to anticipate than they are to watch. The media campaigns tend to be more cunning and surprising than anything that ends up onscreen. This film won political correctness kudos for casting Monica Bellucci as Bond's first age-appropriate lover (she's two years older than Craig), but "Spectre" itself squanders her in two scenes, then ditches her for the 30-year old Seydoux. Blofeld's chief henchman is a bust, just a muscleman in a suit; he makes a memorably nasty entrance blinding a rival with his thumbs, but from then on, he's all sneers and punches and kicks. Blofeld fizzles, too. Waltz, who tends to give the same performance over and over with minor variations but at least has the decency to be a hoot each time, is in "Spectre" only slightly longer than Bellucci, and has been drained of the glee he displayed in Quentin Tarantino's films. The payoff of his character's storyline is so dumb that it makes the "twist" in "Star Trek Into Darkness" seem sensible and heartfelt. Stupider still is Bond's reaction when he finally gets the drop on his nemesis. Bags of Scrabble tiles make more sense.

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