No, haven’t gone to see the film.  As I said in my previous post, reading the reviews and discovering the “big” spoiler created a really bad taste in my mouth, one which I’ll get into in a moment.

In that previous post, I didn’t want to get into spoiler territory but now that the film has been out for several days and no doubt word of what this spoiler is has circulated among fans of the James Bond franchise, I feel safer in exploring it.

Of course, what I’m about to get into is still…

SPOILER TERRITORY!

You’ve been warned!

Ok, so in that previous post (you can read the full thing here) I offered a link to one review in particular, that of Drew McWeeny for hitfix.com.  The review can be found here.

There are two “big” reveals in the review.  The first was to be expected: The character of Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) turned out to be Blofeld.  Considering this film was named “Spectre” and anyone with even a passing knowledge of the fictitious evil organization knows that its head is Blofeld, I can only scratch my head as to why they chose to “hide” this fact.

I mean, EVERYONE knew that Mr. Waltz (despite the actor’s protestations) was playing the character.  It was a weak repeat of the weak “surprise” that John Harrison was in actuality Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).  I suppose one of the earlier examples of the use of this concept in modern times (and modern blockbuster films) was in 2005’s Batman Begins where Liam Neeson’s Ducard is revealed to be…someone else.  This concept was used again in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) with the revelation that Marion Cotillard’s Miranda wasn’t who she said she was, though even by that point audiences were already suspecting she was a certain character’s daughter.

Moving beyond this by now well worn trope, what really infuriated me -as well as Mr. McWeeny- regarding Spectre was this:

…the reason that Oberhauser became a criminal mastermind in charge of an international organization that is involved in human trafficking, drugs, terrorism, and myriad other destructive crimes is because when James Bond’s parents died, Bond was sent to live with the Oberhausers, and Papa Oberhauser decided he liked James Bond better than he liked his real son, Franz.

Yes. It’s true. Blofeld is Blofeld because his daddy liked James Bond more than him.

Wow.

I mean, wow.

Talk about cheap, pseudo-psychological crap.  One comes away feeling Oberhauser/Blofeld needs to get a grip.  I take it back: the screenwriters of Spectre need to get a grip.  How could they use this concept (already used as a joke in the last Austin Powers film!) and think it would come out as anything other than silly?

But like the “revelation” that Oberhauser is in reality Blofeld, the links between villain and hero also have a history.  A history that, by this point, has also slid into cliche.

Who can forget…

Many were totally blown away by this revelation though it, like the concept that Luke and Leia were siblings, was clearly a post original Star Wars creation.

A few years later, Tim Burton’s original Batman introduced this element which, though not familiar per se, created a sense that Joker/Batman were intertwined more than had ever originally been conceived:

In the comic books, the Wayne’s killer was a low level hoodlum named Joe Chill.  In this movie, Jack Napier/The Joker “creates” Batman and Batman, later in the film, creates the Joker.  Its one of those “neat” concepts that are perhaps a little too neat and can only occur in films that deal with the fanstastic.

Now that Spectre is out (and doing fairly well in theaters, though its box office wasn’t quite as high as Skyfall) and it might be Daniel Craig’s last go at the James Bond character, I suspect a major re-evaluation of his films is in the offing.  While the Pierce Brosnan films were box-office successes, following his departure people gave his run a second look and it turned out those films didn’t have legs.  Most today dismiss the Brosnan run as weak even though it did well enough to warrant four films.

I wonder if the same may happen with Mr. Craig’s four film run.  For my money and without having seen Spectre yet (I will, but probably not in theaters), the only really good Daniel Craig Bond film is Casino Royale, but only because it so very well created an “origin” of the Bond character.  I was hoping subsequent films would fully grasp the fun/action/suspense nature of the other Bond films but that was not to be.  Quantum Of Solace was torpedoed by a writer’s strike.  Skyfall was a beautiful film to look at and enjoy while watching it for the first time but immediately afterwards you realize the plot made absolutely no sense.  Spectre appears to be not unlike Skyfall in the sense that it is also a beautiful film to look at but one whose plot -and the character motivations- again suffer.

In time, will we look back and say that Mr. Craig made one really good Bond film and followed it up with three forgettable features?  Is this not what essentially happened to Pierce Brosnan?  Goldeneye, Mr. Brosnan’s first Bond film, is considered by many his best while the others…not so much.

Is history repeating itself?