Oh….my.
When word came the latest James Bond film, Spectre, was about to be released, I made it a point to clear up free time to see it while it was still in theaters. When the movie was first released in England, the reviews were kind and I got doubly excited to see it. When the movie was given its world-wide release shortly afterwards, those initial wildly enthusiastic reviews from England were met with far less enthusiastic reviews elsewhere. (The movie has a 64% positive rating from critics and a 63% positive rating from audiences over at rottentomatoes.com)
Unfortunately, I read a few of the reviews at that time and my desire to see the film cooled considerably. I finally gave up on seeing it in theaters after reading one particular review which SPOILED the relationship between Bond and the villain of this piece. (You can read my original post regarding this here. And a more in depth, SPOILERY post here)
Despite my negative reaction to the reviews, there was never a doubt I’d see Spectre eventually. Good, bad, or indifferent, I’ve seen all the James Bond films, sometimes many multiple times. As good as some of the great ones are (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, The Living Daylights, Goldeneye, Casino Royale), there are also some really bad ones (You Only Live Twice, The Man With the Golden Gun, Moonraker, A View To A Kill, License to Kill, the other Pierce Brosnan Bond films).
With all due respect to the ratings over at rottentomatoes, Spectre for me falls deep into the “bad” category. In fact, I’d rank it among the very worst of the James Bond films. And you know what the most amazing thing about that is? What irked me so much about the film before seeing it and what kept me from seeing it upon its initial release, ie the stupid, unnecessary relationship between Bond and the villain, turned out to be one of the film’s lesser sins.
Seriously.
So much was wrong with Spectre that by the time we got to the “big reveal” of Bond and the villain’s relationship I was numb.
But as bad as it got, Spectre nonetheless starts off quite well. The opening action montage, set in Mexico during their annual Day of the Dead festival, is exciting and visually appealing. After this opening act the film manages to keep up its interest but only because of the momentum provided in that opening. As soon as that momentum is gone the film sputters and dies.
Yet like the living dead, it goes on… and on…. and on……. and………. on……….
At the 1 hour and 30 minute mark I had to pause the film for a bathroom break. On the TV screen was displayed how much of the movie we’d seen and how much was left. We still had an hour of Spectre to go. Yes sir, ladies and gentlemen…not only is the film not good, there’s plenty of it. It runs an astonishing 2 hours and 28 minutes.
Let me offer an example of how unexciting Spectre was. During what was envisioned as one of the movie’s big action set pieces, a car chase through the streets of Rome, James Bond (a really bored and surly looking Daniel Craig) is being chased by Hinx (Dave Bautista). They are both driving high powered sport super cars and, you would think, these scenes, in the right director’s hands, would be brimming with excitement.
Not so.
The “action” is apparently so non-threatening to James Bond that, DURING THE ACTUAL CAR CHASE he places a phone call to Ms. Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) to get her to look in on some information.
I repeat: James Bond makes a phone call DURING THE CAR CHASE SCENE to get someone else to look into something…and his call is never frantic or interrupted to any great degree. There’s no yelling or cursing or, you know, anything else one would think might be involved in racing at breakneck speeds in super sophisticated sports cars while trying not to kill yourself/be killed. In fact, I doubt Ms. Moneypenny even realized Bond was in any danger.
As Moneypenny goes, so did I. How could I feel Bond was in danger when he himself didn’t seem to feel he was?
But there’s more. Boy howdy there’s more.
The plot of Spectre also proves surprisingly unengaging and, frankly, piecemeal. I noted how the previous Bond film, Skyfall, was an odd bird of a film that had you on the edge of your seat while it played out but afterwards you couldn’t help but realize how the plot made absolutely no sense at all.
What saved Skyfall was the breakneck pacing that didn’t allow you to think about how stupid the plot was. The glacier pacing of Spectre, alas, does the exact opposite: It gives you too much time to think about what a pointless story we’re dealing with.
That story, as it is, goes something like this: Over video, James Bond is given one last task by the previous M (Judi Dench in a cameo appearance as her character -SPOILERS!- met her end in Skyfall): To kill a person and then attend his funeral and see who shows up there.
Not all that much, eh?
The person Bond was to kill is the man he takes out in the film’s opening minutes. So, Bond subsequently goes to the funeral and senses he’s getting close to a mysterious and powerful organization. The dead man’s wife, Lucia (Monica Bellucci in what amounts to a very small cameo) points him toward a get-together and, from there, Bond essentially follows a series of breadcrumbs which eventually lead him to Spectre, the evil organization which the Sean Connery Bond had to deal with for most of his run.
In the meantime, we have a secondary story involving the possible disbanding of the 00 spy network as a newcomer seeks to upgrade British Intel with powerful new computer surveillance equipment. Of course, both stories eventually intersect.
Returning Skyfall director Sam Mendes gets precious little out of his actors this time around. As mentioned, Daniel Craig appears both surly and bored in this feature. Bond “girl” Madeline (Lea Seydoux) is never much more than a pretty face and a damsel in distress. Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) is surprisingly unthreatening as the lead villain. Even Hinx, the movie’s big, supposedly scary henchman, is surprisingly dull.
But the worst thing about Spectre remains that nonsensical piecemeal story. Even as the film plays out audiences are left with so many unanswered questions and silly frustrations. There is not one, but TWO separate occasions in this film where Bond has incapacitated his enemies (in both cases they’re unconscious and helpless) and Bond stands only a few feet away from either of them. Rather than take a few seconds to check to make sure they’re dead (and if they’re not, put a bullet in their heads), he just walks away which allows them to come back and annoy him some more.
There’s also a scene later in the film where Hinx and Bond go mano-a-mano in a train (a clear homage to train fights presented in Bond films dating back to From Russia With Love). Hinx is clearly trying his best to kill Bond yet, immediately afterwards when Bond meets up with Blofeld, it is equally clear our main villain wanted Bond to get to his lair so he could personally kill him.
Was Blofeld’s henchman acting on his own? I mean, seriously…are employer/employee on different pages?
Later still and in the movie’s climax, Madeline leaves Bond and, inexplicably, walks away alone down a dark London street. Everyone knows there’s danger all around them and yet Bond simply lets the “love of his life” walk away alone and unguarded into the night?!? I’ll give you a single guess as to what happens to her.
I could go on and on (seriously) but all I’m accomplishing is raising my blood pressure.
Spectre, in the end, is Bond at its absolute worst. A too long “action” film with little action and a un-engaing -and nonsensical- plot. Sure, there are some nice scenes here and there and the movie clearly had a large budget and was filled with actors who normally do pretty good work but the end result, alas, is a dud.
Too bad.