‘I’ ON CULTURE
The new James Bond movie Spectre is pretty good, but certainly not great. It keeps moving along, constantly referencing early movies, but seems more like an epilogue to the long series of films (this is either the 24th or the 26th, depending upon how you count them). The problem seems to be that everyone involved in a major way is getting tired of the whole thing.
The movie starts in Mexico City during the ceremonies for the Day of the Dead. It is splashy and fun, and director Sam Mendes has fun with one really long following shot of James Bond (Daniel Craig) trailing and eventually killing a thug. As usual, he first blows up the building the guy is in, but the man escapes while the building collapses around Bond. Eventually they fight in a helicopter right over a couple hundred thousand celebrants.
This leads to a confrontation between Bond, his boss M (Ralph Fiennes) and a new man, Denbigh (Andrew Scott), who wants to end the double 0 program in favor of using a unified tech surveillance system to stop terror. Bond, as usual, will not go gently into the night and refuses to be suspended for his Mexico City actions (which were done because he had received orders from the former M, played by Judi Dench, sent electronically upon her death).
He goes to a funeral for the man he killed and gets the victim’s widow (Monica Bellucci) to give him more information. He invades the board meeting of the group Spectre, a worldwide criminal organization, and discovers that an old “friend” of his, now using the name of Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christopher Waltz) is the leader and the group will control the unified surveillance system and thus control the world.
Denbigh tries to shut Bond down, but with help from Q (Ben Whishaw), he is able to get to Austria where he gets more clues, casually ignoring a surveillance system which will give the assassin (Dave Bautista) following him all the information needed to kidnap a key witness, Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux). There is more chasing, and finally there is a confrontation between Bond and Blofeld, who is actually the supposedly dead son of Bond’s childhood mentor. They go through a rather nauseating sequence that is a reminder of the laser in Goldfinger, and Bond and Madeleine escape. The ending, however, is reminiscent of Gary Cooper in High Noon.
Craig seems weary of it all as Bond. Perhaps that is why he says this is his last Bond film. And the psychological thrust, with enough Freudian and non-Freudian clues about his weariness with killing people, runs through the film. Waltz, in contrast, seems gleeful about his killing and torture, too intent on having a good time to get things done. He could have killed Bond a few times. Instead, he always plays with him, allowing Bond to escape. I have seen more than a few parodies about this, but the film allows them. The rest of the cast is fine, although the parts require little emoting.
The self-indulgence of people making a film costing a quarter of a billion dollars, according to reports, is astounding. You barely see it in the film. The best sequences are in moving vehicles: the helicopter, a train, a car chase, a funicular. And the plot holes are gigantic. Bond, after dealing with a key witness, does a search but forgets to remove the memory from the surveillance system, for example. Bond casually accepts the invitation from Blofeld to visit his headquarters. We know Bond will escape, but what kind of lunatic just walks in and, even worse, takes a key witness/girlfriend with him?
Still, there is a lot of action, the hallmark of so many Bond films. And decent Bond is generally worthwhile. This is a terribly long film: two and a half hours. Dr. No, my favorite Bond film, was almost an hour shorter. And that James Bond (the master, Sean Connery) actually seemed to be interested in the action.
So the movie is probably worth the price of tickets, although seeing a matinee will bring it to more of a reasonable price range. I enjoyed it… but ran my DVD of Dr. No after I got home.
