Review by Eric Hillis (@hilliseric)
Directed by: Sam Mendes
Starring: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes, Monica Bellucci, Lea Seydoux, Stephanie Sigman, Dave Bautista, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Andrew Scott, Rory Kinnear
When James Bond arrived on cinema screens in the early 1960s, a large part of the franchise's appeal was its travelogue aspect. In the days before package holidays, audiences were as enthralled by the exotic locales visited by 007 as by the action he engaged in and the beautiful starlets he bedded. The world has changed now, and globe-trotting has lost its mystique. We now travel to previously inaccessible locations, only to spend the entire vacation glued to laptops and phones, planning our next trip. We're increasingly losing the ability to live in the moment; it's all about the next big thing, and we're seeing this reflected in the 'universe building' of our blockbuster franchises, which all too often play like extended commercials for some future installment. The 007 series has now succumbed to this virus. Not so much a movie as the fourth episode of a five part future box-set, Spectre is like one of those boutique magazines you find in hotel rooms and on passenger planes. It's printed on glossy paper, immaculately designed and packed with appealing products, but devoid of engaging content.
Skyfall did an excellent job of updating Bond for a world in which Britain has taken a backseat on the world stage, while updating key characters for a new generation, but in doing so it's built a rod for its back that Spectre struggles to carry. Naomie Harris's Moneypenny has gone from a predatory sexbomb to a mousy secretary; Q has been evolved into this series' version of the techy nerd Benji, played by Simon Pegg in the MI series; and because he's now played by Ralph Fiennes, the film shoehorns M into the drama, giving him a key role in aiding Bond that really adds nothing to the narrative.
There's a scene in which Bond steals a car from Q's lab, its buttons labelled with the usual Bond car weaponry; but in a crucial moment, 007 discovers they don't actually work - it's an unfinished prototype, much like the film itself. Spectre seems to take place in some bizarrely depopulated post-apocalyptic world, where the streets of major cities like London, Rome and Tangiers are devoid of human life. A car chase in the Italian capital is laughable in how Bond and his pursuer encounter only one other motorist. Similarly, when a fight breaks out on a train, the carriages are eerily empty of fellow passengers. A building collapses in Mexico City, one of the world's most densely populated metropolises, and yet it's completely empty, apart from a conveniently placed sofa.
Much has been made of the amount of money lavished on this production, but the money's not on the screen, with unforgivably amateurish greenscreen cropping up at inopportune moments. Stories of millions of dollars worth of destruction of cars seem now clearly bogus, as the car chases are underwhelming, minimal in damage wrought, and are closer to commercials than Friedkin-esque speed-fest. The main set-pieces are aerial based, with Bond finding himself behind the controls of out of control helicopters and planes, and they lack the visceral nature of their land-based cousins.
