In “Four Benches,” a play by Ethan Coen (of the Coen brothers) a worn-out British secret agent character bemoans that he can’t stand the “abstract concepts” his organization deals in because he’s left without “one single meaningful feeling word.” This could easily describe the entirety of Spectre, a new James Bond movie that while dismantling the great groundwork of its predecessor—Skyfall—also tries to remove meaning and feeling from every single scene. And yet, somehow, it’s still marginally watchable.
Light Spoilers for Spectre.
I say light spoilers, because supposing I told you the entire plot of Spectre, I couldn’t possibly ruin a thing. Even if you have hazy memoirs of the Sean Connery Bond films of the 60s, you’re probably vaguely aware there’s a big evil organization called “Spectre” which is all about being evil to the max. And you know they’re evil because they love to put pictures of octopuses on their rings. So, if you think the big reveal in Spectre is James Bond discovering an evil club called “Spectre” (who also loves octopus rings) you’d be right. Guess what else happens! Almost nothing! In terms of mystery-plot twists, events are either really obvious, vague, or cliché. Really, that person is related to that person? Why is the 00 program being shutdown, again? Wait, is that Andrew Scott as Moriarty? That is Andrew Scott! Is he just playing Moriarty? Should I care? Help me, Bond.
But then you look to Bond for confidence and you see Daniel Craig looking bummed out and cranky. Oh no! This Bond is sleepy, not stirred.
It’s funny that the super-slow Sam Smith title song is called “Writing’s on the Wall,” because the dull nature the song and its sentiment serve as both the explanation to the plot of Spectre and also a telegraphed-out reading of the badness of said plot. Again, without getting into spoilery-specifics, Spectre attempts to tie the three previous Daniel Craig 007 flicks together, by positing that there’s been a web of links between everything going on all along and now that the mastermind of these plans has revealed himself, it’s all going down. Sound familiar? That’s because they kind of also tried this in Quantum of Solace, with an organization called “Quantum,” in which no one—not even its members or the general public—found solace.
Having Andrew Scott in this movie is very distracting not only because he’s sort of just playing Moriarty from Sherlock, but because the plot of Spectre has all the problems of the original Moriarty stories from Conan Doyle—all stemming from a contrived villain brought into existence by speedy writing. More mild spoilers (although this is basically explained in the title sequence and all the trailers…), but Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) takes credit for every single bad thing that has happened in Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, and Skyfall. Conan Doyle tried this retroactive mastermind thing with Moriarty, too, and he did it when he was tired of writing Sherlock Holmes stories. Is EON productions trying to stop making James Bond movies?
This phoning-in with Blofeld being “behind” everything is not only super-cliché, but it doesn’t even do the Blofeld cliché correctly. At least the classic Bond films had some dude stoking a cat in the background of a few movies before they revealed that dude was arch-villain Blofeld and he meant business! And if you’re trying to argue this Blofeld is just so good at being Blofeld and that’s why we never saw him petting his cat in these new movies, fine. But by making all the events of the other James Bond movies Blofeld’s fault, Spectre trivializes all the “choices” Bond has made getting to this point, and the sacrifices of his colleagues. In a scene toward the end of the movie (the climax?) Bond is running around in a maze-ish situation designed by Blofeld in which black and white photocopies of the faces of Le Chiffre, Judi Dench, Vesper, and Silva are taped on the walls. The 60s Blofeld had a hollowed-out volcano and stole spaceships for fun! This guy’s got a photocopier from 1990. Oh, he also knows how to put cameras in every room in the whole world.
Surveillance in a brave new digital world also is sort of an “important” theme insofar as the new M (Ralphe Fiennes) is trying to prevent Moriarty Andrew Scott Evil Paul McCartney What’s-His-Face from switching-on the Death Star of surveillance intelligence. (Seriously, this unified surveillance computer project makes no sense.) M does everything but say, “Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve created, the ability to put a tiny web cam in someone’s coffee is insignificant next to the power of Bond!” The weird thing is, this meta-conversation about the role of spies and the relevancy of James Bond was integral to the themes of Skyfall, too. But there, it was handled with stirring speeches and real stakes that felt personal. Skyfall was a promise that the Bond movies were now going to be all about cool new adventures for Bond with a new team of cool people—M, Q, and Moneypenny. Spectre just rehashes the all-these-people-might-lose-their-jobs-to-a-computer plot, and with way less charm. Have I mentioned Judi Dench’s absence was keenly felt?
You can get away with clichéd themes and recycled plots if you’ve got charm, though. Skyfall rehashed a lot of The World is Not Enough’s plot, and we hardly noticed. This was because Skyfall had swift charisma and a knowing, confident sensibility. Spectre has none of that charm or elegance and feels more like a phone-in Bond movie like Quantum of Solace: jerky, slow, confused, and confusing. Aren’t these movies supposed to be fun? I mean, at least a little bit?
Why did I say this movie was marginally watchable then? The opening sequence, set in Mexico City, was honestly breathtaking and should have been the whole movie. Why did they leave Mexico City! Also despite there being all sorts of problems in this statement: I love James Bond movies. In Spectre, I got some cool nods to old James Bond stuff and I also got Lea Seydoux as Madeline Swann! She’s not only charming in this movie, but holds her own against Daniel Craig’s grumpiness as well as she can. I’m not sure I buy the chemistry between them, but there’s a scene where they have dinner on a train in the middle of nowhere that’s not only beautiful but exciting. (Bond loves falling in love on trains! See, he is just like you and me!) What else? There’s fairly great car chase in Rome which I liked, and Ralphe Finnes gets a great one-liner toward the end of movie while he’s squaring off against Andrew Scott.
Other than the stunning opening sequence in Mexico City though, my favorite part of the film easily occurred when James Bond interrogates a little mouse. He asks the little mouse “Who are you working for?” and it’s hilarious. It’s also, sadly, the only moment in the movie where you feel like Bond is a real person again. Worse still, because the movie is so plodding and cliché, you wish desperately, that the little mouse would look up at James Bond and speak in Judi Dench’s voice: “It’s me Bond! I’ve come back to life as a mouse to scold you!”
Now, that would have been a twist.
Spectre opens in wide release on November 6th
Ryan Britt’s favorite James Bond song is “The Living Daylights.” He is the author of Luke Skywalker Can’t Read and Other Geeky Truths, out this month from Plume/Penguin Random House.
Ethan Cohen and Ralphe Fiennes?
IMDb is only a click away for name-checking.
James Bond has always been silly, but they’ve never been as aggressively dumb as they are today. Individual action scenes from the recent movies are mildly interesting, but overall the films are just boring.
People praise Casino Royale for some reason I can’t fathom. The filmmakers knew their story was so dull that they had to liven it up by jeopardizing Bond and taking him to the brink of death. Nevermind the outside-the-movie knowledge that Daniel Craig had signed a 5-picture deal, they aren’t going to kill their title star halfway through the movie, which made that entire poisoning scene a complete waste of time.
(Although how great would it be if they actually killed Bond? Then the rest of the movie is about them training a replacement. THAT is a 007 flick I could get behind. Bring in Connery, Brosnan, Moore, et al, as the “governing board” which decides who the next bond will be and people will forgive killing Bond.)
Andrew Scott needs to take some roles where he doesn’t play a smarmy bad-guy, so that when he appears in a film, the entire audience doesn’t go “Oh, I bet he’s the bad guy!”.
Lea Seydoux was a good Bond girl, right up until she decided to fall in love with Bond over the course of one train journey, after having promised that she wouldn’t do that. Or possibly the part where she decides to go for a wander though London, and nobody thinks that it might be a bad idea or that there’s any chance of her being kidnapped by the villain and used to get to Bond. Spoilers, she gets kidnapped by the villain and used to bait a trap for Bond, quelle surprise!
It looked good though, the action scenes were appropriately action-y and Ben Whishaw’s Q had a much better script, with less incorrect techno-babble. So all in all, ok-ish.
I always said the fanboi “but this is realistic” approach to movies, and with it the inevitable grimdark, was a limited pool from which to draw stories. Stories are all about being better than merely “realistic”, Bond especially. Bring on the invisible cars, the mega-death rays, and the fleets of space shuttles, that was when Bond movies really worked. Ignore the insecure nerds who raise holy hell if they feel slightly embarrassed to watch them because they worry too much about their dignity and do not understand how sheer fun works. Bond needs to be bigger than big, to be so implausible you just accept it and roll with it. Sure he was mean and moody in the books, so I’ve been told by countless nerds who have read as many Fleming Bond books as I have (approx zero), but what might work for the books is not what works for Bond on the big screen.
@1
Should be fixed! You’re so right. :-)
@5: There’s also Ralphe Finnes…
Meh. This is what happens when you try to go back to the wretched Roger Moore/Pierce Brosnan-style Bond pictures that the fun-lovin’ folks seem to want. None of it makes any sense, and it’s rubbish. Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace were as near-perfect Bond flicks as one could want (the former better than the latter, but both far superior to the mess that was Skyfall — and, apparently, Spectre). I had really hoped we were on track for a great series of Bond films with Daniel Craig, but Skyfall’s re-introduction of the wretched, campy Q (Ben Whishaw … sigh) and the useless Moneypenny (not to mention the dreadful Adele theme song, which is only marginally better than the hopeless disaster that is Spectre’s Sam Smith dirge) dashed my hopes. Clearly, the producers lost their nerve and decided to give in to the camp fans.
Casino Royale was brilliant, and the best Bond — probably forever, at this point.
I suppose I’ll go to Spectre just to see for myself, but I expect to be disappointed. At least I have free tickets.
I saw this movie last night and liked it a lot more than you did. I thought it was better than Skyfall. The opening tracking shot was made of awesome and worth the price of admission all by itself. Also, I didn’t know who Andrew Scott was before this movie, sorry I don’t watch Sherlock, but I thought both Waltz and Bautista were great. And while the chemistry between Seydoux and Craig might not have been the best I thought she and Bellucci made amazing Bond girls.
One other thing, the new Tor site makes it so hard to comment on posts now. The comments section sometimes doesn’t even show up with the posts and commenting almost never appears on the first try. What is up with this?
I thought Spectre was pretty good. In some ways it felt like a return to form for the Bond films. For the first time in a Craig Bond, the gun barrel was where it belonged and there were real gadgets. (So much for Q’s disdain for the idea from Skyfall.)
I was a little annoyed that the publicity machine made so much of Monica Bellucci and her age, though. She was only the secondary Bond love interest, and only got about five minutes of screen time. If she’d been the main love interest, that would have been revolutionary.
But why is it that Bond has to flout orders and go outside the system in EVERY Bond movie now? It’s like he’s morphing into a maverick cop.
Great review but awful copy editing. So many mistakes that it was distracting. Step up your copy editing game, Tor!