Spectre
(2015)
(SPOILERS) The appearance of Spectre supremo Hans Oberhauser
(who are they trying to kid, right?) in the trailers for Bond 24, announcing himself as the author of all 007’s pain gave
some who watched it, myself included, understandable pause. That, and the
shards of photo pointed to the Bond
series yielding to that ever-unwanted obsession of Hollywood, the accursed
backstory. For Bond this is particularly numbskulled, as he’s one of the
shallowest characters ever to grace the silver screen – something to be
celebrated, rather than rooting around for blusher to bring out his pallid
texture. Fortunately, Spectre mostly
doesn’t make too much of a meal of this retro-fitted personal history, as
unnecessary as it is, and while the picture is typically over-extended, for a
good two-thirds of its running time its mystery elements and set-pieces are
sustained in a largely satisfying manner.
As such, this a more accomplished piece of work than its over-feted
predecessor Skyfall, less dedicated
to adversely rooting around in Bond’s emotional baggage or distracted with
celebrating his 50th and happier too just get on with it. Ironically
for a picture built on the rubble of Bond’s childhood, Spectre is surprisingly content to keep its lead character from
self-indulgence, perhaps more so than any Bond
outing since Moore. Craig seems more comfortable with this state of affairs too;
the forays into humour are much better balanced this time and, since he’s not a
natural comedian, what there is is wisely eked out from droll reactions rather
than banter.
Both Sam Mendes’ outings are rather frontloaded, but Spectre gains on many earlier escapades,
initially at least, by having Bond in pursuit of pieces of a puzzle, pieces
that, even though we know they will lead to the titular organisation, engage in
terms of how precisely they will be pieced together.
Looked at plainly, this is
another perfunctory string of set pieces as Bond goes from clue/person to
clue/person who will propel him to his confrontation with Oberhauser, and in
some cases the joins show; Lea Seydoux’s Dr Madeleine Swann is never more than
a contrived inclusion to give Bond his hot totty, and Seydoux is able to do
little with what she’s given. Her occasional moment (saving Bond from Mr Hinx;
is he related to Halle Berry’s Jinx? Perhaps they’re the siblings of Leon
Spinks) can’t disguise that she is there to be protected and rescued (most
flagrantly at the end); as such, one can only assume making the final set piece
all about Bond saving the girl in the most flagrantly retro way is designed to
parade the well-worn device as a virtue. Unfortunately, it succeeds only in
being narratively disappointing.
Which isn’t to say the London-based finale doesn’t have its
merits, but it dovetails the two plot strands (Bond’s and M’s) without the
finesse one might hope for. The main feeling one gets is that the quartet of
writers have successfully retooled a version of Spectre for the 21st
century but then allow it to crumble, rather than stand tall, right at the end
for the purposes of easy/classic solutions (the Nine Eyes programme is stopped just
in the nick of time) and devices (Oberhauser and his rather silly revenge
scheme makes him look far from a criminal mastermind, and personalising his
history with Bond further reduces the extent to which he can be perceived as
force to be reckoned with).
Waltz’s performance is fine as these things go, and
I like that he’s playing a villain who really enjoys being a villain, but Oberhauserfeld
never really comes across as a serious threat, nor does he seem like the type to
successfully run a criminal organisation (not that I’m the best judge). So too,
his dialogue is too frequently based on what a Bond villain sounds like, rather than having a life of their own (“And I thought you came here to die”).
One can almost see Mendes and co lapsing into a “Who cares,
it’s a Bond movie” repose when it comes to the crunch. Blofeld (Oberhauser
suits him better) inviting Bond into the old MI6 building at the end assumes
007 will have killed his captors en route, or the graffiti and directions are
for nothing (likewise, the hidden room at L’American seems to be there so Bond
can discover it, rather than any practical reason it would have been left intact
all that time with paying patrons using the premises). The result is a throwback
to Bond villains, and villains generally, of yesteryear, with the baddie having
not only survived his last encounter but set up an elaborate trap for his enemy
along with the old “You have three minutes to save the damsel in distress” routine.
So it’s reasonably throwaway fun, but it isn’t a good fit
with the rugged posturing the Craig era has laid down previously, and it’s a
step down on the ramping tension and intrigue earlier in the picture. The
earlier trailers intimated at Spectre redux as an elaborate, Illuminati-like
organisation of shadowy meetings and members. Some of that is made good on; we
see its tentacles extending into various governments, as personified by Andrew
Scott’s Max Denbigh/”C” (Scott’s suitably irksome, but he’s never more than a
brat, and so lacks any real menace when set against M; in some respects this is
a similar problem to that of Bond and Blofeld).
There’s also Spectre’s main
goal of ensuring a nine-nations intelligence pact (Nine Eyes) that will vastly
increase their operating capability. Likewise, the meeting Bond nonchalantly
walks in on sees them blithely discussing their various moneymaking plans in a
manner that is much like any board meeting, just with more atmospheric lighting
and more neck snapping.
In that sense, then, Spectre serves the function of a
traditional Illuminati-type conspiracy, the real power behind the thrones, but this
isn’t really any more thought-out than Mendes and his team attempting to get in
their comments on the perils of the surveillance society; the actual heads of
this organisation appear to be little more than assassins, standard villains,
in order to join the dots between prior Craig outings (the Quantum
organisation, and the title sequence roll call), rather than the vaster scale
and more banal level the meeting is actually angling at; Spectre is a vast
shadowy conglomerate.
Frankly, Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon were operating in a rarefied
environment being able to carry this kind of thing off with the Bourne films. Bond trying to do it is tugging against its naturally
pro-establishment seams, and it can only go so far before it begins to implode
like one of Oberhauser’s timed explosions. So M cautions C about unfettered
access, drones and the encroaching Orwellian state while the latter makes snide
remarks about the encumbrance that is democracy. The problem is, this serves to
re-position MI6 – from which Craig’s Bond keeps having to go rogue so as not to
make him too much of an establishment figure for essentially leftie filmmakers
to stomach; he goes rogue here, of course – as the defender of all that is good
and right and the arbiters of a truly free society. The suit doesn’t quite fit.
Fair play for at least trying to make Bond someone who cares
about the proles, though. A definite benefit of the storyline here – far more
so than any its recent predecessors, duty-bound to inflate M’s role purely
because Judi Dench was playing her – is the parallel business going on Blighty.
It’s not something the series has done (much) before, probably because actual
bona fide mysteries and puzzles to solve aren’t really high on 007’s list of priorities, which start
and end with big set pieces and quick shags. Of course, this falls apart once
the true identity of Franz Oberhauser and that of his stooge have been revealed
(yes, I suppose Franz isn’t actually
Ernst Stavro Blofeld; he’s just some guy who changed his name to Blofeld by
deed poll, so Mendes’ et al’s fibs concerning this aspect aren’t as egregious
as Abrams’ regarding Cumberbatch not being Khan – no really, they
aren’t, they didn’t tell porkies at all).
This means you can only pull the corrupted state card the
once before the status quo is resumed (see also The Winter Soldier and Hydra). Next time out, presumably Bond will
be engaging in more traditional still romps, with Spectre out in the open
stealing satellites and the like… and a scarred villain with a penchant for
cats who considerately gives Bond deadly scenarios he has sufficient time to escape from. Like
I say, that’s all fun, but it’s a night on impossible task to pull of both
successfully; political commentary within the realm of Craig’s dour presence and whacky world domination hijinks.
But the action is mostly top drawer, and Mendes has
noticeably come along since Skyfall.
It’s also clean and clear for the most part. The opening Day of the Dead
sequence is split into three “movements”. While it’s possible to discern where
some of the joins are in the impressive “one shot” first stage, the confidence
on display is irresistible. If it peaks with the exploding building (Bond
landing on a sofa is a particularly winning, non-laboured sight gag), and
lapses into unnecessary shakycam subsequently, while the intended high of the helicopter
business flourishes evident green screen close-ups, the sequence as a whole is
dazzling.
Hoyte van Hoytema takes over from Richard Deakins as
cinematographer, and while there’s nothing here as sublime as the Tokyo
silhouette fight, with the palette more muted, the images are still often
gorgeous, showing off Alpine peaks and African expanses; it’s a ridiculous
price tag, but one can at least see where this $400m has gone. Mendes takes his
time but the benefit of this is a sense of elegance in the action, such as the composition
when a pair of assassins come up behind Lucia (Monica Bellucci), only to be
casually dispatched by Bond.
It’s disappointing that Bellucci’s role is so brief, as she
makes more of an impact than Seydoux and
Craig isn’t old enough to be her father; there’s also more of a frisson in having
Bond bed the wife of the man he just murdered, rather than saving the daughter
of the man he didn’t just murder. Nevertheless, it’s testament to Bellucci that
her character, basically a bint who can’t resist Bond’s bulge, has any presence
at all.
The extended road chase following Bond’s exit from the Rome
meeting has its moments, mostly of the humorous variety, from Craig’s
exasperation with the variable gadgets his auto has been equipped with (I hope
we meet 009 at some point, particularly after hearing his “atmosphere”) to the
unhurried pensioner who requires a bit of cajoling. The waste of a perfectly
good car is disappointing, but at least it has a decent showcase, unlike the swift
entrance and exit of the latest Brosnan Bond BMW in The World is Not Enough.
Craig appears to have been watching
Brosnan pics for tips on how to move. Either that or he viewed the playback of
how his haemorrhoid-pants running looked last time out (there’s still a bit of
that in Mexico, balanced by his treading daintily over rooftops), since he he’s
got down pat the cool, daper Bond moments, here exemplified by his post-car
ejection, parachuting to land in a nearby street and disengaging himself from
the chute without so much a s a pause.
The chase starting at the Alpine clinic is also good fun,
embracing the broader, dafter side of a Bond
set piece (think more Lewis Gilbert era Moore, but without double-taking
pigeons) as Bond is unbowed by his plane gradually losing more and more pieces (there’s
also a nice bit with Q having his own problems, and as with the M/C plot Mendes
seems naturally attuned and engaged by juggling such dual scenarios; more could
have been made of this, and it’s slightly disappointing that Q isn’t given his
own brainy means of evading his aggressors, rather than just legging it).
Then there's the train fight with Mr Hinx, which is superbly staged, earning its
place alongside those in From Russia with
Love and The Spy Who Loved Me
(obviously, it has to be longer than
both put together, it’s that kind of movie). Dave Bautista, aside from being
physically imposing and having a memorable entrance, sadly doesn’t etch himself
out a classic status in the henchman pantheon. Hinx doesn’t get to be quirky or
funny, he’s just gets to be built like a brick shit house.
And since the set pieces are consciously engaging in call-backs
to earlier Bonds, the torture scene is pretty good as they go, suitably painful
(it’s nice – or nasty – that the device actually connects with our hero, rather
than a Goldfinger-esque nick-of-time evasion).
For all that, one of the best scenes is non-action, as Bond visits the dying Mr
White (radiation poisoning), both the wintry location work and the (not
altogether justified) expectation it creates for Bond’s adversary.
The iconic elements and characters fare variably. I’m not
slavishly devoted to the Aston Martin, so Bond raring off in it at the end left
me non-plussed (is it bad to say I preferred the new model; they ought to bring
back the Lotus, which would certainly have been handy during the Rome chase). It’s
also one of the few Craig moments that falls flat, since he doesn’t really do
cheerful. Fiennes is quite handy, and I didn’t mind M’s significant presence,
mainly because it was germane but also because having a new M made it feel
fresh (they had to get Dench back for
a cameo, of course).
Naomie Harris is probably too good for he role, as nu-Moneypenny’s
only function is that she isn’t
besotted with James; it might be a step up of a sort, I guess, but an inversion
isn’t really a character and the void created by her lack of flirting hasn’t been
filled by anything memorable. Felix Leiter is only name-checked, which is a
shame as Jeffrey Wright is probably the best Leiter, while Bill Tanner (his
seventh Bond appearance, and third
from Rory Kinnear) is at least notable for not giving Bond the benefit of the
doubt and going by the book.
Craig’s probably at his best since Casino Royale here, as these things go. As noted he’s not
preoccupied with putting Bond through the wringer (“I don’t stop to think about
it” he refreshingly responds to Swann fishing for a deep analysis of his
lifestyle choices), or engaging in forced jolly banter with M, so he comes
across more prototypically. His interactions with the regulars show solid
chemistry, but there’s nothing with Seydoux, and we don’t really feel his connection to Oberhauser.
I’ve mentioned my misgivings about his reincarnated Blofeld,
and Waltz doesn’t quite feel like the right sort of adversary for a Craig Bond.
He might have been a piece of lazy casting when all is said and done. It’s nice
not to have Craig’s Bond brooding
over revenge (although its referenced) or his sell-by-date; his biggest problem
is the rather irrelevant (since it’s introduced to be ignored, and doesn’t have
a crucial role in the plot) nano-blood. More perplexing are the endless changes
of suit he has in that one little case. Crucially, that Craig can pull off an
agreeable exchange with a rat shows how much more comfortable he is here than
in Skyfall.
Thomas Newman’s scores for Mendes have been effective, and probably
benefit from not adhering so rigidly to the Bond
formula as David Arnold, but at times they also seem a little churlish in not embracing the thematic legacy and
lushness of the series when given a prime opportunity. There’s also nothing in
this one as striking as his accompaniment to the Tokyo sequence in Skyfall. As for the titles: nice
octopus, but apart from that it’s just a little bit CGI-bland. Rather like the
theme song in that respect.
How does Spectre
compare in a glut of a year for spyfare? Well, they’ve all been pretty good, and
all have had their flaws. For sheer breathless, dynamo thrills, Rogue Nation is the clear winner, and
both Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Kingsman have provided (very different)
stylistic and humorous takes on the genre. Spectre
is bigger and more lavish than any of those, and in consequence struggles
slightly for its own personality. The political commentary is a token gesture
rather than anything deep felt, and the reintroduction of the series biggest
adversary is successful only up to a point. But it does successfully navigate
the tricky territory of making Craig’s movies part of a continuous whole (something
that wasn’t called for, but now they’ve done it’s fairly painless) while
integrating humour and archetypal Bond
tropes with more success than in the last outing.
They may have boxed themselves into a corner in terms of where
they can go from here, though, as it already feels as if Spectre and Blofeld
could be a millstone keeping Bond from exploring new ideas and scenarios, and
formally counteractive to Craig’s more down-to-earth persona. But then, this is
such a (legitimately in some respects, although slack plotting is never an
excuse) risk-averse series, it’s amazing we’ve got to a point where too many
traditional influences might be deemed a bad thing. Eon would probably be wise to do only one
more Craig and Blofeld outing (and perhaps recast Waltz; after all, his face has never been the same twice in the series) and then leave Spectre out in the cold for
another decade.
