Review: SPECTRE

SPECTRE  
(ACTION-ADVENTURE/THRILLER)
2 out of 4 stars
Directed by Sam Mendes
Starring: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Lea Seydoux, Ben Wishaw, Naomie Harris, Dave Bautista, Andrew Scott, Monica Bellucci, Ralph Fiennes, Rory Kinnear, Jesper Christensen, Alessandro Cremona
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, some disturbing images, sensuality and language.
148 minutes
Verdict: In spite of a few bouts of genuinely thrilling, spectacular action, SPECTRE is saddled with a surprisingly shoddy script that is a definite step down for 007 and more QUANTUM OF SOLACE than SKYFALL.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN SPECTRE IF YOU LIKED:
SKYFALL  (2012)
QUANTUM OF SOLACE  (2008)
CASINO ROYALE  (2006)
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION  (2015)
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER  (2014)

SKYFALL was perhaps a little more lauded than it truly deserved, but it was nonetheless an excellent piece of blockbuster entertainment with interesting things to say and do with the long-running series of James Bond films based on the books by Ian Fleming.  However, it led the series, already recently reinvented with the brilliant 2006 reboot, CASINO ROYALE, into a precarious position of maintaining a balance between the gritty and muscular modern Bond, and the pulpy, light adventuring of classic Bond.  It falls to SPECTRE to either justify a continuation of that delicate balance, to find a way to successfully integrate the polished and pulpy elements of classic Bond into the raw tone of modern Bond, or to embrace the classic Bond to which SKYFALL paid homage.  Unfortunately, returning director Sam Mendes and writers John Logan, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (as well as the new addition of EDGE OF TOMORROW writer Jez Butterworth) have apparently resolved to not even attempt to top SKYFALL and instead indulge in a bloated but undeniably spectacular series of loosely-connected homages to classic Bond with varied degrees of entertainment value.
It opens extremely strong with a invigoratingly robust, prolonged action sequence set in the midst of a massive Day of the Dead festival in Mexico City where cameras swoop over and around imposing skeleton puppets and Bond's pursuit of a villain results in rampant destruction culminating in a dizzying fight inside a spiraling, loop-de-looping helicopter above the panicked crowd.  This is a genuinely thrilling sequence on which the film never improves and rather seems to be a continual descent towards not one, but two, dull and dumb anti-climaxes.  Bond is in pursuit of a comprehensively powerful criminal syndicate, the existence of which has been revealed to him through a posthumous video message left by his late superior, the previous M (an ultra-brief appearance by Judi Dench).  Whilst Bond is wreaking destruction on his unsanctioned mission, the current M (Ralph Fiennes) is struggling to even keep the '00' program alive as Max Denbigh (Andrew Scott), code name 'C', head of the Joint Intelligence Service and MI6's new superiors, is campaigning to replace the 00 agents with a sweeping surveillance state and drones.  The plot coincidentally recycles a number the points that already appeared in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION, and comes late to the table on the discussion of surveillance with nothing to say that CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER hasn't already. 

The script poorly assembles a series of set-pieces, some of which are sufficiently entertaining, including an exciting high-speeds car chase through Rome and a brutal brawl between Bond and Hinx (Dave Bautista), a classically-styled henchman, but as things proceed through the utterly indefensible 148-minute run time, each one becomes less and less interesting.  It squanders the opposing strengths of both CASINO ROYALE and SKYFALL, returning to the retrograde misogyny and goofiness (albeit without self-awareness) of pre-CASINO ROYALE Bond, and putting aside the thoughtfulness and intelligence of SKYFALL.  It's been a while since I last watched QUANTUM OF SOLACE, so I can't say whether it compares favorably or not, but in many ways, it feels similar.
SPECTRE also attempts to tie the titular villainous organization (the copyrights to which were only just settled in 2013, allowing MGM and Eon Productions to utilize the iconic Bond antagonists for the first time in decades) into the events of the previous Daniel Craig-starring Bond films but with the least amount of effort possible involving a couple of unconscionable coincidences and lip service to events in the previous films without so much as a half-assed explanation. 
Although not especially boring, it drags on through a series of locations with little connective tissue, doing what recent other blockbusters have already done with more success, for a flagrant two-and-a-half hours.  Two of the past four 007 outings were major course corrections, and after SPECTRE, it appears as though another is already in order.

Photos via Sony/Columbia