Spectre (2015) - Theatrical Review

Director: Sam Mendes

Cast: Daniel Craig, Lea Seydoux, Dave Bautista, Christoph Waltz

Country: United States / United Kingdom

Rating: PG-13

Run Time: 148 min

The most damning truth about Spectre, the 24th Bond film and Daniel Craig's fourth time out as the character, is that it never amounts to being anything more than 'just another Bond film.' Sam Mendes directed the previous entry in the series, Skyfall, to great success and helped revamp the series back to its 60s roots. Skyfall is so beloved by Bond fans that many declare it to be the best Bond film of them all, or without a doubt one of the very best. Unfortunately, Mendes' second time around is a huge letdown and proof that both he and Craig are simply going with the motions. Spectre, one of the most boring and over bloated Bond films to date, proves that it is time to recast the Bond role and to put the franchise in someone else's hands. 

Despite Spectre's over long run time and dull action sequences, it is still a Bond film after all. There's no denying that an average or bad Bond film is infinitely more satisfying than any average or bad standalone action picture. Therefore, the film still looks beautiful despite its otherwise hollow plot. The outfits are incredible, the locations gorgeous, and some of the action rock solid. Unfortunately, nothing here is filled with worthwhile material of any sort. If I were to describe Spectre as a piece of furnishing, it would be that of an ornate vase that looks beautiful on the outside, but has utterly nothing under its surface.

The Day of the Dead. A fitting holiday for a film as dead as this.

Spectre starts things right by getting back to the Bond tradition of starting off the film with the infamous gun barrel sequence in which the actor walks across screen, turns, and shoots at the audience. It also plays to tradition by opening with an exciting action scene that sets off both the film's plot and excitement. Unfortunately, this opener set during a Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City is nothing short of dull, despite a rather impressive tracking shot. The film than segways into its title sequence accompanied by Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall," a solid Bond song, although mostly forgettable coming off the heels of Adele's now iconic "Skyfall" theme.

The plot kicks off when Bond discovers a tape left by M (Judi Dench) on the heels of her death. She reveals to Bond that he must locate and kill a man named Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz). Therefore, Bond drops off the grid after being grounded by the new M (Ralph Fiennes) and goes in search of Oberhauser and his mysterious Spectre organization. Along the way, Bond teams up with Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), the daughter of Quantum's Mr. White, and repeatedly encounters Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista), a mute muscular member of Spectre, in his search for Oberhauser. 

Spectre tries to connect all of Craig's previous Bond films (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall) with a grand villain and organization who was ultimately behind all of Bond's pain. Bond discovers that the lead villains from his previous adventures were all apart of Spectre and that Oberhauser is the grand orchestrater of all of his pain. While this idea may sound cool, it ultimately proves to be wasteful, as Bond responds in no way to such a revelation and Oberhauser in no way adds up to be the villain capable of such pain. In retrospect, this revelation of every villain being connected with one another is completely ridiculous and total crap. No previous screenwriter or director probably felt that their villain was connected to the previous one. Therefore, all of this is simply last minute retconning in which Spectre's current screenwriters (who also wrote Skyfall) thought it would be clever to connect every one of Craig's films in order to make his Bond adventures a continuity of their own.

The octopus of death.

Spectre has a simplistic plot that should have resulted in satisfying action and story. Unfortunately, the film is nothing but a bore. Spectre's biggest weakness is that no through line connects everything together. Bond simply wanders from foreign country to foreign country or set piece to set piece without a care in the world. The film relies entirely upon formula, but injects none of that formula's pieces with energy or tension. This proves to be extremely frustrating because Mendes spent all of Skyfall rebooting Bond back to his roots. Therefore, now that Mendes has a chance to make an old fashioned Bond adventure reliant upon established formula, he delivers one of Bond's most boring adventures yet. It's surprising that Skyfall and Spectre come from the same director, as one is breathtaking and masterful while the other snooze-inducing and forgetful. Mendes has confirmed that he will not return to the franchise after Spectre, as he only intended to wrap up the story that he started in Skyfall. However, I cannot agree more with Mendes' departure, as the director (as well as Craig), should move on from the franchise and let someone else take over its reigns.

This leads into another one of the film's biggest problems, Craig's performance. Craig practically sleepwalks through the entire film and proves that he truly is over the franchise and character once and for all. It's a damn shame though, because Craig's energetic performances in the likes of Casino Royale and Skyfall earned him the title as the best Bond since Sean Connery, a high praise if there ever was one. However, it's clear that Craig is done with the series based on his emotionless turn in Spectre. It remains to be seen if Craig will for certain return for a fifth installment, but I for one declare that MGM should step away from the franchise for another four or five years and recast the role. As to how Craig and an as yet undetermined director can deliver a solid fifth Craig-fronted Bond entry is beyond me.

Seydoux makes for a fine Bond girl and comes out the most unscathed of any actor in the film. She gives a good performance as a beautiful and tortured daughter of a corrupt father who finds love in James Bond of all people (although I doubt that love will last). The most awesome character in the entire film is clearly Mr. Hinx, a mute and brutish villain who recalls Goldfinger's Odd Job and Moonraker's Jaws. He kicks the most ass and has a fantastic fist fight against Bond on a moving train that stands out as the film's best action scene. All of the franchise's returning characters, such as M, Q, Moneypenny, and Mr. White, all do fine work, even though they have very little worthwhile to work with. 

Say the password: "Fidelio."

The biggest disappointment of the entire film is its main villain portrayed by Christoph Waltz. Waltz is one of the current generations best actors, haven given incredible performances in Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Unfortunately, his turn *spoiler* as the franchise's newest Blofeld *spoiler* is extremely disappointing. Not only is he barely in the film, but he hardly leaves an impression for the few scenes that he has to work with. Javier Bardem's Silva also had little screentime in Skyfall, but he was an infinitely more interesting and devious character than the emotionless Oberhauser. It's almost impossible to believe that such a lame villain is responsible for the deaths of everyone that James ever loved and that he unleashed all of those previous villains on him as well.

The final nail in the coffin is Spectre's surprisingly boring action sequences. Although filled to the brim with car chases, shootouts, and fist fights, Spectre is one of the most hollow action films in recent memory. Most of the action scenes are entirely devoid of tension or stakes and play out like cut scenes from a video game. They may be filled with moments of greatness, such as the stunt where Bond rips the top of a parked car off with his car or when he launches a wing-less plane through a house, but they mostly pad out the running time and move Bond further along on his adventure. Take the scene where Bond escapes Oberhauser's torturous hideout. Once he heads outside, he starts gunning down henchmen left and right with the littlest of difficulty. He makes it look so easy and barely makes an effort to take cover or even aim down sight! Such hollow and empty action scenes like these populate the entire film and make the viewer question how $300 million could be flushed down the toilet like so.

As I stated in the introduction of this review, Spectre is still a Bond film, and that means beautiful locations, lush production values, gorgeous costumes, and awesome cars galore. There's something to be said about a film that costs $300 million, even if it is as hollow as Spectre. Incredible production value and gorgeous cinematography can go a long way in redeeming a bad film, and Spectre does just this. The film's brownish color scheme makes for a nice foil to Skyfall's gorgeous blues. The car chase in Rome, while particularly dull, features two incredible looking vehicles drifting through the night. The film's plentiful outfits are also fantastic, especially Bond and Swann's ever changing wardrobes. Spectre always looks great, even though its content isn't.

Bond and Swann look for a reason to care in the open desert.

Craig has confirmed that he has one more Bond film on his contract. While I would prefer for a Bond actor to go out on a high note, Craig has a lot to make up for after his worst Bond entry yet. Something radical has to be done for the next Craig fronted adventure, as Spectre proves that pure formula doesn't do much. Spectre may not be as bad as silly Bond outings like Die Another Day and A View to a Kill, but the Bond tradition proves that a 'funny bad film' is more entertaining than a 'boring bad film.' Spectre joins the list of increasingly lousy sequels this year, thereby tainting its franchise as much the disappointing Taken 3, Furious 7, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Terminator: Genisys. While I could see myself revisiting any one of Craig's previous Bond adventures any day, I need to separate myself from Spectre for at least a year or so before giving it another chance. Recommended for die hard Bond heads, but most definitely not recommended for those who don't bleed for the franchise already.

Rating: 5/10 - Beautiful visuals and a massive budget are all this dull Bond entry has going for it.