Movie Monday - Spectre
I was raised on a few notable things - over-buttered food, the Muppets, the residual snobbish european sensibilities of my immigrant parents, and James Bond. Those last two things might have a pretty strong correlation, but either way I can’t remember any length of time going by before one of my parentals would collapse on the couch in an exhausted huff and throw on any one of the (then) 19 tapes they had displayed proudly on a shelf in chronological order. Except for Moonraker. Fuck Moonraker.
Fast forward to the present: I had my butt in a theatre seat with a huge tub of popcorn as soon as possible to see Spectre. Because whatever the multitude of issues surrounding the film (the studio and licensing issues, rumours surrounding Daniel Craig’s desire not to step back into the role) there was absolutely no way I was going to miss the next installment.
Sony Picture Entertainment
Had I not been paying rapt attention to the movie screen I might have missed it anyway. For the most part, Spectre is paced at breakneck speed - blinking slowly might very well have you losing your place in the usual web of international intrigue. While this isn’t inherently a bad quality in cinema, Spectre ends up feeling like it’s lacking something in substance thanks to the whirlwind way Bond flies through the plot. It’s a shame considering the movie had the talents of both Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained) and Andrew Scott (of BBC’s ‘Sherlock’ fame).
Sony Picture Entertainment
Screen time seemed to be confused on where the focus should be. The plot-build of the movie was sped up to incomprehensible speeds to compensate for the the slow bits around the relationship between Bond and Lea Seydoux’s character Madeleine Swann. The narrative of the movie presents her as a new and different concept of a Bond girl: a smart, educated woman with a science background who can well-enough handle a firearm on her own and wants nothing to do with James. Of course, it makes me wonder if the writing team has ever seen another Bond movie before. Ever.
Sony Picture Entertainment
Not to say there weren’t thoughtful, charming bits present in the movie. One of the ways in which Spectre truly succeeded was the way in which the writing formed a kind of quirky, vagabond cadre of friends with Bond at the center and three of the characters Skyfall made so endearing: Ralph Finnes’s M, Naomie Harris’s Moneypenny and Ben Whishaw’s Q. The antics between the four of them over com-links and face-to-face builds beautifully off of what Skyfall so loving started, and is well worth the price of ticket admission alone for fans of the series.
Sony Picture Entertainment
The whole package ended up a mixed bag - not the abhorrent mess that was Quantum of Solace, but certainly not the “guaranteed-to-have-a-place-on-the-Bond-shelf-for-all-time-and-eternity” that was Skyfall. In the same way, Sam Smith’s “Writing on the Wall”, which served as the audio accompaniment for a visually stunning title opening, was a fair if untraditional stab at a Bond theme but would NEVER oust Adele’s “Skyfall” from my attention.
Sony Picture Entertainment
Without spoiling too much, Spectre seems not to be able to decide whether it wants to break the
Bond tropes or play straight into them. And even as a long-time Bond fangirl I’m willing to admit that a solid commitment to either direction could have made an excellent film, but the hodge-podge half and half that we get here feels more than a bit unsatisfying. In 1962, Dr. No lets James Bond in on a little secret: that he is a member of an organization called SPECTRE: Special Executive for Counter-Intellegence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. In 2015 we get a thoroughly average movie of the same name. Consider me stirred: not shaken.