Spectre

A few post ago in my Quantum of Solace review, I mentioned how the Bond franchise seems to have trouble stringing two great films together (with the exception of the early Connery films). In the case of Quantum, I believe there was a perfect storm situation of a rushed production schedule, an unfinished script due to the writers' strike, and unfair expectations after the greatness that was Casino Royale.  The film has its problems, but it is not awful.  It certainly doesn't make me angry,  Spectre is technically a better movie than Quantum of Solace,  but it makes me angry.  Very angry.

What a missed opportunity this movie is.  After four decades, Eon Productions finally got the rights back to James Bond's greatest nemesis, SPECTRE, and its nefarious leader Ernst Blofeld (read why they didn't have the rights in my For Your Eyes Only review!). Sean Connery's Bond spent most of his career fighting against SPECTRE in some pretty spectacular films, and it was really exciting to hear that Daniel Craig would be continuing that fight.

Immediately, there was a small problem to deal with. With Casino Royale, the production team introduced Quantum as a surrogate for SPECTRE.  It was an international organization that was hellbent on total domination and so secret that not even MI6 knew of its existence.  For two films, they carefully cultivated the power of Quantum.  So now that the franchise got SPECTRE back, they had to figure out the question, "how can Quantum and SPECTRE both exist?"  The odds of there being another top secret international organization that is hellbent on total domination and is so secret that not even MI6 knows of its existence would be hard to believe.  This issue had to resolved, and they came up with a simple answer for this.  Quantum is actually just a subdivision of SPECTRE.  It's a simple idea, but borderline genius. If Quantum is that powerful and it's just one piece of SPECTRE, then WOW, SPECTRE must be astronomically powerful.  That's a good threat for Bond.  Sadly, this is one of the few truly good ideas in the movie.

Sigh, let's get started.

Bond has gone a bit rogue again, as he tends to do when Daniel Craig is playing him, and much to the chagrin of his new M (Ralph Fiennes).  The opening scene involves an unsanctioned and brutal assassination in Mexico City that drives M bonkers. Just like in the beginning of Casino Royale, Bond has gone and made a big scene, bringing attention to MI6's operations and making British intelligence look bad on the world stage.  The timing is particularly bad. MI6 is under attack from an independent global intelligence agency led by Max Denbigh (Sherlock's Moriarty, Andrew Scott) which wants to combine all the world's spy networks into an international Big Brother called Nine Eyes. With Nine Eyes eavesdropped on every conversation in the world, there really is no need for national spy programs like MI6, and certainly no place for field agents like 007.  And now Bond's shenanigans have given Denbigh more ammo to try and dismantle MI6 for good.  Why would he do such a thing?!

Well, it seems that before she died in Skyfall, the previous M (Judi Dench) sent James Bond a recording saying, "hey, if I ever die, I want you to go kill this guy."  She doesn't give any explanations, but Bond leaps into action anyway. Although he is put on disciplinary leave after Mexico, he continues to investigate the background of his target, following the trail to discover the most insidious and nefarious evil organization of all time - the Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion, otherwise known as SPECTRE! 

Look, right off the bat, I don't want to say the film is all bad.  It's not.  Most of the same team from Skyfall returns, including director Sam Mendes, writers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan, and composer Thomas Newman.  Director Roger Deakins sat this movie out, but was replaced by the skilled Hoyte van Hoytema (Dunkirk) who fills in admirably.  The film looks good and is well constructed, as it should be with this group of professionals steering the ship. But even with this group, it just seems like something is missing. Everything is done well, but it just lacks the fire and the passion that made Skyfall so entertaining.  It's almost as if Spectre is just going through the motions.  Which is surprising to me because this is an important film.  They are re-introducing Bond's greatest enemy.  Shouldn't they be pumped?

In terms of plot, there is some interesting stuff going on here. There are some good sequences, including a solid scene in Rome when he attends his victim's funeral and rescues (and then, uh, sleeps with) his widow Lucia, played by Monica Belluci (Matrix Reloaded), who is the oldest Bond girl in franchise history at age 51, and still easily one of the most beautiful.  His trail then takes him to Switzerland where he needs to get information from the Madeleine Swann (Leá Seydoux, Blue is the Warmest Color), the daughter of Casino Royale's villainous Mr. White (Jesper Christensen).  It's all intriguing, if not terrific.  But I was still going to give the film the benefit of the doubt.  There was enough good stuff in there that I could safely give it a positive review as long as they stuck the landing.

And they don't.  They really, really don't.  They don't even come close to landing on their feet. No, Spectre falls flat on its face and shatters into a thousand pieces.

It's spoiler time!

The real problem comes when we are finally introduced to SPECTRE and its leader Blofeld.  Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) is ideal casting for this villainous character and he does what he can with the role, but they really weigh him down with utterly ridiculous plot details.

Our first big twist that makes no sense is that Blofeld is really Bond's lost lost foster brother. After Bond's parents were killed, he was taken in by a new family, the Obenhausers.  The son, Franz, was so infuriated that he now had a foster brother that he killed his own father, faked his own death, renamed himself Ernst Blofeld and then went on to create the most far reaching and powerful criminal organization the world has ever seen.  WHAT?! The idea is just plain stupid.  And it also undoes something I really quite liked about the Bond vs. SPECTRE struggle, starting all the way back with Dr. No.  SPECTRE is all powerful and can do anything, but this knat, this annoying "policeman," as Dr. No calls him, just keeps mucking everything up for them.  I thought that was kind of cool.  But that is undone by tying SPECTRE's origin with Bond's.

Look, I understand what they are trying to do - the idea of two brothers whose fates are intermingled - but one destined for good and the other for evil - is an ancient, almost mythic story trope.  First of all, the plot device is completely unnecessary.  Everything doesn't need to be interconnected in movies today.  It's perfectly okay to have a good guy and a bad guy who didn't know each other before the events of the movie.  Secondly, this story device ruins SPECTRE as a villain.  SPECTRE works when it is the all-powerful and mysterious organization that has its fingers in every country and and is an insidious corrupting influence on everyone.  That is what makes it an effective and scary opponent.  As soon as you reduce that to an annoying teenager who was jealous that his daddy liked Bond more than him....well, shit, they just ruined SPECTRE permanently.

The film is not helped by the fact they they then try to retcon the events of the first three Daniel Craig films into some sort of grand master plan that Blofeld had been scheming about for apparently decades.  "I am the author of all your pain." Blofeld tells Bond, taking credit for everything, including the death of Vesper (never mind that Vesper killed herself. Sigh.).  As soon as you start thinking about what this master plan means the more you realize it is utterly absurd. You think Silva's plan in Skyfall was complicated?   Well, Blofeld's master is even more of a long con!  Let's take Casino Royale, for instance.  Can we imagine Blofeld explaining this to his minions?  "Okay, team, I have a plan. I want Bond to feel bad so I am going to make his girlfriend feel so guilty about betraying him that she is going to kill herself.  But first he needs a girlfriend.  So how about I engineer a card game that Bond will need to enter, and then I can have one of the women I have blackmailed into joining my cause to put up the buy-in money.  But how do I engineer a card game?  Oh, I know, there is a banker in my own organization. I will convince him to steal money from one of my own clients and try to blow up a plane, and I know Bond will stop him from blowing up said plane. Once that happens, the banker will naturally decide that a high stakes poker game is the way to repay the client's money, and Bond will surely enter that game, get the buy-in from our double agent, promptly fall in love with her, win the poker game, get captured and tortured by my people - but I won't let him die here. Oh, no, I will send Mr. White in to kill the banker and free Bond so I can "author more pain" for him in the future." And then my double agent will feel so guilty that she will kill herself, and Bond will be sad.  That is my master plan, muwahahahahah!"

Though SPECTRE does not explicitly say all of that, this is the bullcrap they are expecting us to accept.  Once you think about what Blofeld is implying, your head will hurt. There is suspension of disbelief, I get that, but this is just absurd and makes no sense whatsoever.

There are also other problems with this film, mostly in the second half...

I don't buy the love story for a second.  Madeleine Swann is an acceptable Bond girl, and Lea Seydoux puts in a fine performance, but I don't believe Bond falling in love with her, and I absolutely do not think Bond would ever leave MI6 for her, like he does at the end of Spectre.  Bond's love for Vesper in Casino Royale felt real and earned, and I do think Bond would have retired for her.  But his relationship with Madeleine is forced and exists merely for the plot.  They fell in love because the script told them to, and not for any reason that makes any real sense. 

And then there are little things that bother me about the movie - issues that ordinarily wouldn't be that big of a deal, but are more evident and noticeable because the rest of the film is crashing apart.  In a way, the terrific cast sort of ends up hurting the film because it leads the production team into making some unnecessary storylines.  With Fiennes, Harris, and Whishaw in the cast, they are desperate to find something for them to do, so the pointless subplot with Denbigh is created, and we have the MI6 characters running through London like the Scooby Doo gang trying to get Nine Lives shut down. Ridiculous. 

Another thing that is annoying is how the film's plot gets moving in the first place.  Why would M leave a video to tell Bond, "If I am killed, then I need you to kill this guy and go to his funeral."  Why would she do that?  Why this covert mission after her death when it seems to be a perfectly viable threat to deal with when she was alive?  And how would she even know about SPECTRE?  The amazing thing about Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace is that the organization is so entrenched that MI6 didn't even know about of its existence.  If M had no idea Quantum existed, then how would she know about the even more secretive SPECTRE???

And now I am going to get petty and point out a small thing!  Just as in Skyfall, attempts at humor generally clash with the darkly serious tone of the film.  Admittedly, sometimes the jokes do pay off (I like Bond's visit to the health clinic), but one attempt at humor downright ruins the best sequence in the movie, when Bond has a vicious fight in a train with Blofeld's henchman Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista, Guardians of the Galaxy).  Bautista is a terrific and imposing presence, and the fight is expertly constructed until its final moments when the entire theater rolled their eyes because of a pointless gag.  What a waste.

This whole movie is a waste.  And that is why it made me angry.  Eon Productions had SPECTRE back after decades.  They were riding a wave of good will after the massive success of Skyfall.  They didn't rush this film.  They had time to make it right.  And the result is infuriating.  There have been other bad Bond films, but you can bounce back from them.  Just ignore them and move on.  With Spectre, that isn't quite that easy.  By introducing Blofeld the way that they do, they have ruined Bond's greatest enemy and done permanent damage to the franchise.  And that's just unforgiveable.



RANKINGS:

What to do, what to do. As I mentioned, Spectre really isn't that bad for a large portion of its running time.  There is good material in here.  But when it blows up, it does so in an epic manner, and the final result is a film that is absolutely infuriating.  So what does that mean?  My heart wants to put the film at the bottom of the list, but my head can't objectively allow me to do that.  I just can't in good conscience put this near View to a Kill.  But I can't rank it that high because I truly believe this film damaged the franchise.  I think I am going to have to put it around Die Another Day - interestingly enough another Bond film that starts with promise and then collapses spectacularly.  Ultimately, what makes the decision for me is this - if a gun was pointed to my head and I was being forced to watch Die Another Day or Spectre, which one would I pick?  Die Another Day is just stupid.  The movie would finish and that would be the end of it.  Spectre's flaws would linger.  So therefore, I will put Spectre right below it.  That's goes to #19.

1. Casino Royale
2. Thunderball
3. From Russia With Love
4. Goldfinger
5. Skyfall
6. The Spy Who Loved Me
7. Goldeneye
8. The Living Daylights
9. Dr. No
10. Octopussy
11. For Your Eyes Only
12. Tomorrow Never Dies
13. Live and Let Die
14. License to Kill
15. Man with the Golden Gun
16. Quantum of Solace
17. Diamonds are Forever
18. Die Another Day
19. Spectre
20. The World is Not Enough
21. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
22. Moonraker
23. You Only Live Twice
24. A View to a Kill



BEST LINE:

Mr. White: You are a kite dancing in a hurricane, Mr. Bond. 


TRIVIA:

It would be hard for me to mention Spectre without bringing up the Sony script hack. In 2015, hackers broke into Sony's email systems and released to the public thousands of emails from company executives, many of which were embarrassing to the executives or to the company itself. One of the topics the executives were concerned about was the script to Spectre.  It sounded like the studio had some real problems with the script, especially the last act.  The script itself was eventually leaked online, too, and people who read it had the same complaints.  Production was going to start soon, but there was a scramble to rewrite the finale, which might explain why the climax seems a bit choppy.  But tweaking the ending was never going to resolve the underlying problem this film has.  It makes me wish the script leak had happened earlier.  Maybe there would have been enough time to rewrite the whole darn thing. 


MVP:

I did debate myself on this one.  Daniel Craig is excellent, as always.  He really is a terrific Bond and he is always watchable.  But I think the winner of the MVP is going to go for the second time to the Director of Photography.  I was very disappointed when Roger Deakins didn't return, but I am a fan of Hoyte van Hoytema's work.  He keeps the film stylish, giving each location an unique look and feel - compare the dry haze, overly bright Mexico City to the dark saturation and lushness of Rome at night.  That sequence in Rome is particularly well filmed, especially the scene where Bond saves Lucia, which is truly a highlight.  In the end, I think the choice is clear.  Hoytema gets my MVP.