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Spectre: Worst. Bond. Ever. Rest assured that I was on the internet within minutes registering my disgust throughout the world.
If I had to sum Danel Craig‘s fourth outing as the super spy, it would be: Boring.
I’m not joking, either. So much was made of the ridiculously overhyped Skyfall, with almost every film critic in the land (and abroad) making it sound like it was the Second Coming of Cinema! It was not. Beyond a decent opening scene, we had Adele’s horrific warblings and then a film so limp and so badly directed the original prints should’ve done their own sky-fall, without a parachute, and be buried the desert along with the as-then-unearthed Atari VCS copies of E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial.
As I said, that film had a decent opening scene, at least. That’s something Spectre doesn’t even manage. Well, perhaps slightly. However, it splutters along rather like the engine of the helicopter in which James Bond eventually finds himself. Before that, the film opens with a “spectacular single tracking shot” some critics have said. It doesn’t. There’s at least 2 obvious edits in there. And I’ve seen far more impressive – and longer – tracking shots.
And that sets the tone for Craig’s latest (and final?) Bond outing – everything it does has been done before. And much better.
Bond begins by going rogue in Mexico and stumbling across clues which begin to lead him towards the SPECTRE organisation (that is not a spoiler – the clue is literally in the title!). Following this, he’s grounded, just like he was in 1989’s Licence to Kill (which was meant to be called Licence Revoked, since his licence to kill gets revoked) but the filmmakers didn’t think that Americans would understand what ‘revoked’ meant. Wikipedia describe what happened next in that movie as “Bond flees from MI6 custody and becomes a rogue agent, bereft of official backing, although he later receives unauthorised assistance from MI6 armourer Q.” And that’s what happens with Q, here. And Moneypenny. And just about everyone else Bond seems to interact with on a daily basis, making the whole point of being grounded redundant.
And then come the tired cliches such as the exchange:
- Moneypenny: “They say you’re finished.”
Bond: “I’m just getting started.”
The whole thing reminded me, in that aspect of Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, retiring the IMF for the umpteenth time, but at least most of those films are delivered with the adequate humour, panache and action.
Elsewhere in the threadbare plot, due to various government mergers, MI5 et al is being replaced by “9 Eyes”, a worldwide initiative where the nine largest nations take over and deal with all kinds of electronic surveillance where everyone is watched all the time (as if we don’t get enough of that in the UK already!). This new taskforce is called “CNS”, led by Max Denbigh (Andrew Scott), who almost like like he’s about to blub because, in similar mono-lettered-name fashion, everyone calls him “C”. Constant overplay is made of how this relates to a swear word, but the only swear I can think of beginning with “C” is “crikey”.
Christoph Waltz turns up at around 40 minutes, as the supposedly mysterious Franz Oberhauser (albeit not at all if you can put two and two together – and do NOT look on Wikipedia for this film unless you want it to get the whole Spectre game away!), and then disappears for another hour before having a bit more impact, but overall not having too much screentime, harking back to Skyfall and The World Is Not Enough, where both main baddies didn’t turn up until the films were half-over!
The main problem is that Spectre is so wrapped up in its own (recent) past that it can’t come up with a story of its own merit. Some have said it’s a “Best of Bond”. No, it’s like a compilation of a few key elements from Daniel Craig’s films. It reminded me of the opening double-bill of the current series of Doctor Who, where they came across the Daleks having rebuilt Skaro. I remember TV reviewer Kevin O’Sullivan saying how the programme suffered due to getting tied up in its own folklore. And that’s exactly what’s happening here – it’s navel-gazing way too much whereas instead it should be trying to be FUN and ENTERTAINING!
And Craig may think he has tried to carve out a niche as a mean-and-moody James Bond, whereas I wanted to carve my eardrums out as Sam Smith‘s godawful warbling bellowed along with the terrible new theme tune, Writing’s On The Wall. I know it was the first Bond theme ever to get to No.1, but there was such hype around it and, since the last Bond movie came out, streaming now counts towards chart positions, so it’s much easier for such a track to get to the top slot.
In fact, Craig is one of the worst offenders in this Bond entry, as apart from one or two brief and forgettable one-liners, he’s mostly utterly charmless. There’s much more fun to be had from Ben Whishaw‘s Q and Naomie Harris as Moneypenny, while Ralph Fiennes, as the new M, is always good value. Scott also gets to shine in a neat, smarmy way.
Elsewhere in the cast, the usually reliable Léa Seydoux shows less emotion than a sack of spuds as staff doctor and Bond’s main penis polisher, Madeleine Swann. If you want to see a GOOD film with her in it, check out The Grand Budapest Hotel, where she co-stars with Fiennes, but forget tedious lesbian bonkfest Blue Is The Warmest Colour – save three hours of your life and visit certain online websites for that sort of quick get-off.
The Legacy‘s Jesper Christensen pops up again as Mr White, but here he’s about as relevant and threatening as Professor Yaffle from Bagpuss, and equally snippy. Monica Bellucci is, at 51, the oldest Bond girl onscreen, yet a MILF she is not. There’s also Guardians Of The Galaxy‘s Dave Bautista as bulky Mr Hinx, doing that typical Bond villain thang where he throws his weight around without ever once having his name revealed onscreen, so he may as well be called Baby Bellend, for all the differnce that makes.
Spectre was very plodding and drawn out with its plot – such that it was, and inbetween it plays out like a series of flashy adverts which you’d normally expect to see before the film starts. And all too often it feels like it was filmed in the dark, even more so than 2007’s Alien Vs Predator: Requiem, and that felt like they’d switched all the lighting off!
How can a film last so long and yet say so little? Daniel Craig has said he’d “rather slash his wrists” than make another Bond movie, and for him, I think his race is run. This entry tries to make something out of nothing by stringing together elements of all four of his Bond movies by, since Waltz’s character says in the trailer, “I am the author of all your pain”. What that means is that everything that has ever gone wrong for Craig’s Bond is all down to him… which is complete bollocks because it’s just a shabby idea that they’ve put together for a storyline, without any thought to the fact that it makes no sense. I’ll rein in, here, what I’d like to say about Waltz’s character, but – again with a Doctor Who reference, it tries to be like Christopher Eccleston’s series, where everything centred around “Bad Wolf”, BUT those words were spread out througout the whole series in one form or another. Here? There’s been NOTHING. So, I’m sorry Sam Mendes, but that really doesn’t wash. It smacks of a lack of ideas.
And at one point, I even found myself sigh by making that sound horses make when they blubber their lips. Not quite sure what that’s called, but it was during a quiet moment, so other people will have heard it.
In addition, two scenes were censored by the studio to get it from a 15-certificate to a child-friendly 12A, and you can see one in the first hour, which is a more violent moment than I’d expect for a 12-cert movie. I won’t detail it here but it ends with the assailant having blood on his fingers. Watching it in this form, I can imagine what was cut out. It was rather an over-the-top scene anyway but still, censorship is censorship. Normally, I’d avoid watching a censored movie until I can see it in its uncut form, but for a major Bond film, there’s going to be spoilers aplenty if I don’t see it sooner rather than later.
Since each Odeon is showing this film on about a billion screens per cinema in its opening week, why can’t at least one be given over to an uncut 15-cert? Surely the studio should issue one?
Oh, and you’ll notice, like Skyfall, that this film isn’t always presented in 2.35:1. Well, for the IMAX version some scenes have been opened up to 1.90:1. Watching in 2.35:1, I didn’t see any that would particularly benefit, but then I was watching on a huge 2.35:1-size screen, so to show it in 1.90:1 would effectively be a crop. And when that happened with Tomorrowland, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. In fact, I wouldn’t bother watching it IMAX. Just do as I did and watch on a non-IMAX screen and sit closer to the screen.
And a couple of spoilers which I’ll at least hide behind the requiste heading:
Daniel Craig’s stepping stone into hell:
- Casino Royale – 8/10
- Quantum of Solace – 6/10
- Skyfall – 4/10
- Spectre – 2/10
Please do NOT make another one, Mr Craig. And certainly not with Sam Mendes. Nor with a 7-letter title. Nor beginning with “S”. Thankyou.
Spectre is available to pre-order on DVD, but the release date has yet to be confirmed. You can also buy the 23-strong Blu-ray boxset of the Bond films to date. In the meantime, you can buy the soundtrack CD, and also, click on the poster for the full-size image.
There’s also plenty more James Bond available at Amazon
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 148 minutes
Studio: Columbia Pictures Corporation Ltd
Year: 2015
Format: 2.35:1 (ARRIRAW (3.4K) (6.5K), Digital Intermediate (4K), Anamorphic Master Scope, Anamorphic Panavision, Super 35, VistaVision (source format)) / 1.90:1 (IMAX. Some scenes)
Released: October 26th 2015
Rating: 2/10
Director: Sam Mendes
Producers: Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson
Screenplay: John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth (based on the character by Ian Fleming)
Music: Thomas Newman
Cast:
James Bond: Daniel Craig
Madeleine Swann: Léa Seydoux
Franz Oberhauser: Christoph Waltz
M: Ralph Fiennes
Q: Ben Whishaw
Eve Moneypenny: Naomie Harris
Denbigh: Andrew Scott
Mr Hinx: Dave Bautista
Lucia Sciarra: Monica Bellucci
Tanner: Rory Kinnear
Mr White: Jesper Christensen
Estrella: Stephanie Sigman
Business Woman: Joanne Manchester
And one more – and uncredited – performance which I’ll hide behind a spoiler heading:
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.