Spectre (2015)

Spectre has the best opening of any Craig Bond and one of the worst ideas in the series. It follows Skyfall, which is unfair, and it also chooses to explain the whole Craig era as a family grudge, which is nobody’s fault but its own.

Sam Mendes directed it again in 2015. I give it a 6.

The Opening

The Day of the Dead sequence in Mexico City is a long unbroken take through a parade, into a hotel, out a window and across the rooftops, ending in a helicopter rolling over a crowded square. It’s stunning, and the film never gets near it again.

The Retroactive Mythology

Bond follows a message from the dead M to a secret organisation. Its leader, played by Christoph Waltz, turns out to be Franz Oberhauser, the son of the man who fostered Bond after his parents died, and he tells Bond he was the author of all his pain: Le Chiffre, Greene, Silva, all of it. Then he takes the name Blofeld.

It’s a mistake. Making the villain Bond’s jealous foster brother shrinks the whole thing to a family squabble, and none of the earlier films support it.

The Waltz Antagonist

Waltz can do this in his sleep, and he more or less does. He’s charming in his few scenes and the film gives him almost nothing to do. Dave Bautista’s silent henchman Hinx is far more threatening and gets a great fight on a train.

The Production Scale

It cost an enormous amount and it shows: a car chase through Rome, a plane demolishing a convoy in the Alps, a crater base in Morocco blowing up. Léa Seydoux is good as Madeleine Swann, and the relationship gets more attention than the plot does. Sam Smith’s theme won the Oscar and I still don’t like it.

Craft Note

Is Spectre worth watching?

Once. It’s a 6. Watch the opening twenty minutes, enjoy the train fight, and accept that the story deflates as it explains itself.

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