So much of Spectre, the latest action-adventure featuring British superspy James Bond, hearkens back the character’s earliest appearances on the big screen. SPECTRE was the super-villainous organization with which he tangled starting with Dr. No and continuing throughout the series during the 1960s and 1970s.
The head of SPECTRE, Ernst Blofeld, was the model for Mike Myer’s Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers parodies. Blofeld is easy to spoof, given his preference for dressing in North Korean chic fashion and his devotion both to his fluffy white cat and secret lairs housing armies of minions.
A lot about early Bond is similarly easy to laugh at, of course, but we go with it because it’s mostly cheeky fun. (Except for that time Sean Connery as Bond “disguises” himself as Japanese. That was just plain wrong.)
We’re now four films into the era of Daniel Craig as Bond, however, in which British intelligence is hardly a joke. There have been a few attempts to let Craig flash a wry grin since his debut in Casino Royale, but he’s primarily played Bond as a conflicted character. He’s ambivalent about his chosen profession and glowers even after bedding another in a long line of absurdly ready-and-willing ladies.
The challenge Spectre has laid for itself — and which it doesn’t pull off — is marrying its approach to the character (Bond as Dark Knight) to the over-the-top flourishes of the franchise’s past, because there’s really no other way to represent SPECTRE. The screenplay opts for recycled settings by way of homage. We’ve seen before Bond engage in fisticuffs aboard a helicopter and check into a clinic perched high in the Alps. We’ve seen the inside of a SPECTRE board meeting and watched Bond greeted with the utmost courtesy, offered rest and refreshments, when he reaches the isolated headquarters of the villain. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with any of it. It could be the sort of entertainment that knowingly winks at the audience the way that Connery and Roger Moore did during their turns.
Trouble is, we can’t at the same time be expected to care about the reveal that Bond’s past — bits of which were revealed in the last, far superior film, Skyfall — helped to produce his own greatest enemy. Nor is it reasonable to — in the same movie in which he beds Monica Bellucci about five minutes after meeting her — ask us to take seriously his quandary about choosing between saving the world on the regular basis and the love of a good woman.
Christoph Waltz is fine as the shadowy Big Bad, Oberhauser. Bellucci and Léa Seydoux do their (underwritten) duties as “Bond Girls.” The action set pieces are OK, if unspectacular. The gravitas with which director Sam Mendes and the screenwriters apparently hope to imbue the enterprise by centering the story on hidden threats of the modern surveillance state is territory that’s been better covered already in other post-9/11 big-budget thrillers.
Worse is that what should be a simplistic story will likely prove disorienting if you haven’t recently rewatched the previous Craig-era Bond films. Spectre really should have begun with a “previously on James Bond” segment. It plays like a new episode in a serialized drama rather than a fully stand-alone entry.
Craig has made it plain that he’s finished with the role, and the film feels set up as the swan song for his version of 007. There’s been a lot of talk about him in recent articles as the “best Bond ever,” and his Casino Royale and Skyfall rank as among the absolute best in the series. But Quantum of Solace was lousy, and Spectre is a disappointing finish. Here’s hoping the inevitable reboot with a new star doesn’t keep trying to play it both ways with the character.
