Bond ambition
Post-Skyfall, Mendes and Craig aim for the bigger picture…
SPECTRE 12
OUT 19 FEB Digital HD, 22 FEB DVD, BD
Following Skyfall was always going to be a Herculean ask for Daniel Craig and director Sam Mendes. So much worked in the favour of Bond 23, from the very fact it wasn’t Quantum Of Solace to its arrival coinciding with the 50th anniversary of 007 on screen. And that’s even before you consider a cast-iron plot boasting the best villain in years and a significant death every bit as moving as Diana Rigg’s demise in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
If SPECTRE never quite lives up to expectations, it’s not for want of trying. From the far-reaching narrative to the scope and scale of the locations and stunts, this 24th Bond outing is arguably the most ambitious of the Craig era. Like its predecessor, there are nods to 007 history – though, as the title suggests, SPECTRE’s callbacks amount to more than just an Aston Martin stored in a lock-up garage. This is the return of Bond’s oldest foe, the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion.
Our first glimpse of the shadowy cell comes in the film’s pre-credits sequence in Mexico City – a ring inscribed with the organisation’s ominous octopus insignia, wrenched from an operative’s finger by Craig’s James Bond as the two battle it out in a spinning helicopter over the Zócalo square. Beginning with cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema’s superb tracking shot as 007 stalks his target through revellers at the Day Of The Dead festival, via assassination, demolition and aerial mayhem, it’s a classic Bond opener, up there with the best.
Ditto Daniel Kleinmann’s wonderfully inventive titles, which set the scene for the SPECTRE organisation’s reach, suggesting its tentacled grip around Bond goes back to Casino Royale. Even Sam Smith’s shrill-sounding Golden Globe winner ‘Writing’s On The Wall’ plays far better in context than it does without the visuals (still, it’s not quite up there with Adele’s thunderous Skyfall – and after Radiohead released their own aborted theme, one can’t help but wish they’d been given the go-ahead).
The Hinx effect
Credits over, SPECTRE cracks along at a fair old pace, with the revelation that Bond was in Mexico following off-the-record orders to hunt and kill an assassin. Our hero’s trail of destruction leads him to be suspended from duty by the incoming M (Ralph Fiennes), who’s already engaged in a heavy power struggle with the cocksure C
‘This 24th Bond outing is arguably the most ambitious of the Craig era’
(Andrew Scott). Head of the newly formed Joint Intelligence Service, C is looking to dismantle the ‘00’ programme and sweep Britain into the ‘Nine Eyes’ global surveillance/intelligence initiative.
Bond is soon secretly hot-footing it to Rome, which leads to his first proper encounter with SPECTRE, via a clandestine meeting that allows Bond to clap eyes on the film’s real villain, Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz). All shadows and slow burn, it’s a memorably moody scene. Shame that it also features the worst door security since Tom Cruise muttered “Fidelio” in Eyes Wide Shut – a lapse in logic that’s only the first of SPECTRE’s vexing flaws.
The much-hyped car chase through the streets of Rome, as Bond is pursued by near-silent hulk Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista) in his super-sexy Jaguar, never amounts to much (it doesn’t help that 007 is on the phone to Naomie Harris’ Moneypenny for most of the journey, hardly breaking a sweat). Likewise, Monica Bellucci’s blink-and-miss turn as widow Lucia is a criminal waste; arguably, she’d have made a more interesting female lead than Léa Seydoux, who underwhelms in her role as a psychologist with a connection to Bond’s recent past.
Then there’s the notion that Oberhauser – “the author of all your pain” as he memorably tells Bond – has been pulling strings since Casino
Royale. It’s not the first time the franchise has dabbled in interconnected villainy (Bond’s first adversary Dr. No, an agent for the original SPECTRE, is mentioned in From Russia With
Love), but the handling here is tenuous. As for Waltz, despite his best efforts, he never matches the thigh-rubbing menace of Skyfall’s Raoul Silva.
Boom at the top
Still, SPECTRE has its highs – Austrian mountaintops, an expanded role for Ben Whishaw’s gadgetmaster Q, a superb train fight and a torture scene to rival Goldfinger’s laser beam. Then there’s Craig, cuff-straighteningly sublime in a role that now fits him like a Savile Row tux. Mendes, too, deserves credit for having the cajones to come back and take a second crack, particularly with a complex story that further delves into Bond’s own backstory.
By comparison, the extras feel disappointingly lightweight, suggesting that maybe a more deluxe version may follow later. Comprising several video blogs (music, action, cars, girls etc.) that debuted online during the making of the film, it hardly feels like an exclusive package – although Blu-ray comes with a pacey 20-minute featurette on the Day Of The Dead opener.
Still, you can always revel in the moment where the Bond franchise enters the record books, courtesy of 8,140 litres of kerosene. As Mendes puts it, “All one shot, come up the stairs, line of dialogue, largest explosion in the history of movies, exit frame, cut.” Maybe this was the only way to top Skyfall. In James Bond’s world, size still matters. EXTRAS › Featurette (BD) › Video blogs › Gallery (BD)