Daniel Craig’s James Bond battles “Spectre”
Arguably the best thing about “Spectre” is that Daniel Craig is still James Bond in it.
On the other side of that coin, perhaps the worst thing about the 2015 adventure is that it spends a little too much time looking backward, rather than forward.
Longtime Bond fans may be a little too critical of these movies, but too often, “Spectre” — which Freeform shows Thursday, July 20 – goes by the numbers: a vicious train fight here (see “From Russia With Love”), an Aston-Martin car there (check “Goldfinger”). Still, great pleasure remains in seeing Craig embody Bond for what was the next-to-last time, pursuing the enemy organization that the star’s rebooted Agent 007 encounters.
It’s run by Christoph Waltz’s character, who shares a past with Bond that has made them brothers of sorts. Ultimately, though, the central bad guy turns out to be someone the 007 faithful have known very well for a long time. The spoiler alert on that has long sailed, but we’ll hold to it for those who still may not know the secret.
The main women with whom Bond gets involved in “Spectre” have ties to his enemies: Lea Seydoux (who would return in Craig’s farewell to the series, “No Time to Die”) plays the daughter of his reappearing foe Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) and is the main love interest, and Monica Bellucci — notably a more mature fling for our hero — plays, albeit briefly, a criminal’s widow.
And it’s a delight that such then-new series regulars as Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw (alias M and Q, respectively) have sufficient screen time. Sadly, however, Naomie Harris gets less to do than in “Skyfall” as the resourceful Moneypenny.
Director Sam Mendes also returned from “Skyfall,” and he again furnishes solid action sequences starting with a whopper in and above Mexico City. A frantic car chase through the (surprisingly) empty streets of Rome, pitting Bond against a vicious and silent killer (Dave Bautista), is a highlight as well. Kudos, too, to Thomas Newman for another excellent music score that partially draws upon past Bond themes, some of them his own from the preceding film. (The Sam Smith-performed song “Writing’s on the Wall” won an Oscar.) In fact, there are quite a few references overall to earlier 007 capers.
At nearly 2-1/2 hours without commercials, “Spectre” certainly pours on a lot ... maybe more than necessary, which is a feeling generated only when the result doesn’t jell completely. All the expected pieces are here, it’s just a matter of how smoothly they are (or aren’t) assembled.
Just about any James Bond movie is reason for devotees to celebrate. However, after the heights of “Skyfall,” “Spectre” may well leave them only moderately shaken and stirred.