Probably not what People were Ex-Spectre-ing

Rating: 8/10 (23 November 2015)

There is a sad irony to the even numbered Craig movies. The producers hit on a gritty, bare-bones style and a mood that worked in 2006's acclaimed Casino Royale, and then decided to play it to the hilt with 2008's chronically-derided Quantum of Solace. Four years later, the producers strike gold again with a tone of melancholic nostalgia with 2012's adored Skyfall, and now we have the incredibly nostalgia (sans melancholic) Spectre. Much has already been said about this film, and the compliments only outweigh the complaints by a slim margin.
The film's alleged problems certainly do not rest in its technical aspects. Roger Deakins' utterly lavish cinematography for Skyfall was always going to be an impossible act to follow, but Hoyte van Hoytema delivers some gorgeous and arguably more dynamic images that, though they never surpass Roger's work, come close to equalling it. Sam Mendes is also on top form, blocking his scenes with a delicate and graceful touch. Observe the opening action scene, the near-assassination and subsequent seduction of the widow Lucia Sciarra, and the Spectre board meeting, a cabal headed by the mysterious Franz Oberhauser. These scenes, as well as many like them from Skyfall, shall go down as some of the finest in the Bond canon.
The problems are neither to be attributed to the cast, who all deliver excellent performances. Daniel Craig exudes both boyish charm and homicidal menace in every frame he's in, much like Connery did, but on this adventure he allows himself to embrace his inner Moore, smirking and cracking wise to a far greater degree than ever before. Fiennes, Whishaw, and Harris fall smoothly into their time- honoured roles, whilst Kinnear and Christensen establish a sense of cosy connection to the pre-Skyfall Craig movies... though Judi Dench gets a post-mortem cameo that, though certainly nice, is little more than rather clumsy fan service. Léa Seydoux is probably the worst Craig Era Bond girl, but that still puts her head and shoulders over half of Connery, Moore, and Brosnan's love interests. Andrew Scott, Dave Bautista, and of course Christoph Waltz are all quite excellent as villains, whilst Monica Bellucci captivates in a small role that needed significant expansion.
Ultimately, the film's problems really come down to two elements. The first is rather minor compared to the second, but it still drags proceedings down a bit and was a much bigger problem for me than the second (which I'm only really mentioning to address the cause of this movie's bad reception). This first element is Thomas Newman's score. When I first heard that Newman, a composer known for providing soft, simple themes for dramas, was going to do the score for Skyfall over series regular David Arnold, to say I was skittish would have been an understatement. Arnold had essentially synthesised the sound of modern Bond after the departure of the legendary John Barry, and here was this art-house composer threatening to turn the Bond sound into something that could play over a tale of a man suffering a mid-life crisis in American suburbia. But despite my reservations, he handed in a pretty darn good score for that movie and then he handed in the exact same score for this movie. I am exaggerating a bit, as Newman does reorchestrate and develop the various leitmotifs he conceived for Skyfall, but only just enough so that you don't think he actually just mixed the Skyfall soundtrack CD into the Spectre print. There are precious few new tunes and melodies to be found here, and it just comes off as a bit pathetic after a while. Newman clearly spent all his action movie scoring abilities on Skyfall, and now he's just collecting a pay check.
The second is, of course, the script. In terms of logic problems, the film is no worse than Skyfall. The implausible links between (as well as the true identity) of Oberhauser and Bond are no more absurd than the Silva's precognitive abilities in Skyfall's second act, and the rather clumsy attempts at saying something relevant about modern espionage with condemnations of extensive surveillance and the overuse of drones actually coming off as half-way intelligent in the face of the ridiculous portrayal of cyber-terrorism in the last film. Where this script fails, and where Skyfall succeeded, is in setting up emotional stakes and character arcs.
The past three films in the series (even Quantum) have been lauded for giving Bond a proper emotional journey, from his relative loss of innocence in Casino Royale, to developing emotional discipline in Quantum of Solace, to accepting and overcoming the barriers of age i Skyfall. That Skyfall also had the swansong element for the exquisite Judi Dench gave it a power and resonance with viewers that raised audience expectations far above what they probably deserved to be for the emotional currency of a Bond movie. So when Spectre comes out, with Bond now as an absolute who's only arc is 'should I settle down?', you get the sort of reactions that lead to a mere 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That the film still has the darker, edgier visual style of its predecessors arguably doesn't help matters, as the film's otherwise old-school screenplay just can't find expression as the campy delight that rival franchise's Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation was.
As I said earlier, though, the 'problems' of this script do not bother me. The franchise has not had a good classic Bond romp since the 80's (because screw the Brosnan movies), so to finally get one is really a nice bit of variety at this stage; and by the same token, the film's commitment to its art-house aesthetic makes it feel faithful to both the Craig movies and the early 60's entries. In short, this is a Bond movie that really only exists to please Bond fans. And y'know what? That's fine.
And no, I did not like Sam Smith's song either.