Last of the Premium Bonds?

Rating: 6/10 (9 November 2015)

Full of interesting things, SPECTRE is nevertheless a step down from the heights of its predecessor. SKYFALL was barely a Bond movie at all: it concerned itself with a man who had a tragic childhood and explored the consequences within the confines of a genre movie. SPECTRE tries to do the same thing but, the old-style Bond film is more present.
As an actor, Daniel Craig has a far greater range than any of his predecessors as 007, and the producers, seeing what they had, exploited it, in line with the fashionable self-examination of comic-book heroes that was taking place in the SPIDERMAN and BATMAN franchises. Inevitably some people don't like it, while others applaud it. I'm in two minds about it, myself. I do feel that SPECTRE takes itself too seriously, making it too sombre to enjoy in the way we enjoyed From Russia With Love or Goldfinger. On the other hand, compared to the witless, vacuous ROGUE NATION, the latest from the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE franchise, SPECTRE is a masterpiece. But I have a friend who considers witlessness and vacuity to be the vital ingredients of this kind of film, that the absence of psychological realism and presence of one-dimensional performers such as Mr Cruise are the principal reasons such movies give so much pleasure. I understand that point of view. All the same, I'd rather spend time watching a good actor like Daniel Craig.
For me, the level of acting in the recent Bond films constitutes their main pleasure. In SKYFALL there was Judi Dench and Javier Bardem. Here in SPECTRE we have Andrew Scott, Lea Seydoux and an unusually restrained Christoph Waltz, as a villain who is wearied and hollowed out by his villainy. Then there is the sheer quality of the splendid team surrounding Craig: Ralph Feinnes, Ben Whishaw and Rory Kinnear are all distinguished theatre actors, who've all played Hamlet. They give a lot of bang for their buck, especially Whishaw, who has more to do in this movie than he had in the previous one. Naomi Harris as Moneypenny lacks her colleagues' theatrical chops, but she is bright and perky, evidently living in a more real world than either of her predecessors in the role.
All in all, it's not bad, in fact it's pretty good, but once Craig leaves I doubt whether they'll be able to maintain the kind of complexity he's brought to the role. Nor will it be possible to go back to the crude sexism of earlier incarnations. Is this, then, the end of the line?