This Spectre-Martini is Stirred, Not Shaken

Rating: 7/10 (8 November 2015)

In preparation for Spectre, we re-watched Skyfall and still love it to bits. It practically pumped new life into the Bond franchise which I never thought needed one. It reinvigorated Bond with a electrifying jolt. I knew the action spectacle would be great but I never counted it to be so emotionally satisfying. Coming off the coat-tails of Skyfall, Spectre felt like a disenchanted regression and it felt like it was caught in a constant struggle between dissecting Bond more and giving Bond fans of the lowest common denominator what they want.
Roger Deakins is off and in comes Hoyte Van Hoytema who also gives an elegiac sheen to the film. Some of the vistas are just stunningly jaw-dropping and postcard-worthy. The opening Day of the Dead festival in Mexico one-take tracking shot is spectacular, coupled with so much symbolism. It continues from where Skyfall's back to basic primal ending left us. Perfect! Then that Sam Smith theme song comes in and really... the song does sound somewhat grand but it is just not memorable enough. There is just no hook in there that would serve as DNA or primer for Thomas Newman's score, unlike Adele's majestic turn.
From then on I find this latest Sam Mendes installment struggle to find its heart. That's just me, I guess. I know a movie doesn't work for me when my wifey and I constantly whispered wisecracks to each other - "ah, this is the part where the bad guy tells his entire evil plan to Bond and for our benefit" or "wah, I didn't know a ring can tell you so much. What do you think our wedding band says about us?" The evil megalomaniac rule the world plan is post-Snowden inspired but the execution feels off for me. In Skyfall, the same thing also happened but it worked for me so well because the film does a great job of building up to that moment and we feel Javier Bardem's evil diabolical presence even though we have yet to see him, and we can never forget that two rats metaphor story. Ravishingly awesome and demented. The big exposition in Spectre just didn't work wonders for me. There are also pacing issues especially in the middle act and felt over-stretched. My posterior sadly felt the 2.5-hour runtime.
Action spectacle-wise this is good ole fantastic. But forget about it having any emotional resonance. This is the Bond of old, getting beaten up a fair bit but you will have no doubt that the bad guy will be dispatched away and Bond will have nary a scratch, a crease to his tuxedo and not even a slight lowering of his sexual appetite. It is pure male fantasy escapism fun.
In terms of the new female lead Lea Seydoux, her character feels under-written, unlike Eva Green's in Casino Royale who was more than Bond's match. There is also Monica Bellucci in a memorable cameo. Craig is Craig but coming off what was pulled off in the previous entry, he is just a torpedo shooting in one direction. For this I can only blame the screenplay which tries to be clever by linking all the Craig-Bonds but ended up feeling slightly slapdash and uneven.
Ultimately, I will just say Spectre is not as good as Casino Royale and Skyfall, but it is way better than the abysmal Quantum of Solace. It would please the usual Bond fanatics but for the cinema aficionados whose hopes were raised in Skyfall, this Bond-24 feels like a Spectre-martini, stirred, not shaken.