Five Word Review: Disappointingly Old-fashioned; Mostly Enjoyable Action

Rating: 6/10 (7 November 2015)

The 24th James Bond film reunites Daniel Craig's 007 with Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw as the returning M, Eve Moneypenny and Q. They join my eagerly anticipated new villain Christoph Waltz, double- Tarantino-Oscar-winner for Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, and Léa Seydoux (Blue is the Warmest Colour) in a plot which travels from Mexico to Morocco as Bond uncovers more secrets of his past than in Skyfall
After Craig brought Ian Fleming's rather dated character crashing into the 21st century with the marvellous Casino Royale, the new Bourne-inspired spy series still managed to dominate its espionage action niche for many a year, even if Quantum of Solace was a little light on plot and character. Then Skyfall proved again how Bond could combine enjoyable action with actually being a good film, rife with character development and emotional connection, and 007 was the undisputed king of spies. Now, in October 2015 we've seen a year full of fantastic spy films, from the funny, violent and thoroughly British Kingsman: the Secret Service, to Spy, surprisingly progressive and also in its own way funny and violent. Then there was Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. Blowing the inconsistent franchise's previous instalments right out of the water, M:I 5 was in effect the exemplar of a perfect action film. (Plus the flashy-yet-forgettable The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) With such a good year for film spies, SPECTRE had a high bar to match in trying to consolidate James Bond's position as top dog in the spy genre. Unfortunately SPECTRE can not be called a resounding victory, but rather at least a hiccough that will require an astounding Bond 25.
SPECTRE has a lot good going for it, with several very good sections in it, notably any scene with Christoph Waltz's unforgettable but criminally underused villain, the exciting Dia-de-Muertos-set opening scene featuring an impressive Birdman- style single shot, and any scene with Ben Whishaw's reliable Q, who evokes his voice turn in the wonderful Paddington with effective and appropriate comic relief. However, the bad must be dealt with before more good is said.
The biggest problem with the film seems to almost be its core idea. In this age of M:I's popular Ethan Hunt, the impending franchise developing around Kingsman and the generally more relatable and modern spies emerging in today's cinema, the truth is that there is little room for a misogynistic, alcoholic sociopath like James Bond. The film-makers behind the Craig era's revival realised this and made Casino Royale and Skyfall with character development and a real emotional connection with other female characters beyond the 'Bond Girl' stereotype in mind, with the "wham-bam-thank-you-ma'ams" kept to a minimum in the new films. It worked; Skyfall was the highest grossing and most critically acclaimed Bond film ever for good reason, so why on earth revert SPECTRE to the old Bond formula? Admittedly it works here in some places, with a notable niggle for Skyfall being the over- artsy action scenes. Those have been replaced in SPECTRE with sequences that for the most part have exciting and well-choreographed action (though nothing near to being on the scale of Rogue Nation). However some scenes really belong in the era Roger Moore, for instance as Bond drives - not flies, mind - a plane down a mountain pursuing bad guys. Similarly the heavily billed Monica Bellucci is *start mild spoilers* nothing more than a Bond Girl as she shows up for one scene to be Bond's bedfellow (despite having had her husband killed by this guy three days prior). *end mild spoilers.* Dave Bautista says literally one line in the film despite having easily as much screen time as Harris' Moneypenny - he is nothing more than an Oddjob-style henchman; straight from the '60s. This desire to rely on a tried, tested and frankly very dated Bond formula is understandable - as the team at Eon try to evoke nostalgia and regain old Bond fans who were put off by this overly-modern, gritty character that Craig's 007 had become - but the decision is rendered pointless and rather ineffective in this day and age. It's a surprising thing that the year's Bond film is not even in the top three spy films of the year. Bond's next outing will require something new, with or without Craig and Mendes.
As I said, SPECTRE can't be described as too bad. It's overlong, definitely, and the plot is disjointed and often cuts corners. And obviously Bond formula is adhered to too strictly. But if you forget that we've had 007 films recently that have been good filmmaking feats on their own, then SPECTRE is perfectly enjoyable, and definitely better on a second viewing when you don't expect anything amazing. Know as Moriarty in BBC's Sherlock, Andrew Scott's talent is wasted on a bland, one-note and generic character, and Fiennes seems rather bored with the whole thing, but on the whole the performances are quite good, especially Waltz who was born to play an old-fashioned Bond villain, and Seydoux does well with what she's given. It manages to get unexpectedly dark in a few uncomfortable scenes, and the extra-safe choice of the usually irritating Sam Smith does actually pay off as his opening sequence song, "Writing's on the Wall," an unimpressive Earth Song rip-off on YouTube, is very impressive when blaring out in the cinema to the finely designed opening credits. The rest of the score is pretty good, I liked the very ending, and the links to the previous three Craig films are decently explanatory (though it somewhat lessens the effect of Javier Bardem's psychotic rampage as Silva in Skyfall).
Overall, as a Bond film SPECTRE is just like its opening song: an over-safe choice which ends up being much too similar to something else (either Michael Jackson's Earth Song or previous Bond films) but can hardly be described as bad on the big screen. 71/100