Timeliness threatens Timelessness

Rating: 6/10 (10 November 2015)

Anniversary hangovers can be particularly rough, and few have more practice than the world's favourite martini-guzzling secret agent. Why, when he celebrated his 40th, he took four years to recover, returning with a face-lift, more grizzled and gritty than ever. Now, after the rip- roaring party that was his 50th, Bond, James Bond has never had such a tough act to follow filling his own shoes. This may have been easier if 007 hadn't, as usual, taken on impossible odds by juggling his own paradoxical expectations (still tormented but ALSO breezier, classic Bond fun? Gah!) and trying to outperform every other comparably popular contemporary franchise to boot. As such, Spectre, Bond's second outing headed by the visionary Sam Mendes, is an overall rewarding but frustratingly muddy committee-scripted affair, caught in a tug-of-war between innumerable creative visions, and neglecting to fully satisfy any of them – a "kite in a hurricane" indeed.
Bond has always struggled with somewhat of a genre inferiority complex, swaying with the tides of each action film trend du-jour, while carefully maintaining his core constitution. Often this is advantageous – we wouldn't have the sophisticated Daniel Craig run had Casino Royale not been caught in the crosshairs of Jason Bourne and Batman Begins. But, nine years later, Bond's arch-nemesis is a different superhero altogether: Marvel Studios, and their increasingly insufferable insistence on connective tissue 'universe building', which threatens to topple the film. Spectre begins with a phenomenally gripping pre-credits sequence, easily among the franchise's very best, opening with a silky Touch of Evil tracking shot through the impeccably choreographed mayhem of Mexico city's Día De Los Muertos festivities, and closing with a bone-crunching helicopter tussle teetering perilously close to the vast crowds (Mendes oversteps somewhat with the plodding, theme-bait title card, though). The opening credits are classic campy fun, in spite of Sam Smith's instantly forgettable theme tune dud, though the octopus imagery verges on hentei a bit too close for comfort (but hey – who's to say Bond's tastes haven't changed through the years?). Immediately, after some topical rumblings about drone surveillance, Bond is off, and the audience is enthusiastically along for the ride.
Alas, the ride is long. Mendes is an elegantly precise director, and with the help of Hoyte Van Hoytema's soaring cinematography and Thomas Newman's sumptuously textured musical riffing, conjures up some of the franchise's most sensorially lush sequences. But, while Mendes' classical (read: leisurely) sensibilities were only occasionally intrusive in Skyfall, Spectre breaching two-and-a-half hours (Bond's longest outing yet) feels increasingly indulgently lumbering. It doesn't help that, come the halfway point, Spectre becomes almost more intertextual quilt than film, shoehorning tenuous expository linkages between Craig's last three films into a plot audaciously pilfered from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and a far lazier rendition to boot. It's a major misfire, and the uneven footing makes the film's tentative leanings towards the conspiratorial silliness of the Connery/Moore era an even wonkier suture with Craig's characteristic grimness, which Mendes is reluctant to fully relinquish. It's far from a complete bust, with a slew of cathartic combustibles and rip-roaring car chases (and Mendes is classy enough not to sully them with needlessly jittery intensified continuity), and gorgeous location-hopping that are quintessential Bond, but Spectre is so top-heavy in terms of quality and originality that its plentiful good bits grow increasingly difficult to remember. Trouble is, with so many prominent nods to early 007 romps (albeit integrated far more tactfully than the cloying winks of Die Another Day), and only the laziest husk of a conceit to fall back on, the film has increasingly little of its own to give.
Craig, who memorably hyped the film by saying would rather slit his wrists than reprise the tux (perhaps rocking the Goldfinger white tux here was sufficient), hits all the marks with his usual flinty charisma, even offering a sprinkling of icy wit and repartee. Nonetheless, his brawny, surly vulnerability feels palpably strained, making two-and-a-half hours of him frowning somewhat belaboured. Mendes assembles a tremendous supporting cast, but sadly fails to utilize any satisfactorily. Léa Seydoux (recycled from competitor Mission: Impossible – the nerve!) is tenaciously emotive and magnetically engaging, but saddled with a far too bland a characterization to elevate her beyond 'the average Bond girl', as Mendes strives to. Particularly disappointing is Christoph Waltz, who, after a superbly creepy shadowy introductory sequence, glazes over while expounding the film's clumsy chronology and continuity (with an ill-advised 'big reveal' moment falling flat). It's a genuine shame to see Waltz slump where he should strut. Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, and Ben Whishaw are all perfectly charming as Bond's new MI6 family (Whishaw in particular is a goldmine of crisp one-liners), but Andrew Scott's spark is constricted by his 'Moriarty-lite' archetype. Particularly dishearteningly marginalized is Dave Bautista, credibly intimidating, but utterly wasted as generic muscle without any defining quirks to elevate him to the timeless Oddjob-calibre he deserves. Meanwhile, Monica Bellucci, nailing an achingly nuanced performance that somehow, with a single tear, reconciles the emotional state of Bond's pantheon of one-night stands, is kept to a disgracefully brief cameo. For shame.
The real irony: Bond has now survived for 53 years with a timeless, iconic formula, only tweaking when necessary. To see him quiver with self-consciousness here marks a worrisome juncture where his figurative grandchildren (Mission: Impossible, spy spoofs such as Kingsmen and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and even superhero films themselves) threaten to jostle him into irrelevance and antiquity if confident stability is not asserted. Daniel Craig has spent the last four films reaffirming that, yes, the world unequivocally does still need James Bond to return – and the plethora of phenomenal entertainment in Spectre's first half further substantiates it. It's time he started believing so himself. And if it takes another face-lift to see that actualized, perhaps it's time to give Craig the break he craves, and hit the casting floors for the next Bond, James Bond.
-6/10