The Bond legacy exhausted?

Rating: 7/10 (16 November 2015)

Has the James Bond legacy run out of gas? 'Specter' suggests that it is so. If there is a 26 Bond, a young Bond is needed; Daniel Craig is showy longer in the tooth. The imprint of Edward Snowden is evident in the narrative: a perilous coupling of massive government surveillance and private industry. As is its wont, a Bond film opens explosively. And 'Spectre' doesn't disappoint. Mexico City in the euphoria of All Soul's Day, skeletons, death skulls and the like. Quick, on the edge of the seat attention as Bond wrested the 'Scepter' ring from Sciarra before sending this villain to his well-merited death. The 'Coo Coo' conceit that sends Craig on his quest to find out the heir of Blofeld his nemesis, looks like a sequence ripped out of Kubrick's 'Eyes Wide Closed'. And 'Sceptre' has a biblical subtext found in 'Genesis'--the struggle between Cain and Abel, but here Bond (Abel) triumphs. Ralph Finnes has a little more bite as M. And Andrew Scott as C is so obvious in his evilness that his performance is almost a pastiche. Lea Seydoux has some heft as a love interest, more Amazon than a sex toy. The analysis on the sceptre ring on Q's computer is a quick prisoners crime book of all of the 25 Bond foes. The film work is good with what you would expect in a Bond film. Sex is kept to 3 conquests as is imbibing dry martinis. As Bond zooms into the sunset with Dr. Swann, in his vintage Bond retro car from Dr. No, we know and hope that the cover closes once and for all on Bond and his avatars.