A "Spectre" ring from the Cracker Jack box

Rating: 3/10 (1 April 2016)

Having watched every Bond film, I'm tempted to say "Spectre" scores at the very low end of the series. The two most important aspects of a Bond movie – filming on-site at exotic locations and precarious stunt action shots – are cast aside in this installment. Instead, Bond goes the way of the blue-screen, with much of the action centered around a new "super duper" Secret Intelligence Service building across the Thames from the damaged original. This new building is designed with a nod to Benthem's panopticon, reinforcing the movie's preoccupation with the surveillance state. Of course, it doesn't help that this theme has been explored in literature and films at least since Orwell's "1984," and "Spectre" adds nothing to the dialogue except yet another acknowledgment of public fears in the post-Snowden era. There are a few other snazzy-looking modernist buildings of the sort Mendes seems to love, including a clinic in the middle of the Alps only accessible by charter plane, but none of the dreamy, breezy locales that made the series famous. Apparently Bond isn't allowed to enjoy his life anymore, and neither are we.
The opening scene is a long tracking shot in which we follow Bond from the crowds of the Dia de Muertos festival in Mexico City, up an elevator into a hotel room, out a window, and across the top of a building from which 007 attempts to assassinate a terrorist. While the shot requires some technical mastery, it also serves as a microcosm of the whole movie: the expression of technique in subservience of an impoverishment of storytelling. Compared with the tracking shot at the beginning of "The Revenant," for example, which describes the raucous amusements of a 19th c. trapper's camp, the tracking shot from "Spectre" signifies nothing. The sole purpose seems to be the revelation of the "Spectre" ring, a Cracker Jack box trinket we're led to believe provides admission to the most secretive criminal organization on the planet in a day and age in which the script writers otherwise obsess over power as the control of information. You can't have it both ways – if the virtual world is to triumph over the real world, then your Captain Midnight Decoder Ring probably should stay in the back of the closet where it belongs.
It's too bad that subsequent Bond movies never explored the Quantum organization in any detail. There were so many avenues they could have pursued, and ultimately no need to introduce yet another villainous conspiracy. Instead, by shifting attention to Spectre, the super secretive syndicate supposedly financing the other, slightly less secretive syndicates portrayed previously, the film merely papers over the now glaringly obvious fact that there never was any substance to these mischievous plots to begin with. "It wasn't Quantum, you see, it was SPECTRE all along!" Oh, really? And just what, if I might ask, is the difference?
"Spectre" also tries to bring back some of the camp achieved in movies like "You Only Live Twice," where Blofeld installs trap doors under the chairs of unreliable minions in his conference room in order to scare the remaining underlings. But seriously, this isn't 1967, anymore. After countless Bond spoofs like Austin Powers, these scenes feel like misguided attempts to make View Master toys relevant again. Bond has already adapted over the decades many times. There's no reason to fixate on the relics of 60's films as if they're some sort of cinematic Fountain of Youth.
Daniel Craig said he'd rather slash his wrists than appear in another Bond film. I don't blame him. I'm getting to the point that I'd rather slash my wrists than watch another, too. "Casino Royale" was supposed to give life to a fading series, and after that wildly successful venture, the future looked very bright. Years later, the defibrillator metaphorically deployed to resuscitate Bond in that movie was clearly just a temporary measure. Time to connect those leads once again. Let's just hope someone nearby knows what they're doing enough to press the right button.