Reverting the Reinvention

Rating: Null/10 (23 November 2015)

Daniel Craig's James Bond is known for reinventing the whole franchise into a darker material. Casino Royale and so on established a grittier world into this mythology, which brings a whole new appeal to the franchise. Spectre however wants to return to the classic roots, while it's fun, it's disappointing how it breaks what this supposed reboot was trying to create. It looks nice and it also has one of the craziest opening scenes you may get in a blockbuster, but there's nothing much to it other than confusion between gritty and campy.
There's nothing much about the plot other than Bond traveling around the world only finding information from each place he stop by about the secret organization involved behind his last mission, which happens to also connect to his other missions. There isn't quite a lot of trouble to chase from, Bond is basically just picking up stuff while some henchman keeps intruding his trip. The real letdown here is the main villain. He is ultimately campy, compared to many villains that Bond has faced from the last three movies. He doesn't kill out of convenience, but rather to appear as threatening: he makes speeches, he sets Bond into some of his games, he puts him into a torture machine, etc. because he is supposed to be twisted or something. But whenever this bad guy fails, he always looks like a sissy, easily making us blame for him not shutting up and just kill Bond in the most basic way possible. It's sad to see Christoph Waltz handling this role, if I have to be brutally honest, he might as well reprising his role from The Green Hornet. Both villains wanted to look scary, but they also seem too inept to keeps things according to their plan. At least the former was a total comedy, this one is a James Bond movie, and not just a James Bond movie, it's the gritty Daniel Craig James Bond movie, and not just the gritty Daniel Craig James Bond movie, it's the ultimate villain of his oeuvre!!!
To be fair, Waltz is never bad. And this villain is quite effective when he wasn't physically revealed yet, when he was just a shadow, drenched into darkness, cannot tell what this man could be capable of, until we all know what happens. No wonder why he had to put an entire organization to set up his plans, this guy is amusingly too pretentious at handling his work on his own. It kind of makes the secondary villains seem more sinister and menacing, because no matter how one dimensional and over-the-top Mr. Hinx and the surveillance guy were, they still seem more competent for Bond to face. The movie itself is stunning to look at. There's a lot of fancy imagery to admire. The action is quite fun as well, building momentum at every turn. The helicopter scene is pretty amazing. And when the action stops, then so is everything else. Daniel Craig is still a nice Bond and Christoph Waltz, again, is trying his hardest to make this villain work.
The franchise has spent its years trying to take itself more seriously, like eschewing the silly gadgetry, move on to higher and somewhat realistic stakes and even choosing prestigious choices, but Spectre seems like a few steps backwards; and that starts from the most over- the-top villain ever put on this reboot. The rest is just stunning imagery and a plot where Bond is picking up crumbs only for an excuse to travel across the globe and set up another action sequence. It's not as bad as many people have said, it's still quite entertaining for the sake of entertainment. But we see this franchise transcending and then here we are. It's not as impressive as what the last few films have been building up.