Irritating Mix Of Old And New . Possibly The Weakest Craig Bond Film

Rating: 7/10 (29 October 2015)

I'm not much of a Bond fan but the great thing about Craig era Bond is that they're Bond films for people who don't like Bond films . None of this killing a bad guy then turning to camera making a wisecrack . None of this climatic fight sequence on a mode of transport with laughable back projection . With Craig's Bond if he says he's in Mexico the production team make sure the audience know he's in Mexico and not in a Shepperton film studio . If Bond gets hit in the genitals he'd feel it the same as 3.5 billion men . If a woman who he cares about gets killed he gets angst ridden about it . In other words we - the audience - can relate to this . It'd be a step too far to say Craig's Bond is now part of realist cinema but I for one feel this direction has saved a tired and dying franchise . With SPECTRE the series has taken a rather clumsy step backward
!!!! SPOILERS !!!!
It's not all bad . Sam Mendes keeps up the riveting work seen with the brilliant SKYFALL . The film opens with a continues shot where the camera gives the impression it's all done in one take . A female character leaves her house to stand beside a pool where two assassins follow her and again it's a great example of a tracking shot and you do get the impression the technical staff are after those Oscars next year . The film also contains gritty violence such as a Spectre agent being executed in a graphic manner . If you loved the art-house and deadpan tone of the previous three films then it's still sustained . Such a pity it's never sustained enough and we have to endure a few bits of nonsense we'd thought we'd never see again By this I mean we're back to the gadgets era of Connery , Moore and Brosnan . A car with an ejector seat and flame throwers ! Oh dear . Didn't like this much back in the day and don't like it now . In many ways it's even worse now because it jars with the serious tone of much of the film . Another annoying aspect is that Bond is able to endure much physical violence such as a fight on a train and brain drilling and yet seems to physically recover instantly . A million miles away from the Bond seen in CASINO ROYALE
This film's major failing is however contained in the title -SPECTRE . You've seen the trailers with Christoph Waltz telling Bond that he's been the cause of his pain etc but none of the motivation or continuity is ever satisfactorily explained . Spectre ties in with Quantum but why ? and how ? It does give a hint as to its philosophy when a character mentions "weakness" and decries "Democracy" which might indicate the organisation is a literally fascist cult but again this goes totally unexplored There's no reason for this organisation to be called Spectre except to reference earlier Bond films and use nostalgia as a marketing tool . It also has a plot twist of sorts where Waltz character reveals his true identity but again this seems like cynical fan servicing . He never seems like the character he is supposed to and is more in line with Elliot Carver from TNL
I found myself slightly disappointed by this film .SKY FALL had a lot to live up to and had been looking forward to this ever since the trailers came out . To be fair I didn't find myself pining for the Moore and Brosnan movies but SPECTRE feels like a retrograde step where gadgets and set pieces take precedence over plotting and character motivation . If SPECTRE breaks box office records it will be because of the previous Craig films and not because of its own merits