The Classic Bond Villain Has Returned

Rating: Null/10 (28 November 2015)

James Bond has certainly changed a lot since the days Sean Connery strutted his stuff in front on the camera fighting an endless fight against his arch nemesis Ernest Blofelt, head of the criminal organisation Spectre. For a time it seemed that Spectre had vanished into the mists of history with fights over intellectual property preventing it from returning. During that time we had Bond fighting Russians and Drug Dealers, and in a way it seemed to fall further from the heights of the days of Sean Connery and Roger Moore. Then came Daniel Craig, an actor that completely changed the nature of the franchise.
In a way Craig is cool, calm, and collected, yet one of those silent brooding types. The Bond of Daniel Craig is not the happy go lucky, wise cracking Bond that Sean Connery defined. Instead he is a Bond that has begun to bring his past, his history, and a depth of character to give the series a new life. In a way it seems that the creators have realised that there is no return to the past, and as such the most popular, and successful, franchise in the history of cinema keeps on returning, and evolving.
As you can probably tell by the rating, I quite enjoyed this film, though while watching it I am always looking back to the original Connery. I guess bringing Spectre and Blowfelt back into the franchise has that effect. A part of me saw these original films as being somewhat corny, yet there is something about those films – such as Connery's smart mouth, and his sex appeal, that Craig, and this modern concept, can't seem to replicate. Gone are the fancy gadgets that used to populate Q's lab, replaced by computers and bullet proof cars. The tet-a-tet 'no Mr Bond, I expect you to die' just doesn't seem to work in this modern incarnation. It is not that what Bond has become is bad, it is just that it has evolved.
In the original Bond we would travel to one, maybe two, exotic locations, but now we seem to be traveling faster than we can comprehend. In Spectre we go to Rome, Austria, Morocco, and of course London (though to me, being an Australian, London is an exotic location). Where as the original Bond would have one fortress, we suddenly find that we are visiting two, though one of them happens to be the hide-out of an ally.
In a way we are being forced to remember things from the past, though my understanding of Mr White was that he had no connection with Spectre, yet we are supposed to have remembered him. Of course one of the speakers at the Spectre convention did bring back memories of bad guys from the earlier movies, it still felt rather strained. In a way there seems to be a battle within the film, with the desire to replicate the past yet to evolve into the new. In a way, being a long time Bond fan, and having seen every film to date, there seems to be things that I must remember, but do not remember as they are supposed to be. It is a great film, but it is also a conflict between the longing for the past but a longing that is trying to evolve it into the new.