Bond by the numbers

Rating: 6/10 (24 July 2017)

Before I say anything critical of this Bond entry, I will prefix it with the assertion that the film IS entertaining, and reasonably fun. A movie's basic job is to engage, and on that level, it manages it reasonably well.
However that is basically the major highlight of the production, with slight visuals and spectacular set pieces failing to mask a flimsy story, wooden acting and a hammy ending.
In Spectre, a beleaguered and frankly bored-looking Daniel Craig once again takes the Bond reins - he appears randomly in Mexico in a fairly impressive 'one take' opening scene which lasts a seamless five minutes if not longer, and is enjoyable as much for the novelty of it as the digital trickery. Bond is after some guy and once he takes him out, pursues his wife, who in this case he is defending. Then convoluted plot about digital surveillance, information being power, and nemesis-esque characters appear and frankly you give up trying to make sense of the story.
The problem with Spectre is how utterly meaningless all the meaningful stuff is - it tries to moralise about various aspects of its own plot and winds up making them look completely vacuous. And Daniel Craig does his job by the numbers, quite frankly going through the motions more than ever and making it look like his time as Bond is up. Given the utterly bizarre ending in this one, he probably thought it was.
The set pieces are decent, but overblown. From the idiotic helicopter sequence to the even worse airplane one, there is a sense of director Sam Mendes trying far too much to impress and managing to parody the living daylights (pun intended) out of action movies.
Meanwhile we still don't really know what the story is, or who this or that bad guy is or why on earth Bond ended up with that sultry chiquita.
The problem is how badly it's all cobbled together. There is actually a basis for a decent story here, about how Bond appears to be going off the rails and losing his way, but it's never handled carefully enough for us to believe he's losing the plot - MI5 want him suspended through poor conduct and yet we know he's in the right - we never believe he's turning rogue or struggling.
It's all a bit vague, messy, and while it's daft fun and not worth losing sleep over, two mediocre or worse movies of four from Craig is a pretty poor hit rate. His saving grace is the strong ones are both outstanding.
Personally I think it's time for a new Bond - he was a good Bond but he struggled with this mess and while he's supposedly involved in the next one, I'd call it a day.