![]() ![]() This tying together of Craig’s Bond oeuvre-by the end, literally: as in, with string-is a decidedly poor idea, and its logic doesn’t hold up to even the most cursory scrutiny. White, Lynd, and M, they left in-perhaps accidentally?-just one glancing mention of “Greene,” Quantum’s villain. Among the literally dozens of references to Le Chiffre, Silva, Mr. Given the extent of the nostalgia-fest, it’s amusing that the film’s producers seem eager to have us forget about Craig’s less-successful second outing as Bond, Quantum of Solace. Dench even has a cameo in one of those “watch this video only after my death” scenes. The backward references to previous films are almost innumerable, and act as an accumulating drag on the current one. Or, as Waltz’s character explains to Bond late in the movie, “It’s always been me, James, the author of all your pain.” This is achieved principally by revealing that Spectre was secretly (and rather murkily) behind all the evil plots that took place in the earlier films. In essence, Spectre is an elaborate retcon job, a bid to turn the Craig movies into a unified trilogy (yes, technically a tetralogy bear with me). There, amid the customary naked ladies-here ickily accoutered in octopi-flash images of previous Bond villains Le Chiffre ( Casino Royale) and Silva ( Skyfall), along with Bond’s deceased love, Vesper Lynd, and deceased boss, the previous M (Judi Dench). Moreover, it makes a number of substantial narrative missteps, falling into some old bad habits and developing a few new ones.īegin with the second meaning of “the dead are alive,” which is advertised as early as the title sequence. But while there are plenty of pleasures to be found scattered across Spectre’s exorbitant two-and-a-half-hour running time-this is, after all, a Bond film starring Daniel Craig-the movie loses momentum at each stop and is flagging by its conclusion. Sam Mendes, who directed the previous installment of the franchise, Skyfall, returns for an encore and once again gives the proceedings an upscale gloss. (And yes, this is exactly the same plot as Captain America: The Winter Soldier, right down to many of the particulars, including a snazzy, Triskelion-ish intelligence HQ on the bank of the Thames.) But for God’s sake, don’t put Moriarty in charge of it. I mean fine, launch your dangerous new technology that will make all human privacy a thing of the past. About all you need to know about this character is that he is played by the actor Andrew Scott. Back home, M (Ralph Fiennes), Q (Ben Whishaw), and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) must contend with a smarmy young bureaucrat who’s overseeing the launch of a panoptically comprehensive new global surveillance system. Abroad, a rogue James Bond (Daniel Craig) is trying to track down information about a diabolic global crime syndicate, Spectre, and its mysterious leader (Christoph Waltz). At its conclusion, I turned to the friend seated next to me and whispered, “I could leave the theater happy right now.”įrom there, the movie leaps from London to Rome to the Austrian Alps to Tangier and the Sahara, the plot trundling on along two parallel tracks which inevitably will bend to intersect. Indeed, the entire pre-title sequence of Spectre-which also includes fisticuffs in a wildly spiraling helicopter over a crowded square-is magnificent, perhaps the best in the entire 24-film history of the franchise. Long tracking shots may be a tad oversold in the wake of Birdman and season one of True Detective, but this one is a dazzler. ![]()
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