DVD REVIEW: Spectre

Beware: this review contains spoilers...

For someone who calls himself a 007 geek, I didn't see Spectre at the pictures. This was double strange considering I loved Skyfall, and Daniel Craig is my second favourite Bond*, but the marketing didn't grab me at all and the early opinions from people I trusted were anything but glowing. But now it's out on home video, I decided to give it a chance.

Everything seemed back to normal at the end of Skyfall - a new M, Moneypenny, and a chance for Bond to get back in the saddle for some new adventures away from Quantum. Oops. After a decent pre-credit sequence in Mexico during the Day of the Dead celebration, Bond finds himself grounded in London while MI6 merge with MI5, and new boss C wanting to shut down the 00 program. Thing is, Bond was in Mexico to kill someone on the orders of Judi Dench's M (making a post-death appearance on a VHS), but this person again seems to be a part of something bigger. Spectre.

Spectre is the weirdest film. Imagine a corridor at EON: from the left comes someone carrying the script to Thunderball, from the right another person carrying the script to Moonraker. They collide, and both scripts are hopelessly entangled without rhyme or reason. It follows the previous exploits of Craig's 007, with the hard-edged action barely stepping back from the parody line, but has a bunch of weird comedy moments straight out of the Roger Moore back catalogue. However, Craig doesn't really seem like he wants either, and just looks very bored throughout the whole thing.

The scenes involving women are worse; Bond's lover/companion Lea Seydoux is pretty unconvincing. Craig and Seydoux themselves have less romantic chemistry than Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman, and Seydoux's tired "I don't want to be rescued, I can handle myself" shtick is worse considering she keeps being Bond's Olive Oyl, with Dave Bautista's Mr Hinx a quite good Bluto. Bautista is probably the most interesting character in the film, especially after gouging someone's eyes out at the Spectre AGM. Being served a worse fate than ol' no-eyes is Monica Bellucci, the supremely talented actress who is ickily seduced by Bond in his old ways of fucking women to get information and not really caring if they get killed or not (the latter is funnily addressed at one point). And Moneypenny is back at being Bond's info stooge, although we do see she has a life outside MI6, and when I say life, I mean someone else in her bed.

And then there's Christoph Waltz. Yes, of course he is Ernst Stavro Blofeld, although previously he was Franz Oberhauser who mysteriously died along with his father. Turns out orphaned Bond grew up with them, and, well - you remember that bit in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves where Christian Slater tells Kevin Costner that he hates him because their father liked him more? This is basically the whole deal with Blofeld, who not only has a fluffy white cat but ends up at the end with a big facial scar and cloudy eye. And Waltz is terrible. So boring. It's a horrible waste - he's such a fine actor, and he's just given these dreadful cliched lines and weird plot which basically amounts to him taking away Bond's memories. Spectre itself never really figures in the plot, just being placed as a shadowy organisation whose other head honcho is a dead giveaway from the moment we meet him.

Oh, and the action sequences are so dull. There's a in-helicopter fight that goes on for ages, a car chase with Bond's brand new Aston Martin that feels like it's going at 10mph, and, well I've forgotten what else. Everything seems half-hearted, be it Thomas Newman's okay (I guess) score (although maddeningly he's still using that ten-year old Bond theme arrangement by David Arnold) or the cinematography. Remember Deakins and that silhoutte fight? The fire on the Scottish moors? All we get here is an oddly yellow filter and little else to recommend. Oh, and that fucking Sam Smith song? DIRE.

The funny thing is, I enjoyed it for a while, in the same way I enjoy Octopussy. But after a while it just grinds on you, especially as it goes on forever - two and a half hours is far too long for something this half-baked. The third act in particular is absolute rubbish, and the denouement is a damp squib. The best thing about Spectre is that it finally begins with the gunbarrel, but from there everything is downhill.

The rumours are flying about that Spectre will probably turn out to be Daniel Craig's last venture as James Bond. As someone who adores Craig's Bond, this is a terrible prospect, that after such success he could go out on such a bloody awful note. A lot of people disliked Skyfall, but at least it felt fresh, it felt different. It felt like it wasn't afraid to try new things, and it's hard to believe both Skyfall and Spectre have the same director. There was a track on the Skyfall soundtrack called 'Old Dog, New Tricks' - reverse that and you have Spectre. Same old shit, different day.

*After DALTON, of course.

- Charlie

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FILM REVIEW: Skyfall

 Skyfall, the third Bond film with Daniel Craig playing the infamous title role and the first with Sam Mendes at the helm, has a release date which marks the 50^th anniversary of Dr No- the first ever Bond film.

As well as being charmingly placed historically, it’s also the film MGM productions hoped would drag them out of past financial troubles, bounce back from the utterly plot lacking Quantum Of Solace (2008), as well as aiming to attract both old and new fans alike.

So no pressure then.

Fortunately, it achieves nearly everything on its to-do list with flying colours. Despite the attempt towards a sort of 21^st Century Bond from the very beginning of the Daniel Craig era, this one comes the closest, whilst still remaining witty, visually spectacular, engaging and, honestly-really good fun.

Without wishing to give too much away, the film opens on James and fellow MI6 agent Eve, sharply played by the wonderful Naomie Harris, as they chase a shady looking character who just so happens to have the details of every double agent lodged in a terror cell the world over. When ordered to ‘take the bloody shot’ by a deliciously ruthless M (Judi Dench), Eve accidentally hits her fellow agent, rendering him ‘missing presumed dead’. He proceeds to enjoy the quiet life in a way only James Bond really could, only returning to London to report for duty when he learns of an attack on MI6 HQ, right in the heart of London.

Once back, he meets the brand new and brilliantly nerdy Q, played by Ben Whishaw, as well as Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), the new Security chairman. M then makes the questionable decision to send the damaged Bond back out into the field in search of the perpetrator of the attack, who she suspects is someone she used to know- a journey which also takes Bond rather further back into his own past than we’ve seen before.

Several sensitively placed innovative camera tricks at key moments make this a beautifully shot film, with impressive set pieces and locations on a huge scale. It also has far more of a storyline than several of its predecessors, as we are drip fed equal parts subtle and not so subtle hints along the way, with a couple of juicy twists thrown in for good measure. It also does a lot more thematically than I anticipated, with dialogue tropes and metaphors referencing the overall narrative arc and feeding into it. It is also well paced, and, for the most part, satisfying for fans and newcomers both.

Hugely pleasing for Londoners, Skyfall follows on nicely from this Summer’s spotlight on the capital, with many key moments happening in all too familiar locations. Residents will particularly enjoy rush hour scenes, which, although not nearly busy enough, give audiences a chance to see Bond in an everyday world he, for all his competencies and skills in the field, knows very little about.

Also on the plus column were director Sam Mendes’ fine cast. Naomie Harris’ character brings a lot to the franchise for female fans, with her sparky and assertive performance- a presence only added to by the formidable figure of Judi Dench’s M. We’re far from there yet ladies, don’t be over hasty with the bunting, but there were a couple of moments in Skyfall, which I count as at least one more than in any other Bond film, where it almost, almost felt as if Bond were having a professional conversation with fellow people, as opposed to the stereotypical subordinate sex objects and bossy matriarchs we’ve seen before. Phallic symbols and naked women were kept to a tasteful minimum in the title, treatment of the Foreign was less horrifically problematic than usual, and Judi Dench was used to her full potential for the first time since her “because I think you're a sexist, misogynist dinosaur” opening speech back in Goldeneye. Ben Whishaw’s young, floppy haired Q also added a lovely new dynamic, softly manoeuvring the spy genre out of the macho boys’ club it so often becomes.

Skyfall is a well-made and emotionally arresting film, which I was able to enjoy without the usual concern for ‘the Other’ that the Bond franchise usually induces.

My only real worry, and with it my only real criticism, is the end. There are heaps of fan pleasing moments, self-referential jokes and clever little winks to the audience, true. And plot wise, it’s damn near close to perfect. All boxes are ticked, and the story is taken full circle whilst simultaneously moving forward to a new era.

I am proud to call myself a fan of the Bond franchise, but as well as this I’m also a woman, and, most days at least, a woman with a brain. On a personal level, I was bitterly disappointed that, having made so much progress in a positive direction, it was all taken away again at the last moment. Frankly I’d dearly love to be able to enjoy the films just as much as the boys without having to switch my brain off, constantly waiting to be returned to the ‘norm’ of a subordinate position.

So as a fan, I loved it. A satisfying story, well put together, with fantastic set pieces, emotional moments and witty lines in equal abound. As a woman, however it all niggled just a little.

It seems a grave shame that one always seems to be at the other one's expense. 

**** (and a half, for the niggle)

Jen

  

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