Spectre, a mixed result of the best (and worst) of James Bond

There is a James Bond movie curse. It loosely states that every other Bond film won’t be as good as the next one. Much like back-to-back winning seasons are elusive for some sports teams are difficult, so are the Bond films that improve on quality for more than two films. Spectre falls into this category unfortunately. It’s not a bad film, but just like you rarely eat bad pizza, this particular one isn’t as good as the one before it, but it’s still OK.

Spectre is a mixed bag because it goes back to Bond’s past, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Many of my favorite Bond films were in the camp-era of Roger Moore. They were fun, spy films that were engaging and seen through the proper lens are still entertaining today.  Sure the acting and some of the scripts were suspect, but they were fun and had globe-trotting adventures of 007.

But then Bourne (and to an extent XXX) came along turning the spy genre realistic, gritty and less jovial. Just after that the Mission Impossible series happened and, once they really hit their stride with the past two movies made a fun, semi-realistic spy movie with stunts their signature calling card.

For this James Bond outing, Spectre returns some of the humor to the series. There are some very dry examples in the dialogue and a couple of sight gags where Bond does something. It’s nothing as obvious as James throwing a vile of liquid and a villain, having them recoil in pain, then realizing that he threw his own urine at them. For fans of the aforementioned Bond, borderline cheesy, Moonraker is the apex of that style and still holds up today for what it is.

Spectre doesn’t entirely abandon the realistic feel that was set out in the previous three Daniel Craig films. This story ties those three films together, albeit loosely, with a connection to Sepctre, the classic, secretive villain society that dominated the late 60’s films. Back then Blofeld, the head of Spectre was played by the child psychologist for Michael Myers, Donald Pleasance and in this outing he’s played by Christoph Waltz.

The action sequences in Spectre are nice. It starts out with a fabulous chase and fight in Mexico City, goes to a very taut plane chase in Austria and a couple others. At just under 2.5 hours though, the film feels long, which is kind of a bummer because I want to be entertained for a long period of time. Usually Bond films keep me wanting more, but in this case it dragged in parts of it for a while.

Much was made of Monica Belluci being in this film and Bond’s most mature love interest. However, she’s only in the film for a short period of time. The other female lead in Spectre is the daughter of Mr. White, who Bond has been sworn to protect. For some unexplainable reason, Bond and her fall in love all too quickly, say “I love you”, risk lives and eventually walk off in the sunset together.

Remember the first Batman film where Michael Keaton said that he was Batman to Kim Bassinger entirely too early in their relationship? That is the frustration that fans feel when Bond actually falls in love with the heroines in his films. They are the Bond version of the Star Trek red shirts and, to an extent it betrays the good will of the fans to have him keep following that path.

Hinx is played by Dave Bautista, who is awesome! However, he cryptically disappears about 60% through the film off of a train. Don’t you dare kill Hinx off, more of him and actually give him something to say-especially if you’re going to back to some of the humor that populated the 80’s era Bond.

Speaking of dialogue, or rather not speaking of dialogue, this Bond film featured so little of James Bond actually saying dialogue it felt like a watered down Mad Max film at time. I did not keep track of how many lines Daniel Craig said, but they were few and far between and usually with a very handsome British smirk on his face.

Having said all of that…..Spectre is an OK film. It is not the same tone or caliber of Skyfall or Casino Royale and not nearly as campy as Octopussy or For Your Eyes Only. However, the wardrobe for Blofeld in this film is very close to the collar-less shirt that Drax wore in Moonraker.   Coincidence or is it just a subtle nod to the past?  Either way Spectre is OK, it won’t win over new fans and doesn’t reach previous heights, but it’s not as bad as some of its predecessors.