Spectre Is a Bit Shady

Daniel Craig in Spectre

From the days of my early childhood, I have been a huge James Bond fan.  I grew up in the heyday of Roger Moore, watching televised airings of the Sean Connery classics on ABC's Sunday Night Movie.  As a teen, I read all of the Ian Fleming novels.  I have clear memories of watching "For Your Eyes Only" over and over on cable TV.  And of going to the theater to see "A View To a Kill" and "The Living Daylights" in the theater.  Thus, I have been a judicious participant of the franchise even as I write the review to "Spectre", the 24th 007 movie!

My favorite Bond movies - in no particular order - are "From Russia With Love", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", and "Casino Royale", because they remain fairly close to their source novels.  My favorite Bond was Timothy Dalton, because he did research and tried to base his character on the Bond of the books.  However, I do like Daniel Craig as he carries an air of danger, a bad-boy attitude that befits the character.  Although he has never looked like a Bond.

I have enjoyed the reboot of the Bond series.  They are panoramic, brutal, gritty, and more believable., although by no means perfect.  Sam Mendes returns after the overrated "Skyfall" to continue the story of a maverick British spy chasing an elusive elitist crime syndicate hinted at since the first movie.  It is revealed to be a sinister organization called Spectre - headed by Ernst Stavro Blofeld played by Christopher Waltz.  Whereas Waltz has the proverbial fluffy kitty, he is too nice to be a believable bad guy.  There is this lame backstory where Bond and Blofeld have some sort of childhood connection, although I am not sure what the point is.  In this film, Spectre is organizing terror events to get the world's intelligence communities to network through a common computer network, controlled, of course, by Spectre.  Although it is never confirmed what Spectre hopes to gain from this, or what their ultimate aim is as a syndicate.  The film leaves you with the feeling that there should another film to explain this, although interviews with Daniel Craig indicate that this is his last Bond film.

The whole movie leaves you feeling like there is something lacking.  Sure, there are incredible vistas and action, like the whole sequence of the Day of the Dead in Mexico City.  There are some cool cars, gadgets, and beautiful Bond girls, like Lea Seydoux and Monica Bellucci (a Bond girl at age 50!).  But the previous Bond films were pretty good at providing a clean narrative.  Now we are back at the Roger Moore era of stories with huge plot holes big enough to drive an Aston Martin through them.  We have a corny villain whose purpose is unclear.  Next, Bond needs to start making glib jokes in moments of danger, and we will have come full circle.  So much for the reboot...