James Bond – Spectre

James Bond Spectre is a good movie but very underwhelming. The story, in short, has Bond following a lead that brings him to a shadow organization called SPECTRE. Its leader –once he notices Bond- has a vendetta with Bond. And after this meeting Bond has to fight his way to save the world.

Like any James Bond-film the story is simple. But, as I will try to argue throughout this article, the script is also littered with errors.

James Bond 24 looks beautiful, is well acted and has a good soundtrack (I even like the song). But the script undermines what could have been a great movie.

Plot

To start with my biggest problem, the script. As we all know Skyfall is a hard act to follow. Was Skyfall a perfect Bond movie? No not at all. There were scriptural errors throughout the movie (e.g. Silva’s magically appearing subway train). But, thankfully, the movie was so much fun that I happily waved away all those little errors along the way.[1]

Spectre, however, didn’t learn from those mistakes. The plot is needlessly convenient and vague at the same time. The spark that sets off the mission works, but it requires a bit of suspension of disbelief (which I didn’t buy). So, basically, Bond goes off to investigate something and along the way people are trying to kill him. And that’s the problem; because the audience doesn’t really know what he’s investigating or why people try to kill him.

A Bond movie is one of the easiest movies to write. Bond receives a mission, Bond goes to investigate. Each time he gets close to what he’s looking for baddies try to kill him (oh, and he survives in the end). So why remove the threat?

I think the best illustration of this is what Waltz’s Oberhausen at one point states: “I’m the author of all your pain.” Referring to the fact that he was the mastermind behind all the previous villains Bond thwarted (from Casino Royal up to Skyfall). But he doesn’t mention how. He just states it and you have to believe him at his word.  There isn’t a moment in the movie that the audience gets a glimpse of Oberhausen’s involvement in, for instance, Silva’s rise to power. Not a moment that tells you just how dangerous SPECTRE really is or how far its tentacles reach.

Directing

So the plot isn’t very strong. Then how about directing (and cinematography)? What I liked was the long take opening shot in Mexico City. But the minute the helicopter fight begins somehow the action is off key. And the action stays that way for the remainder of the movie.

Mendes is a great actor’s director with an eye for pictures. But he’d never been really good at action sequences. He prefers to put the camera at a distance and let the fight-choreography do the rest.

That’s why Skyfall worked on an action level. The sequence at the mansion, for instance, was all about rooms and traps. Just put a camera there and the rest will follow.

But in Spectre it doesn’t work. The obvious moment is Bond’s escape from the evil lair in Tangiers. It’s an escape, but somehow it looks like Bond just entered the God mode-cheat. The villains just fall and not a single bullet ricochets past Bond’s head. Even though the following explosion look great-it is rather unimpressive. There is no real sense of danger. Not a feeling of pay-off as “Thank God Bond survived.”

Still, in contrast to Quantum of solace, Mendes does take his time to show the surroundings. He does cut away during the helicopter fight to show the people below. Those are the best shots. The minute the camera re-enters the helicopter it becomes messy once again.

The villains

Now for the villains. Every good Bond movie has great villains. And I argue that Spectre has some of the best. Oberhausen en Mr. Hinx are both formidable bad guys. But they don’t work together. There isn’t a moment of true interaction between the two (like Goldfinger and Oddjob wherein the latter fully acknowledges his allegiance to the former by crushing that golf ball).

Hinx (a very cool Dave Bautista). His introduction is impressive but not a treat to Bond at the time. He just kills some random baddie to show his evilness. After that he shows up every once in a while to attack Bond and fail. Again, there is no real reason given why he does this. He’s just there being evil and indestructible.[2]

For Andrew Scott’s part. You know from the second you see him that he’s a baddie. But, again, he never interacts with the big-bad Oberhausen. So, he’s just there. Again no treat until the audience learns his reason for existence. [3]

Oberhausen has another great introduction. But again, we don’t really know why he’s evil, what he’s plotting. We learn in the end, but by that time it’s too late. To refer back to “the author of all your pain” statement. As long as the audience doesn’t really get a good feeling of how personal Oberhausen’s vendetta is from the get-go there is no real overpowering sense of danger.

The Bond girls

The Bond girls then. Well Monica Bellucci is a great actress, but she doesn’t have a whole lot to do here (I do love that fact that Craig’s Bond finally gets lucky again, it’s been a while). She’s only in two scenes and she certainly elevates the scenes but after that we never see her again.

The second Bond girl: Léa Seydoux. Great girl, but useless. What does she really do to help the plot along? She’s just there. I don’t mind badly written female characters (the A view to a kill “Help me JAAAAAAMMMMMEEEESSSS.”) but at least give them something to do. I guess after Vesper and M I got spoiled. Also her final goodbye (which sent all kinds of alarm bells going off in my head) felt far too convenient. Why did she have to travel all the way to London to tell him this, honestly? But that's plot again.

The third act

Then, apart from the opening long-take shot, what did I do like?

 I did like the last act of the movie. I even liked it so much that it made me wonder why I had to sit through the third act to get there. The fourth act works, Oberhausen gets all vengeful and there are multiple clocks ticking. But you don’t really need the third act to get there? You could just as easily have rearranged some elements in the second act (Rome and Austria) to get the same result (did she really have to be his daughter?).[4]

So yes, as a result of this, the movie is too long. It takes too much time to get to the point. Which is a shame because if you cut away some stuff and readjust some others it would have been very good.

Money, money, money

Also, as a final gripe, I can’t see why this movie cost 250 million dollars to make. The Mexico City scene, with all those extras and costumes, yeah I can see where the money went. But after that, no not really.

This is something that stuck with me ever since Quantum of Solace. At the time the most expensive Bond ever made. Now, we all know, the cinematography and editing made a mess of all the fancy (expensive) stuff on screen. But my biggest problem was the ‘floating opera house’ that –I believe- was built for this movie. There was no reason at all to have a floating opera house (it didn’t sink, for instance). Just build a set on the ground. It’s just throwing away money.

If it isn’t needed for the plot you don’t need to show it. Here it wasn’t needed.

In  Spectre, thank God, they didn’t build unneeded sets. But somehow I feel that a lot of money could have been spared if they merged some scenes together. Did we really need the entire Tangiers third act? I don’t think so. I think that part of the story could easily have been merged into the second act. It would have saved some money and the movie would have been far more streamlined. 

Better luck next time Mr. Bond

So, to sum up this rather negative rant. Spectre isn’t the best Bond movie in the bunch. It doesn’t have a clear mission. Therefore you don’t know why the baddies are bad and why they want to kill Bond. It is an action flick without a purpose. In short, again, the script’s faults undermine the entire movie, even though it looks beautiful. 

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[1] SPOILER: Especially the skewered timeline. Did Bond do Goldfinger between Quantum of Solace and Skyfall? But, for the sake of this article I won’t go into this here. But I wish to have it mentioned, because the Bond timeline is getting far more skewered in this one. 
[2] Now, to sidetrack a little bit, this new Bond is all ‘kill and don’t take prisoners.’, So, when, after a lengthy action-scene, Hinx is unconscious after another failed attempt, why Bond didn’t double-tap him in the head is a big question to me. This is just poorly written. Hinx should have fallen in a chasm or something so that Bond couldn’t get to him and, thus, have to assume that he’s dead. We all know he’ll pop up later on, so don’t let his body lying about, that just makes Bond look stupid. 
[3] SPOILER: I do love that fact that Moriarty got killed by Voldemort. But that’s just me. 
[4] As I wrote this I learned about the Sony Hacks. Apparently some executives at Sony were wary about the third act also and demanded a change. Nice to know that I’m not the only one who noticed. Unfortunately the third act is still underwhelming.