Review: Spectre

Posted on 19 November, 2015

A cryptic message from Bond’s past sends him on a trail to uncover a sinister organization. While M battles political forces to keep the secret service alive, Bond peels back the layers of deceit to reveal the terrible truth behind SPECTRE. IMDb

This is a film based on the adventures of a ruthless spy, set in the early 1960s.

That spy became a huge film franchise and made the Broccoli family shedloads of money. As more and more films were made he moved with the times (sort of) – he became groovy and he became gadget obsessed.

The actor playing him has changed again and again but whenever it feels like the world has moved on Bond-James-Bond has been re-invented and trundled out again.

I have seen every film. Every. Single. Film. So I feel I have earned the right to make judgments.

I think the problem lies in being reactive, rather than proactive.

Don’t give the audience what they want, make a film so exciting they won’t know how they lived without it!

Good filmmakers don’t second-guess themselves – that is the job of the market research and money people.

They have a vision and they go with it. They sink or swim but they go with it.

This iteration of Bond-James-Bond started with such guts and promise – he was blonde, he was mean, all his edges were rough.

An origin story – what a great (if not new) idea. But even then it was a reaction to a post Jason Bourne world.

People demanded more of this ruthless nascent super spy so they gave him a revenge story. Which was a whole desert too far into ruthlessness.

Audience reaction was mixed so they moved back to his origins, right back to the house he grew up in and went for the sympathy vote.

Not bad, unless you (like me) only like Aston Martins and are not obsessed with them … so got irritated when ‘Same’ Mendes showed a gajillion angles of this classic being blown up.

Again, reaction to what fans asked for, rather than action.

With this new film it just feels like the production team wants to milk that ‘origins’ idea for every last drop of blood.

This time however, it is the origin of Bond-James-Bond’s greatest nemesis and the shadowy man behind the evil organisation.

You will need to be an absolute Bond tragic (like me) to get a frisson out of the information when we finally work out who he is.

In case you have forgotten the major players in the last three instalments, their names, their images and their stories are replayed throughout, as the story grinds to a conclusion.

A story which the Criminal Minds team would work out in one episode.

Even Pierce Brosnan (ex Bond and the nicest guy to wear the suit) says the story is slow.

As many reviewers are saying, Daniel Craig’s depiction was originally lauded for his cool ruthlessness but now it feels like he is simply emotionless.

Still, it isn’t all bad. ‘Q’ is great, the new ‘M’ is hitting his stride, Daniel is gorgeous and the Tom Ford suits fit … really, really well.