Spectre

Spectre (12A)

UK/USA 2015 148 mins Dir: Sam Mendes Cast: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Lea Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Monica Bellucci, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Andrew Scott, Naomie Harris, Rory Kinnear

In 2012 blockbuster Bond adventure Skyfall, 007 (Daniel Craig) referred to his primary hobby as ‘resurrection’. It was a fitting summation of a movie that injected fresh life into the long-running spy series, Craig and American Beauty director Sam Mendes acquainting us more with Bond’s mysterious background than any other film previously. But if Skyfall was ultimately about re-establishing Bond’s relevance as a character and franchise in an ever-changing 21st century world, its much-vaunted follow-up Spectre finds itself haunted by ghosts of the past – both thematically and figuratively.

The spectral theme of the movie becomes immediately apparent in the eye-grabbing opening sequence, set during Mexico’s Day of the Dead Festival. Mendes nails his colours to the mast during a technically jaw-dropping and lavish 4-minute tracking shot as Bond walks from the street into his hotel, brushes off his seeming love interest and walks out onto a nearby rooftop in pursuit of his quarry: a criminal connected to the mysterious organisation of the title. One explosion and a series of dizzying helicopter barrel rolls later and it’s clear that Mendes and his crew aren’t backwards in coming forwards when it comes to the action sequences.

Cue the strains of Sam Smith’s somewhat dreary title song (at least partially enlivened by Daniel Kleinman’s typically stunning, octopus-themed title designs) and we’re back in London, Bond butting heads with stern new M (Ralph Fiennes) over his rogue conduct. With MI6 on the verge of being folded into the newly formed Joint Intelligence Service, presided over by Max Denbigh (a splendidly unctuous Andrew Scott), the threat is also to be found at a domestic level.

Nevertheless, Bond decides to go off grid in his pursuit of Spectre with a little help from Q (a pleasingly beefed-up role for Ben Whishaw) and Moneypenny (a sadly neglected Naomie Harris). His journey initially takes him to Rome, where after tracking down widow Lucia Sciarra (Monica Bellucci) he becomes aware of the presence of mysterious Spectre head Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz), who materialises during a deliciously sinister, shadowy boardroom scene. Later Bond ventures to the Austrian Alps, where he finds Dr. Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), the daughter of his former Quantum nemesis, Mr White (Jesper Christensen) and who will help him unlock the mystery. It’s a globe-trotting extravaganza that ultimately has personal repercussions for Her Majesty’s finest.

Resplendent in all the glitz and glamour a reported $300m budget can buy, there’s no denying Spectre is as immaculately composed as the white dinner jacket Bond sports on the poster. Working with Interstellar and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, Mendes crafts a scrupulous and handsome production that is intentionally rammed with references to past Bond films, whether it’s a bruising train fight sequence with Dave Bautista’s henchman Mr. Hinx throwing back to From Russia With Love, or the sly and still improbably pleasing presence of Goldfinger’s Aston Martin DB5.

And yet, and yet… There’s a nagging sense that this is a Bond with an identity crisis, so intent on recalling glories from the past 50 years of the franchise that it fails to establish one of its own.  In contrast to the emotionally rich Skyfall, which hearkened back to the brave, formula-defying approach of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Licence to Kill, Spectre feels just a bit flippant and frivolous in comparison.

Things are helped and hindered by the increased emphasis on humour, which is sometimes successful and sometimes not. An opening sofa gag is genuinely hilarious; elsewhere, the increased breeziness and insouciance of Craig’s performance threatens to turn 007 into a more quip-happy version of the seemingly indestructible automaton seen in the flawed Quantum of Solace. The jokes often rub up against the darker psychological dimensions in all the wrong ways, especially when Waltz’s Oberhauser finally steps out of the shadows and the story looks to expose the frailties in Bond’s past romantic entanglements.

Sadly, Seydoux’s Swann can’t compete with Eva Green’s haunted Vesper Lynd from Casino Royale: although a fine actress, both she and Bellucci are sadly reduced to the less-than-palatable eye candy archetype, a disappointment given the hype over their presence as ‘Bond women’ as opposed to ‘girls’. In making heavy weather of the ghosts circling around 007, the movie ultimately has difficulty escaping the spectre of the franchise as a whole, lapsing back into the unsavoury aspects of the earlier movies that we really ought to have left behind by now.

Tonally confused and lacking a sense of visceral threat though the movie is (a night-time car chase through a bafflingly deserted Rome doesn’t help the cause), the movie looks a treat, certain set-pieces are terrific and Craig’s likeable charisma goes a long way towards papering over the cracks. And when the creatively deployed strains of the iconic theme music creep through Thomas Newman’s inventive and propulsive soundtrack, it’s impossible not to feel a certain in-built, genetic pleasure. After all, it’s Bond.