Specter (2015): Bond is back
“I think you’re just getting started,” Moneypenny teases a deep-rooted Bond, before eliciting a grinning reaction from Daniel Craig. And she is right! Craig started out as Bond! For the first time, he plays Bond, not a man seeking to become Bond. Craig, a self-confessed Sean Connery nut, joins his ‘Skyfall’ compatriot Sam Mendes again to deliver the most aesthetically pleasing entry since ‘The Living Daylights’ (1987) and the strongest film in Bond canon since ‘Casino Royale’. (2006). Fortunately, rejecting the unnecessary cerebralism of ‘Skyfall’ and the frenzy of testosterone madness of ‘Quantum of Solace’, ‘Specter’ combines the classic and the modern, a modern example of the best icon of pop cinema.
Mendes has a knack for filmmaking, his palette and brush covering Bond and beyond. The film’s opening follow-up shot is reminiscent of Scorsese, a subsequent torture scene in a lab echoes Kubrick. Atypical for a Mendes movie, the dialogue cracks and buzzes as fast as any of Bond’s bullets. Mendes turns his hand to the Bonds of Connery and Moore without resorting to pastiche. “It was me James, the author of all your pain,” says Nehru, dressing Christoph Waltz (Franz Oberhauser) as he tells his fallen friend their shared story. It’s a chilling moment, in contrast to a funny and ridiculous train fight remembered ten minutes earlier. Dave Bautista’s Mr. Hinx must be the nicest henchman in years, his mute but deadly ass is a nice throwback to Harold Sakata’s Oddjob of yesteryear.
Waltz and Craig aren’t the only members to impress in this epic. Lea Seydoux impresses with her ethereal qualities as Dr. Madeleine Swan, the resident Bond girl, and her French intonation is a welcome indictment of the show’s worldliness. Ben Whishaw and Rory Kinnear play their roles with ease, adding comic flourishes to their bumbling clerical characters Harris, the most complete Moneypenny to date, Ralph Fiennes, a frenzied action hero; if age weren’t a factor, he could be a worthy successor to Craig. Only Monica Bellucci and Andrewe Scott are not doing so well, the first on screen slips away, the second, unable to hide her Dublin accent, as embarrassing as Michael Fassbender’s Irish ramblings at the end of ‘X-Men : First Class’ or Pierce Brosnan’s inability to say ‘Bond, James Bond’ without resorting to winter dictation.
Fittingly, the film is the funniest and most joyous since ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ (1997), a refreshing change of pace from the moribund introspection the film series has tried to follow since ‘The World Isn’t Enough’ (1999) , with humor. both predictable and deliberately ironic. As Bond orders his vodka martini, he is informed that none are sold at the medical center where they are located. A frenzied Bond disapproves of a Moneypenny in bed with another man, a reversal of the days when Naomi Harris’ predecessor Lois Maxwell poked fun at Bond’s non-school activities. And where Craig was once accused of lacking a sense of humor (‘The Irish Times’ Ed Power certainly thought so), it’s refreshing to see how much fun Craig is having in his fourth outing. After three uninterrupted scuff movies, it’s nice to see Craig laugh as he lands from a parachute, or jokes as a fallen villain falls off a spike, without resorting to the histrionic camp of Roger Moore’s days. However, a break through a hotel wall shows that he has not lost his finesse for carnage or his strange facial similarities to Steve McQueen.
The film is not without its detractors. Thomas Newman blatantly recycles entire music tracks from his pre ‘Skyfall’ soundtrack, something John Barry never did in eleven scores, the film could have wasted ten minutes for timing purposes and the film is not sure if it is thematically in favor or against Edward Snowden. But it is a good example of pop entertainment as good as pop can be. If this really turns out to be Craig’s last outing, at least he left with a smile very firmly plastered on his face! James Bond will return with the promise of the end credits: ‘Specter’ proves that he never left!