Spectre
Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: Daniel Craig, Lea Seydoux, Christoph Waltz, Monica Bellucci, Ralph Fiennes, Andrew Scott, Naomie Harris
Three stars
How long should a Bond be Bond? That was the conundrum thrown up when Daniel Craig said he'd rather slash his wrists than play the British spy again. The comment — since retracted — was made in the week after Craig had finished filming Spectre, his fourth outing as the world's favourite secret agent.
To put this in context, Craig has now played Bond as many times as his predecessor Pierce Brosnan. Only Sean Connery and Roger Moore have served longer. But after Craig's comments, it's impossible not to watch Spectre without wondering whether the actor is showing signs of being jaded.
The answer is yes, but this doesn’t reveal much — Craig has always played Bond as a scarred hero. He is hurt by his relationships with women (especially Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd), he is feeling the effects of his recent battles with villains (played excellently by Mads Mikkelsen and Javier Bardem) and he is weary of working for an agency more concerned about cash flow than capturing baddies.
Yet Spectre sees the 47-year-old actor deliver another rounded performance. After all, he has always been completely believable as an action hero, whether trying to punch a pilot flying a helicopter over the Day of the Dead crowd in Mexico, or devilishly racing cars in Rome.
As for all the noise suggesting that the Bond girls — Monica Bellucci, Naomie Harris and Léa Seydoux — not swooning at Bond's feet, it's mostly untrue: Spectre hardly has any of the promised feminist makeover. The women remain secondary to the larger-than-life agent. Bellucci, in particular, is wasted.
Sam Mendes returns to the director's chair after having put the fun back into Bond with the brilliant Skyfall. He also packs in several laughs in Spectre, most notably whenever Q, played effortlessly by a scene-stealing Ben Whishaw, appears on screen (even his 70s-inspired wardrobe is brilliant).
The plot also makes outlaws of Q, Miss Moneypenny, and M, portrayed by Ralph Fiennes, who steps into Judi Dench’s shoes. More sinister than his predecessor, Fiennes plays the part with a glare worthy of Lord Voldemort.
But where Spectre disappoints is the villains. Sherlock star Andrew Scott plays C, who is brought in to cut costs and merge spy departments. He wants to do this by creating a global computer system that watches over the digital activity of the public and snoops on phones. The filmmakers seem inspired by Ed Snowden's outing of GCHQ, and it's fun seeing them condemn government snooping online. But despite its newsworthiness, stories about computer systems are not very audience-friendly. Most disappointing is Christoph Waltz, magnetic in Tarantino movies but on autopilot here. He is reduced to a pantomime villain, leaving Spectre with the feel of a by-the-numbers Bond outing.
But all is not lost. Mendes is too good a director to make a movie as bad as Quantum of Solace, and Hoyte van Hoytema's cinematography gives the film a slick 1970s, New Hollywood aesthetic that sits well with the story, whether the action is exploding in Tangiers or London.
In the end, Spectre is a film of sequences rather than sustained adventure. And while there is still the introspection of the past, Craig seems to have hit the zeitgeist with his comments. This is a franchise sorely in need of fresh blood.
• Spectre is in UAE cinemas on Thursday November 5
artslife@thenational.ae
artslife@thenational.ae