I was surprised that Daniel Craig decided to come back for a fourth Bond film. Three is such a slick number, and with the grandeur of Skyfall, it would have made sense for him to leave it at that. In fact, I thought for sure with the ushering in of a new M at the conclusion of Skyfall, there would be a logical, clean break between Bond actors. New M, new Bond, new era.
I was wrong.
They announced a new Daniel Craig Bond flick with very little panache. I think they knew they were over extending the life span of this generation of James Bond. But they made it anyway and honestly, it was the laziest effort to make a movie that I've ever witnessed.
It was a mad lib movie. The screenplay can only have been written thusly:
James Bond is walking down the streets of ________. He is a on a mission to ________ when he seduces _______ before fighting with _____ from the evil organization _________. He fights with _____ different men on a _______. Then he travels to ______ where he discovers that ______ is involved with _______. He infiltrates _______ but gets caught by ______ and must escape with __________ to _________. He follows his gut and finds ________ who informs him that _______ is going to destroy _____ unless he can stop it. Bond joins forces with _______ and travels to _____ and fights on a _______ with _________. The _______ invites him to his _______ and ______ Bond until he escapes with _________ and kills _____ by ________..... You get the point...
And then the writers picked little pieces of paper out of a hat with things like "Thugs", "The Alps", "Helicopter", "Tortures", "Sultry Widow", "Train", "Ex-Spy", "Kills", "German Bad Guy", "Shoots", "Africa", "Sexy Blonde", "Sports Car", "South America", "Explosion"....
It feels like the people who made this film poured every James Bond trope into a cement mixer before the movie slowly oozes out in a mess of cliches. It had exactly zero original content. In fact if you had told me that Spectre was a re-cut of various Bond movies spliced together, I would have believed it. It was the first time in a Bond movie where the overriding takeaway for me was "I've seen this all before, and better."
Even the acting was stiff and unconvincing. It is a sad fact that I have never been LESS afraid of Christoph Waltz in my life, and that includes his rather nice, relaxed, real-life demeanor. Daniel Craig is clearly ready to be done, and his usual subtle portrayal of the famous British spy is absolutely sedate. Lea Seydoux, the token love interest, has such poor chemistry with Craig that when she confesses that she loves him and when he eventually decides to give up his life of spying to be with her at the conclusion of the film, it is so ludicrously unbelievable that the audience feels betrayed by the supposedly confirmed bachelor. It is quite a feat to have such little chemistry with a character as charming as James Bond, but I would have believed a romance between Bond and Q before I would between Craig and Seydoux. The rest of the cast swirls around in varying degrees of adequacy. Ben Whishaw provided some relief as Q, but for the rest of the top-rated cast it is mostly a downward spiral. Even Andrew Scott of Sherlock fame was a disappointment-- he basically plays Moriarty and his character's "twist" is predictable to the point of absurdity.
What a shame and what a disappointment. Casino Royale and Skyfall were such gems. And although Quantum of Solace is considered a forgettable chapter in the franchise, Spectre offers so little in the way of creativity or originality as to rank in the lowest of low Bond movies.
I've said it before, but it felt so lazy. It felt like the movie makers kept Daniel Craig around because they were too lazy to figure out a smart way to transition to a new Bond actor. It felt like they only cast Christoph Waltz because they know that man would seem evil reciting the alphabet song and they were too lazy to create a villain that had interesting motivation and characterization. It felt like all the action, all the dialogue, all the plotting was siphoned from other action movies because they were too lazy to think of anything, anything at all, that was original.
The one thing it does without a doubt, even though I think this was already successfully done with Skyfall, is make room for a new Bond actor. Thank God. We clearly need new blood in this franchise.
