Do you ever wonder about James Bond in the space between? Like on all these flights he must take. Or how he copes on a slow Tuesday down at the 00 program. During one portion of Spectre, 007 drives from London to Rome, and does he, you know...have a road trip playlist? Or scarf some beef jerky and Mexican Cokes? Or does he just barrel down the highway, eyes narrowed, gripping the steering wheel?
It's insignificant. I get that, unless, of course, this sociopath is your seatmate on a 12-hour overnighter from Ho Chi Minh City to Paris (he will try and make sex inside you). We like our Bond minutia free. He doesn't need to occupy reality, as his place is unreality, but his unreality is still bound by certain rules. These rules evolved as the Bond monolith ambled through the decades. I've enjoyed this iteration of Bond because it has tried to maintain some sobriety. This Bond chose an unreality a little less unreal than franchises past. Yet, as we arrive at Spectre, as they herd the Craig era Bond films into the barn, they broke the rules. They've compromised their established unreality.
The more the cracks show in Spectre, the more we're confronted with a Bond who seems out of place in his environs. Spectre has two real problems: one is in the machinery of the story, while the other exists off camera. In a moment, Bond is caught inside a crumbling building and, as he falls to his certain demise, he just kind of lands on a couch. It's somehow on top of a pile of rubble instead of underneath. It’s all too easy. No one seems up for the challenge.
Where this was telegraphed pretty plainly in Daniel Craig’s press junket—he was being a pill—our guy phones it in real good and hard. His suffocating indifference may have been complex character work, but it’s more like he wants this all to be over. Sam Mendes’s direction is uninspired. The five (five? five.) writers on-boarded for this project can’t find any interesting stones to overturn. And more painfully, there are so many clumsy nods to Bond films of yore, so many indulgent nudges and winks that I'm cringing while I type. It's all almost cringe inducing enough to overtake the graceless story building and ill-conceived effort to tie all the Craig era Bond films together. Almost.
No one walks into a Bond movie and expects unfettered artistic genius. There's a latitude these pictures occupy, but in that people expect some tension, spectacle, suspense, and fun. Spectre’s troubles are less about an inability to deliver those broad pleasures but coming off as though it forgot how.
The Day of the Dead sequence before the opening credits (re: opening credits—oh, the tentacle porn references set to spring forth from middling Spectre reviews) is delicious. And there's a giddy action piece in the Austrian mountains, but the rest of the film never quite ignites. And the more the film grabs for some elusive spark, the more the film works its way into a shallow and un-fun place. Even Christoph Waltz is joyless, and I'm not even sure how that happens.
Bond will live again, and the Craig stretch did a lot of good for a sickly franchise. How it's tweaked in the next few years to make it seem new again, we’ll have to wait and see. This Bond got tired of itself, and Spectre is a disappointing final note. Homage, “the Bond formula” and incredulous plot points have diminished what this now-shuttered era of Bond worked so aptly against. And when an impeccable figure of unreality like Bond's world is breached, the experience tumbles down with it.
After that, all you're left with are very relevant questions about how Bond copes with jet lag.
—Monte Monreal
It's insignificant. I get that, unless, of course, this sociopath is your seatmate on a 12-hour overnighter from Ho Chi Minh City to Paris (he will try and make sex inside you). We like our Bond minutia free. He doesn't need to occupy reality, as his place is unreality, but his unreality is still bound by certain rules. These rules evolved as the Bond monolith ambled through the decades. I've enjoyed this iteration of Bond because it has tried to maintain some sobriety. This Bond chose an unreality a little less unreal than franchises past. Yet, as we arrive at Spectre, as they herd the Craig era Bond films into the barn, they broke the rules. They've compromised their established unreality.
The more the cracks show in Spectre, the more we're confronted with a Bond who seems out of place in his environs. Spectre has two real problems: one is in the machinery of the story, while the other exists off camera. In a moment, Bond is caught inside a crumbling building and, as he falls to his certain demise, he just kind of lands on a couch. It's somehow on top of a pile of rubble instead of underneath. It’s all too easy. No one seems up for the challenge.
Where this was telegraphed pretty plainly in Daniel Craig’s press junket—he was being a pill—our guy phones it in real good and hard. His suffocating indifference may have been complex character work, but it’s more like he wants this all to be over. Sam Mendes’s direction is uninspired. The five (five? five.) writers on-boarded for this project can’t find any interesting stones to overturn. And more painfully, there are so many clumsy nods to Bond films of yore, so many indulgent nudges and winks that I'm cringing while I type. It's all almost cringe inducing enough to overtake the graceless story building and ill-conceived effort to tie all the Craig era Bond films together. Almost.
No one walks into a Bond movie and expects unfettered artistic genius. There's a latitude these pictures occupy, but in that people expect some tension, spectacle, suspense, and fun. Spectre’s troubles are less about an inability to deliver those broad pleasures but coming off as though it forgot how.
The Day of the Dead sequence before the opening credits (re: opening credits—oh, the tentacle porn references set to spring forth from middling Spectre reviews) is delicious. And there's a giddy action piece in the Austrian mountains, but the rest of the film never quite ignites. And the more the film grabs for some elusive spark, the more the film works its way into a shallow and un-fun place. Even Christoph Waltz is joyless, and I'm not even sure how that happens.
Bond will live again, and the Craig stretch did a lot of good for a sickly franchise. How it's tweaked in the next few years to make it seem new again, we’ll have to wait and see. This Bond got tired of itself, and Spectre is a disappointing final note. Homage, “the Bond formula” and incredulous plot points have diminished what this now-shuttered era of Bond worked so aptly against. And when an impeccable figure of unreality like Bond's world is breached, the experience tumbles down with it.
After that, all you're left with are very relevant questions about how Bond copes with jet lag.
—Monte Monreal
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