Spectre is the best Bond ever: Film reviews

'Daniel Craig’s 007 the most strongly realised Bond yet'

HOW do you top Skyfall? That was the question posed by the enormous success of the previous Bond picture, the highest grossing film of all time at the UK box. It’s not a question that will be asked any longer. The issue now is how on earth do you top Spectre?

 

Spectre (12A, 148mins) Director: Sam Mendes Stars: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Monica Bellucci, Lea Seydoux, Naomie Harris 

It’s everything you could possibly want from a James Bond film, a perfect blend of modern relevance with classic Bond humour, gadgets, girls and preposterousness levelled with terrific characterisation and in Daniel Craig’s 007 the most strongly realised Bond yet.

Craig brims with self-confidence – as does the picture as a whole – and is here wholly comfortable with the more comedic and traditional Bond elements, delivering quips, bantering with Ben Whishaw’s Q (who has an enlarged role) and falling hungrily on beautiful women: one a vulnerable widow, Lucia Scarria (Monica Bellucci), a few years his senior, the other a glamorous blonde he has sworn a dying man to protect, professor Madeleine Swann (a wonderful Lea Seydoux). In other words, Craig goes the full Bond.

Yet the character is no caricature.

 

Daniel Craig and Monica Bellucci

The picture beautifully unveils his troubled personality and complicated past with a story that serves up the most personal Bond villain yet in the brilliant Christophe Waltz, and probes the weak spots of the world’s most famous secret agent, physically and psychologically.

At 47 Craig is getting older and it shows but the filmmakers make a virtue of this by using it to increase the jeopardy. You really do fear for his life on several occasions. One stand- out sequence sees Bond grapple ferociously with a monster-sized henchman, Mr Hinx (Dave Bautista) on a train and boy is Bond pummelled to smithereens. He is saved in quite unlikely fashion by a woman.

It’s a great moment which sums up what the filmmakers do so well throughout, pay homage to classic Bond moments from the past (in this case train punch-ups in From Russia With Love and The Spy Who Loved me) but put a fresh spin on them and go for broke with the action and intensity. As Bond recovers afterwards he appears to be in genuine shock. There’s no glib Roger Moore-style punchline and a quick dusting down of the suit jacket. The man is truly shaken and stirred.

On another occasion, as Bond and Swann approach the villain’s lair in the North African desert (yes we get a proper villain’s lair – hooray) Swann says “I’m scared, James”, and the pair hold hands. Bond says nothing back but you feel he too is afraid. The psychological wear and tear of his lifestyle is nicely explored, teased out in his relationship with Swann who forces Bond to examine himself. 

 

Ralph Fiennes as 'M'

“We always have a choice,” she tells him after Bond claims to know no other way of living. At the same time, that very way of life is under threat, Bond’s whole identity and usefulness challenged in a timely plot that sees MI6 absorbed into an all-new, all-powerful spy organisation led by a greasy pole-climbing bureaucrat, “C”, played by Andrew Scott (Moriarty in TV’s Sherlock). In an Orwellian world of data gathering and drone warfare, C sees no need for old-fashioned boots on the ground.

“The 00 program is prehistoric,” he tells M (Ralph Fiennes), words which recall Judi Dench’s famous put-down of Bond in 1995’s GoldenEye as a “sexist, misogynist dinosaur”. Poor 007 – he’s been fighting for his relevance for a long time now.

The embattled M puts up a fine defence of his man, however, telling C that often only by looking someone in the eye can you make the correct judgement call. “A license to kill is also a licence not to kill,” he spits. At just shy of two and half hours Spectre is the longest Bond yet but it is beautifully paced with a parade of stunning locations from an eye-popping pre-title sequence in Mexico City during the country’s annual Day Of The Dead celebration, to Rome, the Austrian Alps, Tangier and the desert. London too is used extremely well and is the location for a fraught, ticking bomb climax.

The action is old-school Bond: spectacular stunts verging on the tongue-in-cheek but always real. The most tense and memorable sequence, however, is one of quiet terror that recalls the famous laser scene from Goldfinger. 007 is strapped into a dentist-type chair as tiny drills approach his cranium and eyeballs. No wonder Mendes has said he won’t do another Bond and Craig has intimated as much himself.

It’s hard to know where the filmmakers can go from here: after the stripped back Bond of Casino Royale the films have steadily re-embraced all the traditional elements. Spectre is a gloriously realised celebration of Bond’s cinematic heritage which explores his personality and past to the max.

Go any deeper into his character and he’ll lose his mystique. It’s the best Bond ever.

  

Mississippi Grind (15, 109mins) Director: Ryan Fleck, Anna Boden Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Ben Mendelson 

Mississippi Grind is a grindingly dull gambling drama elevated by a strong performance from Ben Mendelsohn (Starred Up) as a sad-sack poker addict, Gerry, who teams up with a fellow gambler, Curtis (Ryan Reynolds), on a road trip to New Orleans.

Why we should care about him, or smoothy chops Curtis, is another matter. Directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden who a decade ago made the far superior Half Nelson with Ryan Gosling, the picture strives to replicate great 60s and 70s dramas like Midnight Cowboy and Five Easy Pieces.

However, where those films were daring and edgy and transgressive with intriguing characters, Mississippi Grind is plodding and bland with a pair of dead beat buddies of little interest. 

VERDICT: 2/5

 

The Last Witch Hunter (12A, 99mins) Director: Breck Eisner Stars: Vin Diesel, Elijah Wood, Michael Caine 

Michael Caine must hate staying at home. What else would explain the venerable star lending his weight to nonsense like The Last Witch Hunter, a generic supernatural thriller starring Vin Diesel as an immortal warrior, Kaulder, who has spent the last 800 years (i.e. the same length as the movie) maintaining a truce on earth between humans and witches?

Then again, he and Diesel do appear to be having a good time in their few scenes together (Caine plays mentor character, Dolan). I was hoping for a kind of modern day Highlander. Alas, it’s closer to a modern day Warlock, the 1989 turkey with Julian Sands.

VERDICT: 2/5