'Spectre' and Daniel Craig's James Bond

Since Bond 25 has been in the news, it seemed as good a time as any to give 2015's Spectre a re-watch.

I don't necessarily consider myself an avid Bond fan (I've never seen a Roger Moore film all the way through). But close enough. I have watched every entry in The Bond Blueprint series on YouTube [insert sheepish emoticon]. 

As Bond, Daniel Craig has always been a favorite of mine. He infuses the character with a depth and complexity seldom seen in 007 throughout the decades. Only Timothy Dalton approached the character in a similar vein--as a complicated and driven man, compassionate and ethical as he is ruthless and cold blooded. It is this approach to Bond that has always appealed to me. Both Dalton and Craig took pains to study author Ian Fleming's original character prior to shooting their films, and it really does show.

Spectre is the fourth film in Craig's run as 007, and a direct follow up to 2012's Skyfall, which saw Dame Judi Dench's M die in a shootout at Bond's childhood home in the Scottish highlands. Though Skyfall was insanely popular, both critically and commercially, I could not help but feel like the film was a bit of a regression in the current incarnation of the series. Tonally, it was much different from Casino Royale (2005) and Quantum of Solace (2008), and in many ways hearkened back to earlier Bond eras.

Director Sam Mendes made no secret of his desire to return classic Bond elements to the series. "It was taking the new, tougher Bond — the realer Bond, who has much more of an inner world — and bringing back some of the things that could reconnect me to my inner 13-year-old, that gave a thrill when I was a kid: the DB5, the Bond theme. And doing them in a way that was dramatically justifiable in the story" [source]. Mendes did not quite succeed in the "dramatically justifiable" aspect, at least not in my opinion. I feel that in the long view, he excised what made Craig's run unique and applicable to our time. The appearance of the DB5 in Skyfall threw me completely out of the story. It's appearance, coupled with a cheeky exchange between Bond and M concerning the car's ejection seat, amounted to no less than a conscious breaking of the 4th wall. I'll venture to say that Mendes let his nostalgia get the better of him, to the detriment of Craig's Bond. Because as I would point out to Sam, Casino Royale and the oft-maligned, but truly underrated Quantum of Solace were not just about a "tougher" Bond, but a Bond at ease in the modern world, and what's more, a Bond that had only recently acquired his 00 status. Craig's cold-blooded assassin was no "dinosaur of the Cold War," as M referred to him in Goldeneye (1995), but rather a product of the post-cold war world.

Craig as Bond at the end of Casino Royale (2005).
Ten years and three films later, I'm still waiting to see this Bond come into his own. 

So for Bond to appear in Skyfall as a washed up, out of touch old school spy is quite jarring and out of step with what Craig had done so far in the part. Granted, 'washed up' is probably more applicable to Craig's actual age. Because let's face it, he's no spring chicken. But this is Hollywood folks, and while Craig is rapidly approaching the crest of the hill, he's no Roger Moore in A View to a Kill. In Spectre, he's back on top. The physical difficulties and struggles to adapt so prevalent in Skyfall and crucial to its plot are nowhere to be seen.

The other aspect to Bond's character regression in these later entries is his dynamic with women, specifically those he pursues romantically. While Bond should always be a ladies man and a master at seduction, he should never never be creepy or off-putting, particularly in the current era. But for some reason, Mendes and his writing team have made him both. Is this another aspect of Mendes'  Bond nostalgia--his "inner 13 year old"? Who knows, LOL. Skyfall saw Craig's Bond slither into the bathroom of Miss Severine, who in the scene prior, Bond learned was a victim of sex trafficking and a slave of the despicable Raoul Silva. One might call Bond's sneaky shower-stall antics "comforting" to the haunted Severine, and it seems Mendes meant it that way in his staging of the scene. But it comes off more creepy than anything else. Compare Craig's actions here with his considerate treatment of Camille Montes in Quantum of Solace. Though there is attraction between the two, Bond makes no move to bed her. She is a victim, driven by a passionate desire for revenge against the man who murdered her parents. Bond respects this, understands it, and helps her achieve her goal. Again, this is a truly modern Bond, fully capable of having a non-sexual dynamic with a beautiful woman he encounters.

Bond and Camille in Quantum of Solace (2008)

This aspect also highlights what was a major arc for Craig's Bond in Casino and Quantum. He was constantly being reminded that his penchant for using and discarding women was destructive and unethical. In Casino, a woman he seduces for information, is tortured and hung out to try in a beach-side hammock. In Quantum, the lovely Miss Fields, an office agent for MI6 who is sent to collect a rogue Bond, is drowned and slathered with oil and laid out on a bed for Bond to find. "How many does this make now, James?" M asks with a searing glare. Bond gets the message and keeps his hands off Camille.

"How many does this make, asshole?" 

This character development is all but destroyed in Skyfall and also in Spectre.

The first half hour of the film revolves around Bond's mission to hunt down and kill an Italian crime lord named Marco Sciarra. Bond retrieves a ring (the film's McGuffin) from Sciarra, marking him as a member of SPECTRE. Bond tracks done Sciarra's widow (Monica Bellucci), to learn from her the identity of the "Pale King".

James follows the widow to her villa and dispatches two assassins sent by Blofeld to kill her. He proceeds to extract information from the grieving widow, in extreme close up while nibbling on her face. Though Craig and Bellucci have chemistry, the moment is more awkward than erotic, mostly because it is not earned. It makes little sense for the vulnerable widow, who a few moments ago was prepared to be shot in the back, to find this thuggish British agent so irresistible. It undermines her character's obvious sophistication and gravitas. And for Bond to aggressively move on her sexually is so brutish and random. When she shows initial resistance to his questioning, he shatters some champagne glasses and pins her to the wall. We later cut back to the couple in the bedroom post-tussle as Bond buttons up his shirt. He fires off a plan to use his Intelligence connections to get her safely beyond the reach of her enemies. And just like that, the widow Lucia Sciarra is gone from the film. Such a misstep on the part of the screenwriters, but more on that later.

           
I've never seen a film so willing to divulge the answers to its secrets, or that undercuts its own potential so thoroughly and so quickly. I really want to like this film! It has so much going for it in the first act. The set up is essentially James Bond versus the Illuminati, which is a tantalizing and promising premise. But then the plot gets itself into a hurry. And before you know it the film has devolved into a family soap opera--Apparently Mendes' idea of further developing Bond's "inner world".

Just who's idea was it exactly to turn classic Bond villain, Ernst Stavro Blofeld into James's petulant, vindictive foster brother? It is truly head spinning how a film so broad in scope at the outset can collapse into such buffoonish schlock. Though somehow, someway, Craig as Bond and Christopher Waltz as Blofeld sell it--as best it can be sold that is.

Waltz could have made a memorable and threatening Blofeld. Emphasis on the could have.

Spectre's primary sin is in its clumsy attempt at tying the four films of the Craig series together. After the tonal and character shifts of Skyfall, Mendes would have been better off just leaving Casino and Quantum on their own. Though I can say I enjoyed the return of the hitherto mysterious Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) of the Quantum organization. I also liked the basic concept of Quantum being a subsidiary of SPECTRE. The idea could have really worked had Skyfall and Spectre been true sequels of the two earlier films. As it is, the reveal of SPECTRE and its diabolical leader is deprived of its weight by the aforementioned Bond family drama.

Not only does Blofeld have a personal link to Bond, but we learn that Ernst--birth name "Franz Oberhauser"--actually murdered his father because he was jealous of the attention he lavished on a young James. Further to that, we discover that Blofeld, the seeming mastermind, the de-facto head of the Illuminati itself, is consumed by a desire to make Bond's life miserable. To the extent that we as the audience are asked to believe that it is Blofeld who was behind ever major trial and loss James has faced--from Vesper Lynd to M. 

This is absurd. To the point of my suspecting that the writers and Mendes were trolling the audience. Not true, unfortunately.

There isn't much to say about the film's dull subplot involving a Blofeld subordinate's (played by the creepy, shark-eyed Andrew Scott) attempt to link the Intelligence networks of the world together via a massive digital grid. For some odd reason, this film repeats the "is old-fashioned, on the ground Intelligence work relevant to our modern time?" beat that Skyfall focused on.

Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw are capable in their respective roles as Moneypenny and Q. Ralph Fiennes is competent as M, though mostly boring and lacking the punch that Judi Dench brought to the role. Killing her off in Skyfall was a major mistake in my view--part of the misguided concept of making the films about Bond's personal life and emotional psychology.

In sum, Spectre could have been much, much better, even after the missteps of Skyfall. Allow me to put forth a suggestion or two...

It goes without saying that Monica Bellucci was criminally underused in this film. Her character is yet another example of Spectre's squandered potential. The troubled widow Sciarra is a far more interesting character than Lea Seydoux's, Madeline Swan. Bellucci is also far more appropriate age-wise opposite Craig. As it is, the Swan/Bond relationship nears the realm of cringe. In his retro-sensibility, director Mendes seems keen to evoke shades of Roger Moore's later films, which saw a near-geriatric Bond gallivanting about with women young enough to be his grand daughters.

Bellucci as Bonds's main love interest would have carried on in the spirit of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace in portraying a truly modern and more grounded Bond. The opportunity for James to have a serious connection with a woman his own age and with an equivalent amount of baggage ought to have been too sweet to miss. But Mendes and his writers did somehow. Too many Vodka martinis in the writer's room I guess...

But just imagine with me for a sec: Lucia and James on the run from SPECTRE--a shadowy force with a world-wide reach and unlimited resources, headed by an unknown figure feared and reviled by all who do his bidding. Bond has made himself a nuisance to Blofeld, and so has been marked for death. Blofeld plays with James like a bored cat (see what I did there!!) with a mouse, casting 007 into a net of underworld intrigue and psychological games. He is cut off from MI6 and forced to fend for himself, sans gadgets and the usual Intelligence resources. Through his own ingenuity and cunning, he discovers the whereabouts of Blofeld, and sets out to confront the master crime lord in his own lair.  The film would end with SPECTRE seemingly defeated, and with Bond throwing in the assassin's towel to marry the beautiful Sciarra, THEN *drumroll*... She is killed on the honeymoon by one of SPECTRE'S agents. Which would lead into--you guessed it-- an updated and re-imagined Diamonds are Forever as Craig's final Bond film. Would've been great, eh?

Make no mistake, both Skyfall and Spectre are beautifully shot films--probably the best of the Bond films in that respect. But for me, that only makes their shortcomings more lamentable. I think Mendes is an accomplished and talented director (as if he needs my approval). Road to Perdition is on my favorites list.

Maybe I'm just jealous because he got Kate Winslet to marry him. Sigh.