Spectre (Film Review)
Nov. 5th, 2015 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakWhich feels like Daniel Craig's (fond) farewell to the franchise, and at the same time the most optimistic Bond movie (in regards to the title character) of his era.
I mean: both the primary and the secondary Bond Girl of the movie survive (and are in a good state of being), a first for the Craig movies. The main villain survives (less surprising, because he's the arch nemesis of the franchise who just got (re)introduced, and logically you can't kill that guy off on his first outing. But the survival is justified by less Doylist reasons as well. And Bond, who ended two of his movies with a tragedy (losing Vesper, losing M) and the one in between with a win but also in grim emotional isolation, not only ends up with a win and a moral victory but also a renewed readiness to let other people in again, and, for the first time since Vesper, of considering another life than that of a "paid assassin" (quoth the primary Bond Girl, Madeline, who is the daughter of one.) This is as close as curtain fic as the Craig era Bond movies are going to get.
Mind you, all this is embedded in a plot where the real threat isn't the supervillain du jour (more about him later), but the uncomfortably real life circumstance that total and utter mass surveillance and everyone ready to sell their liberties out for the supposed security, which, minus the Bond movie trappings (as if you could get nine leading nations of the world to agree on anything, let alone share their digital spying! and no, this is still not how hacking workds, Q!), is as grim as it gets because it happens daily around us. Otoh: I have the impression John Logan really liked The Winter Soldier, but he and Sam Mendes shouldn't have taken the admiration so far as to give the rebooted SPECTRE the Hydra logo, because that octopus just doesn't look scary, sorry. But in a movie that feels like a breather after the tragic last outing, I don't really mind.
Speaking of the past: the movie is also a continuity feast both for the Craig era and the entire Bond franchise, movies and Fleming novels alike. There are a lot of minor and major callbacks, but none that packed such an effective emotional punch (for me) as when Bond, early on, reveals to Eve Moneypenny why he's really on his latest mission. Cue Judi Dench cameo as she has left him a video message in the case of her death. This being Dench!M, it's not about feelings (that was what the bulldog was for, which btw is highlighted at one point on Bond's desk), it's a "pray kill this guy for me, and show up at his funeral" type of message. So of course he does, because he's still hers. (What can I say: my primary Bond 'ship!)
But because I'm also a friendshipper, I'm pleased to report that Tanner (high, Rory Kinnear! Good to see you out of Caliban make-up!), Moneypenny and Q have developed a team feeling now, and their exasparated affection and support for Bond and the way he does rely on them contribute one of my favourite elements in this movie. Oh, and given how original Moneypenny was presented in the 60s and 70s re: Bond (to wit: some spinstery pining on her part underlying their banter), you bet I loved the following scene (which also echoed one in Casino Royale where Bond called M in the middle of the night and we see her husband in outlines next to her):
Bond (after having called Moneypenny in the middle on the night for plot reasons and hearing a man's voice next to her): Who is that?
EM: A friend.
B: At this time of night?
EM: It's called having a life, James. You should try it some time.
By the end of the movie, new M, aka Mallory, is also integrated in the team. He is fleshed out more in this movie, though he has the bad luck of starting out with exactly the same plot Dench!M had at the start of Skyfall, i.e., being in danger of being declared obsolete, in his case due to an MI5/MI6 merger and C, played by Andrew Scott, taking over, which feels repetetive more than ironic (given Mallory was the one charging Dench!M with how it was past her time in the last movie). However, later on he gets an argument scene with C in which he makes the movie's case for the existence of old school agents in terms most un Tennysonian (as opposed to Dench!M's big scene in Skyfall) and addressing the real life background to the movie's evil plan. A licence to kill, says Mallory, is also a license not to kill, and a human being who has to carry the individual reponsibility for a death is able to make that decision; programmed drones acting on digital data are not. This is an argument that feels less Fleming and more later Le Carré, and because Fiennes!M is dressed in 70s sweaters, looks weary and is soft spoken, he does feel like someone Günther from A Most Wanted Man, played by the late Philip Seymour Hofmann, would share a drink with. It's also an argument preparing Bond in the big showdown scene NOT killing the Big Bad (though there's precedence - Bond managed that one at the end of Quantum of Solace, too).
It won't be a staggering surprise when I reveal C is the secondary antagonist in this movie. I mean, he's played by Andrew Scott. Who surprised me in Pride with a sensitive and utterly un-Moriarty-like performance, but Moriarty in the BBC Sherlock is still what he's most known for these days, and presumably why Mendes cast him in that role, though don't worry, no grating sniggering. C's also not bribed by the primary villain, he's, quoth the later, a fellow visionary who's into mass surveillance for its own sake and utterly convinced of his good guyness, which is new for the Bond franchise. Fiennes!M gets in a few sarcastic digs on how the utter and complete lack of democratic justifcation for that one, btw. Most of his scenes are with C, which also has the odd effect of feeling Scott and Fiennes are in their own crossover with Spooks, only with reversed sympathy points. Where in Spooks M16 were the bad guys unless they had agents whom Harry pinched for M15, here M15 are wearing the black hat because they're the ones doing all the mass surveillance on their own citizens.
Bond/Q was the breakout ship from the last movie, and while I couldn't see it there, there's certainly fodder for that ship in this outing, what with their constant "there is one more thing you can do for me"/"I hate you, 007" type of dialogue. Ben Wishaw gets his own little spy movie sequence when Q is seemingly trapped by two villainous thugs in a ski lift and manages to make a getaway with improvisation and luck. And as I already mentioned - he, Moneypenny and Tanner make a great support (Bond and each other) team.
(A favourite support team moment, late in the movie; trying to avoid being listened in by MI5 and C, our merry gang ends up in a dusty house with a familiar-to-book-readers name.
Q: Hildebrand. Never heard of it.
Fiennes!M: That would be the idea of a safehouse, Q. )
Leading ladies: as mentioned, they both survive, though I have the feeling Monica Belluci is just there because she wanted to do a Bond movie; her sequence is pretty short. But still, in the previous films (see: Solange in Casino Royale, see: Fields in Quantum of Solace, see: Severine in Skyfall), she'd have ended up dead courtesy of the villain. Here, she doesn't just survive having had sex with Bond, he actually seems to have gotten genre wise and ensures she does by enlisting Felix Leiter's help to enable her getting to safety from the villains post-shared night. (Alas, Felix doesn't show up in person, but it's good to know he and Bond are still in contact in this version.) The main Bond Girl is Lea Seydoux' character, Madeline Swann, who is a) the estranged daughter of Mr. White of previous movies fame (Vesper's handler whom Bond catches up with at the end of Casino Royale and tries to deliver at the start of Quantum of Solace), and b) a psychotherapist, both of which gives her background for dealing with James Bond. Mr. White himself shows up first; he used to be a minor one note villain but here the actor actually gets to do something, as he's dying from slow acting poison and worried that his former employers will go after his daughter next. Bond promises to protect her in exchange for information, but given his track record, you can forgive Mr. White for being sceptical on that one. Anyway, this is how Madeline and Bond get in contact. The movie parallels her mixed feelings about her father somewhat with her developing feelings re: Bond (look, John Logan co wrote the script!), and while I wasn't really sold on their chemistry, I appreciated the movie let her call the shots both for initializing the sexual part of the relationship and for letting her be the one who gets to end it (or not). While courtesy of dad she has some shooting experience, she doesn't participate in the action sequences much, but helps Bond to trick the main villain at a key point. I don't feel either enthusiastic for or disappointed by her; she's okay.
Main villain: played by Christoph Waltz with a minimum of scenery chewing (given that it's a) a Bond villain and b) THE Bond villain). As was widely guessed because the movie is called Spectre, after all, it's Blofeld, with a new Craig era backstory. In this version, he was originally Franz Oberhauser, and has BACKSTORY with Bond because his father was the one who immediately took care of child!James after the later's parents died in the Fleming novels originated mountain accident which was also referred to in Skyfall. (He was their mountain guide.) Oberhauser Senior, it seems, was a kindly fellow, but his young son was less than thrilled to be told he had a new brother. Cue avalanche that supposedly killed both Oberhausers, only in this movie Bond finds out Oberhauser Jr. faked his death, adopted a new name, became a supervillain, is heading the organisation SPECTRE to which all the previous villains of the Craig era turns out to have belonged (even Quantum was just a subsidiary) and has thoroughly enjoyed making his not!adopted brother's life miserable from a distance. He's mainly about using all the digital spying to rule the world from a distance as well, though. Who needs to abduct nuclear bombs when you have the NSA to do your work for you?
Having the villain and the hero create each other is a tried and true movie pattern. Some of the retcon didn't work for me, i.e. Oberhauser/Blofeld claiming credit for Vesper (her death was her choice and couldn't have been predicted) and Dench!M (excuse you, Blofeld, Silva would have some choice words to say about that, given how obsessed he was with her). But giving Blofeld a personal connection to Bond predating their first adult encounter and having him commit his first murder out of youthful jealousy over having the prospect of sharing Dad with James? By all means. Also, given that the movieverse Blofeldian Persian cat makes a brief appearance (though not on his lap), I was very amused that earlier in the movie, Bond has a sympathetic encounter with a mouse (he does!). Oh, and the bookverse thing with Blofeld's eye happens in the course of this movie.
Bond sparing his life at the end is a refusing to play the game anymore moment, but also a letting go of the past one. What gives it a downright farewell aura is that he throws his gun away as well and, being strategically placed by the movie on a bridge with M on one end and Madeline (who has made it clear she isn't it for a repeat performance of her childhood with her assassin father, and has challenged him to think of another life) on the other, goes to Madeline, a scene later literally driving off in the sunrise (not sunset). And there's no "James Bond will return" this time, though we know he will, given how lucrative this franchise is. But probably not in his Daniel Craig form. Which on the one hand I will be sorry for, because he is my faaaavourite, and because I like all the players that come with him, even if my even more favourite, i.e. Dench!M is gone. Otoh, one of the amazing things about Craig's era is that he has made me care about James Bond, the character, instead of seeing him as a teflon plot device, and this is as close to an at-peace-with-himself ending as James Bond is ever going to get, so: good for him.
(He even got the Aston Martin back in the end. Q painstakingly repaired it for him. As I said, there is actual fodder for the shippers in this movie.)
In conclusion: a good adventure for the franchise. It didn't grip me as emotionally as the ones preceding it, but I enjoyed it a lot, and probably won't have watched it for the last time.
P.S. My absolute favourite moment, though: Bond interrogating the mouse. That one's a new classic.
I mean: both the primary and the secondary Bond Girl of the movie survive (and are in a good state of being), a first for the Craig movies. The main villain survives (less surprising, because he's the arch nemesis of the franchise who just got (re)introduced, and logically you can't kill that guy off on his first outing. But the survival is justified by less Doylist reasons as well. And Bond, who ended two of his movies with a tragedy (losing Vesper, losing M) and the one in between with a win but also in grim emotional isolation, not only ends up with a win and a moral victory but also a renewed readiness to let other people in again, and, for the first time since Vesper, of considering another life than that of a "paid assassin" (quoth the primary Bond Girl, Madeline, who is the daughter of one.) This is as close as curtain fic as the Craig era Bond movies are going to get.
Mind you, all this is embedded in a plot where the real threat isn't the supervillain du jour (more about him later), but the uncomfortably real life circumstance that total and utter mass surveillance and everyone ready to sell their liberties out for the supposed security, which, minus the Bond movie trappings (as if you could get nine leading nations of the world to agree on anything, let alone share their digital spying! and no, this is still not how hacking workds, Q!), is as grim as it gets because it happens daily around us. Otoh: I have the impression John Logan really liked The Winter Soldier, but he and Sam Mendes shouldn't have taken the admiration so far as to give the rebooted SPECTRE the Hydra logo, because that octopus just doesn't look scary, sorry. But in a movie that feels like a breather after the tragic last outing, I don't really mind.
Speaking of the past: the movie is also a continuity feast both for the Craig era and the entire Bond franchise, movies and Fleming novels alike. There are a lot of minor and major callbacks, but none that packed such an effective emotional punch (for me) as when Bond, early on, reveals to Eve Moneypenny why he's really on his latest mission. Cue Judi Dench cameo as she has left him a video message in the case of her death. This being Dench!M, it's not about feelings (that was what the bulldog was for, which btw is highlighted at one point on Bond's desk), it's a "pray kill this guy for me, and show up at his funeral" type of message. So of course he does, because he's still hers. (What can I say: my primary Bond 'ship!)
But because I'm also a friendshipper, I'm pleased to report that Tanner (high, Rory Kinnear! Good to see you out of Caliban make-up!), Moneypenny and Q have developed a team feeling now, and their exasparated affection and support for Bond and the way he does rely on them contribute one of my favourite elements in this movie. Oh, and given how original Moneypenny was presented in the 60s and 70s re: Bond (to wit: some spinstery pining on her part underlying their banter), you bet I loved the following scene (which also echoed one in Casino Royale where Bond called M in the middle of the night and we see her husband in outlines next to her):
Bond (after having called Moneypenny in the middle on the night for plot reasons and hearing a man's voice next to her): Who is that?
EM: A friend.
B: At this time of night?
EM: It's called having a life, James. You should try it some time.
By the end of the movie, new M, aka Mallory, is also integrated in the team. He is fleshed out more in this movie, though he has the bad luck of starting out with exactly the same plot Dench!M had at the start of Skyfall, i.e., being in danger of being declared obsolete, in his case due to an MI5/MI6 merger and C, played by Andrew Scott, taking over, which feels repetetive more than ironic (given Mallory was the one charging Dench!M with how it was past her time in the last movie). However, later on he gets an argument scene with C in which he makes the movie's case for the existence of old school agents in terms most un Tennysonian (as opposed to Dench!M's big scene in Skyfall) and addressing the real life background to the movie's evil plan. A licence to kill, says Mallory, is also a license not to kill, and a human being who has to carry the individual reponsibility for a death is able to make that decision; programmed drones acting on digital data are not. This is an argument that feels less Fleming and more later Le Carré, and because Fiennes!M is dressed in 70s sweaters, looks weary and is soft spoken, he does feel like someone Günther from A Most Wanted Man, played by the late Philip Seymour Hofmann, would share a drink with. It's also an argument preparing Bond in the big showdown scene NOT killing the Big Bad (though there's precedence - Bond managed that one at the end of Quantum of Solace, too).
It won't be a staggering surprise when I reveal C is the secondary antagonist in this movie. I mean, he's played by Andrew Scott. Who surprised me in Pride with a sensitive and utterly un-Moriarty-like performance, but Moriarty in the BBC Sherlock is still what he's most known for these days, and presumably why Mendes cast him in that role, though don't worry, no grating sniggering. C's also not bribed by the primary villain, he's, quoth the later, a fellow visionary who's into mass surveillance for its own sake and utterly convinced of his good guyness, which is new for the Bond franchise. Fiennes!M gets in a few sarcastic digs on how the utter and complete lack of democratic justifcation for that one, btw. Most of his scenes are with C, which also has the odd effect of feeling Scott and Fiennes are in their own crossover with Spooks, only with reversed sympathy points. Where in Spooks M16 were the bad guys unless they had agents whom Harry pinched for M15, here M15 are wearing the black hat because they're the ones doing all the mass surveillance on their own citizens.
Bond/Q was the breakout ship from the last movie, and while I couldn't see it there, there's certainly fodder for that ship in this outing, what with their constant "there is one more thing you can do for me"/"I hate you, 007" type of dialogue. Ben Wishaw gets his own little spy movie sequence when Q is seemingly trapped by two villainous thugs in a ski lift and manages to make a getaway with improvisation and luck. And as I already mentioned - he, Moneypenny and Tanner make a great support (Bond and each other) team.
(A favourite support team moment, late in the movie; trying to avoid being listened in by MI5 and C, our merry gang ends up in a dusty house with a familiar-to-book-readers name.
Q: Hildebrand. Never heard of it.
Fiennes!M: That would be the idea of a safehouse, Q. )
Leading ladies: as mentioned, they both survive, though I have the feeling Monica Belluci is just there because she wanted to do a Bond movie; her sequence is pretty short. But still, in the previous films (see: Solange in Casino Royale, see: Fields in Quantum of Solace, see: Severine in Skyfall), she'd have ended up dead courtesy of the villain. Here, she doesn't just survive having had sex with Bond, he actually seems to have gotten genre wise and ensures she does by enlisting Felix Leiter's help to enable her getting to safety from the villains post-shared night. (Alas, Felix doesn't show up in person, but it's good to know he and Bond are still in contact in this version.) The main Bond Girl is Lea Seydoux' character, Madeline Swann, who is a) the estranged daughter of Mr. White of previous movies fame (Vesper's handler whom Bond catches up with at the end of Casino Royale and tries to deliver at the start of Quantum of Solace), and b) a psychotherapist, both of which gives her background for dealing with James Bond. Mr. White himself shows up first; he used to be a minor one note villain but here the actor actually gets to do something, as he's dying from slow acting poison and worried that his former employers will go after his daughter next. Bond promises to protect her in exchange for information, but given his track record, you can forgive Mr. White for being sceptical on that one. Anyway, this is how Madeline and Bond get in contact. The movie parallels her mixed feelings about her father somewhat with her developing feelings re: Bond (look, John Logan co wrote the script!), and while I wasn't really sold on their chemistry, I appreciated the movie let her call the shots both for initializing the sexual part of the relationship and for letting her be the one who gets to end it (or not). While courtesy of dad she has some shooting experience, she doesn't participate in the action sequences much, but helps Bond to trick the main villain at a key point. I don't feel either enthusiastic for or disappointed by her; she's okay.
Main villain: played by Christoph Waltz with a minimum of scenery chewing (given that it's a) a Bond villain and b) THE Bond villain). As was widely guessed because the movie is called Spectre, after all, it's Blofeld, with a new Craig era backstory. In this version, he was originally Franz Oberhauser, and has BACKSTORY with Bond because his father was the one who immediately took care of child!James after the later's parents died in the Fleming novels originated mountain accident which was also referred to in Skyfall. (He was their mountain guide.) Oberhauser Senior, it seems, was a kindly fellow, but his young son was less than thrilled to be told he had a new brother. Cue avalanche that supposedly killed both Oberhausers, only in this movie Bond finds out Oberhauser Jr. faked his death, adopted a new name, became a supervillain, is heading the organisation SPECTRE to which all the previous villains of the Craig era turns out to have belonged (even Quantum was just a subsidiary) and has thoroughly enjoyed making his not!adopted brother's life miserable from a distance. He's mainly about using all the digital spying to rule the world from a distance as well, though. Who needs to abduct nuclear bombs when you have the NSA to do your work for you?
Having the villain and the hero create each other is a tried and true movie pattern. Some of the retcon didn't work for me, i.e. Oberhauser/Blofeld claiming credit for Vesper (her death was her choice and couldn't have been predicted) and Dench!M (excuse you, Blofeld, Silva would have some choice words to say about that, given how obsessed he was with her). But giving Blofeld a personal connection to Bond predating their first adult encounter and having him commit his first murder out of youthful jealousy over having the prospect of sharing Dad with James? By all means. Also, given that the movieverse Blofeldian Persian cat makes a brief appearance (though not on his lap), I was very amused that earlier in the movie, Bond has a sympathetic encounter with a mouse (he does!). Oh, and the bookverse thing with Blofeld's eye happens in the course of this movie.
Bond sparing his life at the end is a refusing to play the game anymore moment, but also a letting go of the past one. What gives it a downright farewell aura is that he throws his gun away as well and, being strategically placed by the movie on a bridge with M on one end and Madeline (who has made it clear she isn't it for a repeat performance of her childhood with her assassin father, and has challenged him to think of another life) on the other, goes to Madeline, a scene later literally driving off in the sunrise (not sunset). And there's no "James Bond will return" this time, though we know he will, given how lucrative this franchise is. But probably not in his Daniel Craig form. Which on the one hand I will be sorry for, because he is my faaaavourite, and because I like all the players that come with him, even if my even more favourite, i.e. Dench!M is gone. Otoh, one of the amazing things about Craig's era is that he has made me care about James Bond, the character, instead of seeing him as a teflon plot device, and this is as close to an at-peace-with-himself ending as James Bond is ever going to get, so: good for him.
(He even got the Aston Martin back in the end. Q painstakingly repaired it for him. As I said, there is actual fodder for the shippers in this movie.)
In conclusion: a good adventure for the franchise. It didn't grip me as emotionally as the ones preceding it, but I enjoyed it a lot, and probably won't have watched it for the last time.
P.S. My absolute favourite moment, though: Bond interrogating the mouse. That one's a new classic.
no subject
Date: 2015-11-05 10:58 am (UTC)"I can't disregard a direct order! I've got a mortgage and two cats to support."
"Do it for the sake of the cats."
no subject
Date: 2015-11-05 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-05 03:12 pm (UTC)My personal favourite was probably Dr Yes But You'll Have To Wait Until I've Sewed This One's Ear Back On
no subject
Date: 2015-11-06 06:34 am (UTC)