Movie Review: 'Spectre'
By Bill Wine
KYW Newsradio 1060
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Skyfall, the 23rd entry in the world's most embraced superspy series and longest-running movie franchise, wasn't just a great James Bond film.
It was a great film, period.
So Spectre, Agent 007 adventure number 24, has got sizable shoes to fill. And that it doesn't manage to do.
And yet to describe Spectre as substantially less effective and thrilling than Skyfall is still not exactly a criticism. On its own and out from under the burden of great expectations, it's a solid James Bond entry.
The pedigree: it's got Skyfall director Sam Mendes back in the director's chair; Daniel Craig, the sixth Bond impersonator in the Bond-James-Bond role for a fourth (and perhaps final) time; two-time Oscar winner Christoph Waltz as the all-important Bondian villain; and Skyfall screenwriters, Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan back at the keyboard along with newcomer Jez Butterworth.
The storyline this trip finds a global surveillance network about to be launched and the future existence of M16 – the British Secret Intelligence Service – threatened with political pressures as Bond does battle with the sinister organization, a global crime syndicate, masterminded by Waltz as Franz Oberhauser, that lends the film its title.
The packed but playful script – which takes us, in traditional travelogue style, to Mexico City, London, Rome, the Austrian Alps, and Morocco -- both pays homage to previous installments and reaches back past the last three Craig-starring flicks, ties up some loose ends, and amplifies the resonant emotional backstory while attempting to provide somewhat of a narrative conclusion for Craig's superspy four-pack.
But mostly it keeps the action coming at breakneck speed while dazzling us with handsome location cinematography.
Accompanying this rogue Bond as it matures are colleagues M (Ralph Fiennes), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), and Q (Ben Wishaw), while Lea Seydoux and Monica Bellucci are the fetching and obligatory women responding one way or another to the dashing Bond's weapons of mass seduction.
Craig is in fine form as the ruthless, intrepid, and debonair Bond, making the role about as lived-in as you could ask for.
And the talented Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, Away We Go), taking on the seemingly impossible task of topping Skyfall in any way, comes up just short enough to seem impressive anyway, even if the mission is not quite accomplished.
Amazingly, there's still plenty of juice in this franchise, even if this offering with its 148-minute running time is the longest of the two dozen Bond installments and, despite the fact that it moves along briskly, could/should have been trimmed a bit.
No matter. We'll still bond with 3 stars out of 4. Enthused inspectors will find Spectre spectacular while Bond completists file it somewhere above the middle of the pack.
