Spectre does indeed do what one should expect it to from the title. The movie goes to great lengths to carry out fan service and introduce Hans Blofeld's criminal organisation, complete with scar on his eyes, a white cat, a huge facility in the middle of nowhere and numerous other nods to Bond lore. In this sense it is doing what this incarnation of Bond has tried to do from the start, which is to update a franchise that was strongest in the 1960s and 1970s for the 21st century. Here is where is succeeds, with its strong opening sequence it makes effective use of the modern symbology of action films a la Jason Bourne, Bond certainly feels more relevant for the contemporary audience.
In addition to the ambitious and largely successful opening scene, there is a classic Bond super car chase through the streets of Rome, and other Bond tropes that others might struggle to pull off, but work because the audience is familiar with how these films are meant to work. For example Bond and Bond girl Dr Swan take a train journey across an African desert, and have dinner in their evening wear on the first classic dining carriage. Because such trains clearly come kitted out the Orient Express. Oh how the world of Bond loves to suspend our disbelief.
But there are several 'buts', and here they are. Spectre is far too long. I noted in particular a scene in which Q (who is now perfectly cast as a modern latte-sipping Shoreditch start-up nerd) is chased for a bit on a ski-lift, but then just escapes without any peril, 100% filler in a 2.5 hour long film. Spectre also wastes its villain. Christophe Waltz is introduced as a darkened figure issuing orders silently from the shadows in a scene that has nods to both Thunderball and From Russia with Love, a true kingpin of the international criminal circuit, all rather wasted when we get to see him aimlessly torturing Bond for no real reason. And consider motivation for a moment, what actually is the motivation for the bad guys in this film? The plot tries to tie together all the recent Daniel Craig movies under the same umbrella and casts the Spectre organisation as responsible for them, but this in itself feels rather weak. What's wrong with just stealing a nuclear weapon and holding the world to ransom like they used to?
On a deeper level, I wonder if Bond even works in the modern era of post-Bourne action. Casino Royale worked and was the best film in the Bond franchise for decades, but it was brutal and unforgiving, Moore-esque eyebrow-raises were nowhere to be seen. When trying to marry the excitement and visceral action of a modern spy thriller against the occasional camp that the Bond-going public eventually demands, the film plays dangerous games with its own tone. Take note of a moment during the car chase in Rome. Bond is being chased by a man who we have just seen horribly gouge someone's eyes out, so a moment when a slightly fat Italian man bump his fiat into a wall and sets off the airbag sort of ruins the drama. All it does is break the 4th wall and remind us all this is a Bond film, which makes us wonder why we're bothering with all this visceral peril when we know Bond's going to win and get the girl. Perhaps we were better off in the Moore era with its double-taking pigeons and "... attempting re-entry"? Maybe not.
Spectre ends in a way that suggests the current run of Daniel Craig as Bond is over, and that the franchise is set up with all the components in place to tell many more Bond stories with many a different leading man wearing the dinner jacket. As a lifelong fan of Bond I will continue watching these movies as long as they keep making them, but I just can't get out of my head the idea that this character would be better left in the age for which he was invented.
