"Spectre," the latest outing of James Bond, 007, opens with a fistfight in a helicopter above a Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico City. It's cartoonish and harkens back to the days of Pierce Brosnan in the role 20 years ago.
"20 years ago." Remember that time frame. You'll hear it a lot during the movie. In the universe of "Spectre," Bond is both a relic whose methods and morals have no place in the modern world and a man who was 12 years old "20 years ago." It's one of the many lazy incongruities in the movie. Some are big (there is no real plot), some are small (like characters changing clothes at odd times). You'll find yourself two hours into the mess (with 30 more minutes to go) thinking, "Who wrote this shit?"
John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Jez Butterworth. It took four men (and Sam Mendes directing) to create a hollow pastiche of every Bond cliché, with a twist straight out of Austin Powers' "Goldmember" thrown in. Even the best 20th-century Bond movies are far from perfect, suffering from poor scripts, indulgent budgets and archaic sexual politics. But 2006's "Casino Royale" changed that and, along with 2012's "Skyfall," redefined the franchise and brought the character into the 21st century. For the first time, James Bond had wide appeal. "Spectre" is a continuation of the Bond tribute album that started with "Skyfall," only this time it's the B-sides — all the stuff nobody wanted to remember anyway.
Warning: Spoilers.
Daniel Craig is back as 007. In "Spectre," he faces off against Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz, who is excellent despite how little he's given). Oberhauser also goes by the name Ernst Stavro Blofeld, which only means anything to die-hard Bond fans because the rights to his character have been tied up legally for longer than I've been alive. Blofeld is Bond's archnemesis, the Moriarty to his Holmes. Within the fandom Blofeld is a legend, but he is meaningless to casual moviegoers. He'll continue to be after "Spectre." In this movie, Blofeld is reduced to a jealous foster brother who killed his daddy and started a giant international criminal organization specializing in human trafficking and child sex slavery because Daddy loved James Bond more than him. This is all in the text. It's as stupid as it sounds. When Blofeld reveals his name to Bond, our erstwhile 00 responds, "Catchy name." I doubt it.
Oberhauser / Blofeld's grand scheme is, surprise surprise, stealing everyone's information to control the world. He uses his massive organization, Spectre, to do so. Spectre supposedly controls every criminal enterprise in the world but still manages to feel completely ill-defined by the end of the film. There's never really a sense of tension; they're as secondary to the narrative as Quantum in "Quantum of Solace." For a movie about Spectre, Bond certainly does little to actually stop them by the end of the movie. He's too distracted saving the damsel in distress.
The women. Bond teams up with Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), possibly the most beautiful woman to ever grace the 007 series but also one of its most disappointing. She's the daughter of a villain whom Bond dispatches earlier in the film. Seydoux does what she can, but the haphazard script saddles her with plenty of daddy issues to make her sufficiently hollow. Bond also has a quick bone with Lucia Sciarra (Monica Bellucci), a widow, who is the only woman to ever put her garters after coitus. Lucia's a widow because, well, she was married to a villain Bond killed earlier in the film. Bond goes through the movie killing men and laying their women, and that's the least problematic aspect of how the woman are written.
Does the action, at least, standout? Not especially. There are five or six big setpieces, including the aforementioned fight in Mexico, a long and lazy car chase in Rome, an impractically stupid plane-versus-car chase in the Alps and a few more action sequences that don't make a lot of practical sense. In any other year "Spectre" might have won points for existing, but 2015 has been a year in which action has been constantly redefined to glorious degrees. Bond changed his ways in 2006 to compete with Bourne; here's to hoping he changes his ways in 2018 to compete with "Mad Max: Fury Road," the Kingsmen and human ragdoll Tom Cruise.
"Spectre" is a massive disappointment. It's a huge regression for a franchise that made such strides to redefine itself. If you love classic James Bond, you might find something to like amid the the callbacks to older movies, but if you're a fan who jumped onto the franchise with "Casino Royale" there is very little here to enjoy.
Ah, well. As the credits say, "James Bond Will Return." He's survived worse.