Spectre (2015)

SPECTRE  (2015)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Sam Mendes 
    Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Christoph Waltz,
    Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris,
    Monica Bellucci, Dave Bautista, Andrew Scott,
    Rory Kinnear, Jesper Christensen, Stephanie Sigman
The 24th entry in the official James Bond franchise (and the fourth to star Daniel Craig) has 007 taking on a master criminal who's out to control all the intelligence information in the Western World from a giant eavesdropping station in Morocco. The devil's in the details, as they say, and there's quite a bit more to the story than even a two-and-a-half-hour movie can accommodate. Two of Bond's women (Monica Bellucci and Stephanie Sigman) are disposed of much too casually and quickly, and toward the end, when Q (Ben Whishaw) is racing the clock at his computer, feverishly trying to save the world, it almost seems like an afterthought. Not that it matters all that much. The Bond movies are an exercise in style, in which every couple of years a checklist of familiar elements are hauled out, dusted off and given a fresh coat of polish. So there are high-speed chases, impossible stunts, a perfectly tailored wardrobe, a gorgeous female lead (Léa Seydoux), lots of booze, state-of-the-art effects, and a smooth-mannered villain (Christoph Waltz), who will explain his evil scheme in great detail, because he can't help it, and because that's what the villains in Bond movies do. Craig's Bond films to date are like four episodes of one movie, an extended origin story, and this one feels like a wrapping-up, dropping Bond off about where he came in more than 50 years ago. He's squared off against his arch-enemy, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and the conclusion has him back behind the wheel of his cherished Aston Martin. Craig has sent mixed signals about wether he'll return as Bond, but if he doesn't, this wouldn't be a bad note to go out on. He's got nothing more to prove, really. He's made his mark. He's revitalized the franchise. He's given the character a rough edge (and a suggestion of underlying psychosis) he never had before. The license to kill has been in good hands with Craig. He's a great James Bond.