tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12380553.post890604906074983018..comments2024-03-28T14:49:36.133-04:00Comments on John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV: Cult-Movie Review: Spectre (2015)John Kenneth Muirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15629979615332893780noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12380553.post-58715663388931265652015-11-10T15:49:08.467-05:002015-11-10T15:49:08.467-05:00This I wager is, in essence, the underlying purpos...This I wager is, in essence, the underlying purpose of <b>Spectre</b>, as the above scene in the film marks a turning point where Craig's James Bond truly does, once and for all, become the James Bond of old, the Connery era Bond seemingly impervious to psychological assault because, if for no other way of putting it, he simply no longer gives a shit about Greek tragedies. And what better way to announce this transition then for Bond to gain the upper hand on the situation with a classic exploding Q gadget via one of the simplest and most classic guises, the Double-O wristwatch? <br /><br />Ditto for the entire Spectre base going up in incidental fireball with Bond giving little more than a bemused shrug. Maybe it doesn't quite get the super-secret volcano lair treatment one would hope for, but maybe it doesn't deserve as much either. The Blofeld of <b>You Only Live Twice</b> launched rockets into space in attempt to trigger Cold War destruction between nation superpowers. What begins here as an eerily <b>Eyes Wide Shut</b>-esque introduction to Spectre's conference later gives way to a bunch of pervy voyeurs and eavesdroppers of global information gathering headed by a swanky Eurocrat eccentric enough not only wax poetic about the destiny of giant space rocks, but to house one in a specifically designed showroom adjacent to his hidden base in the middle of bumfuck North Africa. Bond blowing it all to shit 14 minutes later is sort of a slap in the face of pretentiousness. There's a slight subversion to <b>Spectre</b>, methinks. A playfulness, but also a meaningfulness. Blofeld is there to show audiences that restitution no longer has any pull over Bond. This is evident enough during their final scene together on the bridge in London. <br /><br />I think the cast is good overall. I dig the Bond girls and the supporting MI6 team. While perhaps a hair too familiar for a Bond villain, Waltz nonetheless spun his performance with enough entertaining soliloquy and gave the Craig series it's first genuine fantastical arch nemesis. His sinister plot was on one hand technically nondescript but I also admire the filmmakers for opting to tie together the whole series under a near operatic scheme of evil. <br /><br />I've always appreciated Craig as Bond but in this fourth installment I think I enjoy him the most. He's looser here than ever before. Still alert when necessary but also more comfortable, and more open to indulging the offbeat details of the 007 world akin to throwaway moments from Connery and Moore. Early on he falls from a crumbling third story building and lands on a couch; later, during a downtime scene, aims a silencer at a mouse: <i>"Who sent you?"</i><br /><br />I'll definitely agree on the opening song and title sequence. I get that Sam Smith has his particular style but his 'Writing's On The Wall' no doubt comes off a tad man-bitchy, while the credits montage is ostentatious at level that only the Brosnan era could support, and thus spills over into a bit of unintentional camp. That's really my only lasting criticism. The rest of the film has a jazz riff to it that, for whatever reason, just worked for me. <br /><br /><i>"Here goes nothing,"</i> quips Bond seconds before ejecting himself from a car chase. And I can't help but feel that both the line and the stunt encapsulate <b>Spectre</b> as the likely closer of the Craig era.Cannonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12886860130286869992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12380553.post-77954254246638408952015-11-10T15:44:36.412-05:002015-11-10T15:44:36.412-05:00It would seem impossible to discuss Spectre free f...It would seem impossible to discuss <b>Spectre</b> free from the shadow cast by its predecessor. <br /><br /><b>Skyfall</b> was simpler in form, its three acts distinct. And while its action set-pieces were fewer, they were also more structural to the larger story movements, more the accumulation of dramatic buildup, amorphous extensions of the individual settings, in turn rendering them near-expressionistic gestures of the story itself: think visually Bond fighting the sniper, summoning rescue choppers, dodging a subway train or running on ice through the darkness, with Skyfall Manor ablaze in the distant background. The whole movie in fact is a very clear work of a single movement shifting in response to the storied fates, or vice versa. It's like a mural. <br /><br /><b>Spectre</b> by comparison is, eh, not. It's more of a catchall, maybe even convoluted. It's narrative isn't exactly aimless but the multiple venues do have about them a certain random-play effect. Bond just sorta shows up at all these different places at the whim of whatever the immediate plot-point; the plot itself at once vague and heavily stacked. Much of the action as a result feels ancillary, like rocks thrown crudely into a Zen garden pond. <b>Spectre</b> isn't harmonious. <br /><br />And that's what I like about it. <br /><br />It's unexpected, indiscriminate, reckless and even downright odd, especially once things start Waltzing. <b>Skyfall</b> may have been of a piece but, honestly, it's only the third act that makes the movie shine for me; everything leading up to that point, while poised, is also a little too preparatory. <b>Spectre</b> makes for a more curious outing from one scene to the next. <br /><br />I suspect maybe the casting of Monica Bellucci may have given too much emphasis as to the intent of her character. The world of deadly intrigue does not revolve around Bond but merely hosts him among countless others, each with their own movie-sized trajectories. I took his and Sciarra's interlude as the proverbial 'ships passing in the night' and was happy to see a good thing remain brief, with the weight of Bellucci's femme fatale presence allowing enough counterbalance to suggest that, for a change, Bond is as much a fleeting encounter as she is. Conversely, the draw of Lea Seydoux's Madeleine Swann is that she's not another Vesper Lynd investment for Bond but rather a clean slate opportunity. Her significance to 007 lies in their mutual circumstance, as both are, in a weird way, abused/estranged bastard children of Spectre. That they come together so casually in the end represents a kind of personal victory over said oppressor. <br /><br />This moreover is what adds an interesting quirk to the relationship between Bond and Blofeld—the latter proves a day late and dollar short. <br /><br /><i>"It was me, James. The author of all your pain."</i> <br /><br />One movie prior, such a revelation might've been for a then still angst-driven Bond a shattering of forms equivalent to Luke Skywalker learning in horror the truth of his father. Yet a resurrection from KIA status followed by the death of M settled a great many things for Bond, and in <b>Spectre</b> he is no longer quite the corporeal being who suffered so much in the previous Craig films; he's even introduced this time around as a skeletal phantom (the <i>real</i> specter) on cruise control, going about clandestine matters more coolly detached than ever before. Blofeld's authorship over Bond rings hollow because it only reveals him as the stepbrother -- the alternate universe Bond -- still chained to the past. This leaves for 007 only the immediate physical predicament wherein he finds himself come the end of the 2nd act, and further cements his disposition with a traditional bit of mockery, wryly motioning for extreme physical torture over another minute of super-villain monologuing.<br />Cannonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12886860130286869992noreply@blogger.com