A blockbuster movie was released, in which a heavily-armed, highly-trained maniacal loner with no apparent friends nor familial attachments murders a heap of people during the course of his 2-hour, 34-minute onscreen presence. Dozens of hard-working, loyal private and public employees, many with families and children of their own, are shot, maimed, burned, crushed, and blown apart in order to satisfy the killer’s bloodthirsty cravings.
The killer disrupts daily life and creates chaos in several scenic locales — including Mexico City, Rome, Tangiers, London, the Sahara Desert, and the Austrian Alps. Hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage occurs, instigated entirely by a series of confrontations which lead to non-stop violence, and ultimately death and destruction.
Unperturbed by potential criticism, the star also proves to be a serial adulterer. Young and old, of any race — his wanton lust knows no boundaries. His sexual conquests include a mournful widow on the night of her deceased husband’s funeral, after stalking her back to her home after the burial. He beds the weeping lass making her forget her loss momentarily, and then afterward never once calls her back. What a dog. The creep is frequently observed hiding off in the darkness, peering around corners, and trespassing into areas where women sleep. If he were not wearing a tuxedo, one might suspect he was a peeping tom.
Another of the notches on the cupid’s dick belt includes a considerably younger girl, approximately half his age, who was the daughter of a former colleague. These carnal trysts, always at exotic locations, illustrate a long history of similar disturbing behavior. Sexual conquests often take place during working hours as a full-time employee of the British Government. The perpetrator also makes several sleazy passes at a female co-worker of African descent and then coerces his subordinate into violating multiple legalities in order to protect his own job security.
Inexplicably, the blonde-haired blue-eyed lunatic and his appalling actions were cheered repeatedly and wildly by the movie audience, willfully enjoying the violence and depravity. This delirious misogynist has been the hero of 24 films, to date, dating back to 1962. The latest cinematic infatuation is titled “Spectre.”
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To enjoy a James Bond movie requires suspending belief.
We know 007 isn’t going to die. We know good triumphs over evil. We know the world will not end. We know James Bond is going to save modern civilization while sipping his steady diet of martinis while driving a classic Aston Martin, and while porking every sweet piece of ass he can get his press his SIG Sauer against, all choreographed to the rubber-stamped soundtrack of whoever’s currently topping the music charts. The subtext and plot are about as fashionable as a $5 pair of worn-out Beatles Boots sold off at a garage sale.
The latest Bond chapter, “Spectre,” stars Daniel Craig, in his fourth installment as the famed superhero. Trapped within and presumably struggling to get out, beneath the perpetual brooding and humorless facade, there’s probably a decent actor hidden inside somewhere who would love to tell the entire Bond franchise to “go fuck off,” and make real movies with more satisfying themes. But who could possibly walk away from $15 million, or whatever Daniel Craig is getting paid this time? All he has to do is travel the world, stand there in Armani suits and preen in front of the cameras, pretend to shoot toy guns, and kiss scores of hot supermodels. In other words, be a prop. Nice work if you can get it.
“Spectre” isn’t a bad movie. But it’s not very good either. It’s yet another money-grubbing conglomeration prioritizing profits and slick product placement over any auspicious of creative originality. The Bond movies don’t even attempt to pretend they’re imaginative anymore. The fault lies entirely with Barbara Broccoli, who inherited the lucrative global franchise from her late father, the real brains, who now must be spinning in his grave and begging for his offspring to stop the recycling. Long ago, she ruined the final vestiges of Bond’s endearing legacy by pumping out new Bond movies every two years — script or no script — much to the concupiscent chorus of multi-national sponsors willing to stick a big fat check in her pocket. One gets the impression that everything in this movie is for sale and the Bond marketing team would go to any lengths to squeeze as much as they can to keep the doe flowing in — film critics be damned. Why make a decent movie, if the suckers will stand in line and buy the tickets anyway?
The problem with “Spectre“ starts and pretty much ends with an utterly lifeless script, devoid of intrigue or humor. It’s yet another fabricated plot with a mysterious threat to take over the world’s whatever, by some psychopathic outcast who simply isn’t given very good lines. That’s what’s criminal. Indeed, Bond’s villains have become boring. Christoph Waltz, so wonderful as the conniving Nazi in “Inglorious Bastards” for which he won a well-deserved Oscar, and seemingly the perfect colorful bad-guy foil for the dapper Bond, comes across as engaging as an insurance agent going through the motions of a term life appointment. The classic era of metal-teethed assassins, hissing Persian cats, and blackwater ponds filled with Piranha fish gobbling up human flesh has been completely usurped by laptops and smartphones that make lots of stuff go boom. How (un) exciting.
One of Bond’s love interests is a woman presumably in her mid-20s (with a Ph.D., of course), played by someone of Eastern European descent (I won’t even bother to look up her name since we’ll probably never see her again). At first, she hates Bond. Then, she loves him. Then, she leaves him. Then, he saves her life for the up-teenth time, and suddenly she loves him again. You get the picture.
No one expects the cinematic art of Federico Fellini when walking into a James Bond movie. What we do want, however, and have every right to expect, are creative sequences, thrilling escapes and dodges, witty dialogue, well-casted characters, and some degree of credibility that what we’re seeing could be real. That said, it’s hard to take a movie seriously when Bond and the Eastern European girl board a passenger train in street clothes, without any suitcases, in the middle of the Sahara Desert, and yet somehow they morph into the dining car immaculately tailored in a gorgeous silk dress and a white tuxedo. Naturally, Bond never seems to run out of bullets, either.
There’s little to remember about the latest Bond film after seeing it, aside from the feeling that anyone who purchased a ticket basically got pickpocketed for $11.50. The director, the actors, the scriptwriters, and ultimately the viewing audience — we all went through the motions. Gee, I can’t wait to get plucked again two years from now for another $11.50. This isn’t James Bond, the majestic super spy any longer. It’s “Rocky XXIV.”
Given the vast resources both financially and artistically, “Spectre” should be a much better movie. It’s isn’t. Instead, I would have titled this “Stinker.” But at least one thing is constant as well as crowd-pleasing — the homicidal loner and serial adulterer gets the girl at the end. Make that — at least until the next movie, when she’ll be tossed aside and forgotten and Bond will be bedding more fresh ass. At least, let’s hope next time he leaves the mourning widows alone. They’ve been through enough grief already.