Beginner’s Bond: Spectre
The “Beginner’s Bond” series is all about filling in the biggest gap in my personal film history: the James Bond franchise. I’m watching all of the movies in order (mostly) for the very first time and recording my honest reactions here. 2012’s Skyfall gave us one of the best Bond villains of all time in Raoul Silva, but padded its runtime by pretending to reveal James’ past. There was quite a bit of filler. And while I really want Spectre to (finally) reveal something interesting about Bond’s history, I’m not hopeful after Skyfall’s broken promises.
After a chase through a Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City, 007 kills bomb maker Marco Sciarra, fulfilling the final posthumous wish of the previous M. He takes a ring with a strange octopus logo on it from the body, and from that he’s able to deduce that Sciarra belonged to some secret society. But since he acted independently without approval from the current M, Bond is suspended. Once again, going rogue poses no real obstacle to Bond since all of the secondary characters he needs to support him instantly agree to continue helping in secret. Even Q’s initial resistance dissipates with just a hearty “C’mon!” And since M, Q, and Moneypenny are really the only characters James interacts with at MI6 anyway, there is no significant difference from the audience’s perspective.
Bond goes to Sciarra’s funeral so that he can sex some information out of his widow, played by a criminally underused Monica Bellucci. Her intel and the ring he recovered are enough to get Bond in the door at one of Spectre’s meetings, where he is recognized and called out by their leader—Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Bond flees in his Aston Martin, pursued by Spectre’s super strong silent henchman, Mr. Hinx. He manages to escape and tracks down Mr. White, a former member of Spectre who had been poisoned with thallium as punishment for his failures in the previous movies. In exchange for information, Bond promises to protect Mr. White’s daughter, a psychiatrist named Madeline Swann. He also provides Mr. White with the means to end his suffering.
Serendipitously, Bond arrives just in time to rescue Dr. Swann from being abducted by Mr. Hinx and his goons, instantly earning her trust. They end up on a train headed towards Spectre’s secret desert base when they are again attacked by Mr. Hinx. In the best scene of the whole movie, Mr. Hinx wrecks the dining car by bouncing Mr. Bond off every hard surface available. The fight harkens back to 007’s iconic clash against Jaws without being derivative, solidifying Mr. Hinx’s position in the pantheon of great henchmen.
Unsurprisingly, the creepy jerk overseeing the merger between MI5 and MI6 turns out to be Blofeld’s inside man. He plans to give Spectre access to the intelligence feeds of nine different countries once their new network comes online. Of course, Mr. Bond and Dr. Swann are immediately captured upon their arrival at Spectre’s base. Blofeld gives a tedious monologue about his animosity for Bond while torturing him by drilling tiny holes in his skull, and as the audience, it feels like we’re strapped to the operating chair with him. Despite Blofeld’s warning that these microsurgeries will do permanent brain damage which will affect Bond’s ability to move and think competently, James deftly escapes the chair and starts effortlessly popping off headshots. It quickly becomes clear that 007 is completely unaffected by having two extra holes in his skull. Perhaps Blofeld overestimated the effects of brain damage.
Mr. Bond and Dr. Swann manage to escape their captor thanks to Q’s explosive wristwatch. They end up getting captured by Spectre again. Blofeld survived the blast with a nasty looking eye scar, and now he has hidden Swann somewhere in the old MI6 building that is scheduled for demolition in three minutes. Of course 007 saves her, shoots down Blofeld’s chopper with a pistol, and arrests the villain. Mr. Bond and Dr. Swann ride off into the sunset in his restored Aston Martin.
As is usually the case in the James Bond franchise, the action is as visually compelling as it is technically impressive. There’s multiple car chases in the classic Aston Martin, as well as an off-road pursuit in a Land Rover, a speedboat chasing a helicopter, and even an airplane chase… on the ground! This movie also contains the largest stunt explosion ever recorded—you’ll know it when you see it. Dave Bautista gives a magnificent wordless performance as the intimidating Mr. Hinx. He steals every scene he enters, and he totally bodies Bond when he’s on the screen. It was almost a shame to see him go.
The first two acts of this movie are an enjoyable enough espionage action romp, but it all falls apart at the end due to some truly terrible storytelling. That narrative collapse begins once Blofeld begins his big villain monologue, revealing that his father had taken in a young orphaned Bond. The film says they were raised like brothers, but James was only there for two years. Apparently Baby Blofeld found Bond’s existence so offensive that he murdered his father, faked his own death, and ran off to found the largest terrorist organization in the world. But he didn’t kill the actual object of his hatred because… he was planning to build an evil empire in the shadows just to fuck with James’ life, who hadn’t even joined the army, much less 00 section, at that point. Hell, he hadn’t even been to university yet. How was teenage Blofeld able to perfectly predict the trajectory of James’ future? No explanation.
Why does Blofeld hate James so much, even thirty years later? He has no real answer. There’s a vague outline of a metaphor about the cuckoo bird. The cuckoo is known for sneaking into nests and pushing out their host’s legitimate offspring in order to monopolize the parent’s care and resources. He gives no examples of James’ offenses. Blofeld doesn’t even raise his voice. His reaction makes neither narrative nor emotional sense. If you hate someone enough to murder your own father and dedicate your life to building an evil empire specifically to destroy them, you have a story about the specific thing they did or didn’t do that makes you burn with an unquenchable fury. There should absolutely be at least one anecdote about young James that Blofeld cannot tell without almost losing his shit. That’s what a thirty year grudge looks like. Sadly, this is not a failing of a sub-par script alone—the usually terrific Christoph Waltz gives a performance so subdued its practically catatonic. He doesn’t so much as frown the whole time, so it’s really hard to believe he hates James enough to burn the whole world down just to spite him. But it’s also incredibly boring to watch an actor who simply isn’t acting. Mr. Waltz sounds like he’s reading from notecards, even when discussing the vengeance he is going to inflict on the person he says he hates the most in the whole world.
In addition, the motivation Blofeld gives is stupid. It would take a legendary performance to make this script work, and Mr. Waltz isn’t up to it this time. Blofeld boasts about doing evil simply for evil’s sake, which is both unrealistic and unsatisfying. That’s a motive for a children’s cartoon villain. Spectre basically rules the world from the shadows, and the point of accumulating all of this power is just to aggravate James Bond? That’s ridiculous. People don’t operate like that. It would make more sense if Blofeld had built the organization to achieve a specific insidious goal, and then later relished having the power to finally crush his ultimate rival. Having him retroactively take credit for the deeds of the previous villains only makes him look weak by comparison. Raoul Silva was ten times the hater that Blofeld was, and he didn’t even need to shout to communicate his rage. This version of Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a mistake, and his entrance completely derails a movie that was a lot of fun before he interrupted.
Don’t get me wrong. Spectre isn’t a terrible movie. Most of it is pretty enjoyable. But it could have been so much more if it had a more substantial villain with some actual character development. This Blofeld is definitely the worst of all the Bond villains I’ve seen, from a narrative perspective. Let’s hope Daniel Craig’s grand finale, 2021’s No Time To Die, learns from Spectre’s biggest mistake.
