"Spectre" PG 13
Sam Mendez returns to direct another Daniel Craig Bond film, about 3 years after the last broke the barrier and did some unique things with the character of 007. This time, double crossing bad guys in courtrooms, which was a theme last time in spy films, is replaced by this year's evil masterminds want computer stuff angle. The evil and mysterious Spectre has been a staple since the first Bond films in the 1960s, so this will be a return to form, a remake of sorts. Craig almost channels Connery, and is closer to him than Brosnan was. At times it is more like an old fashioned 1960s Bond film than the others were, which is nice.
The flick opens in Mexico during the day of the dead, which is like Spanish Halloween, and there is Flemming's super spy in a death's head outfit. How appropriate. Then he has to do the whole flying over crumbling building thing, because they did that in the Hobbit movies. Yep, it's called a Ligolas! Then it is off to London where he gets the riot at from the new M, who is a dude this time. He wants to close down MI6 in favor of imitating scenes from Rogue Nation, M15, no actually it's just MI5, but that plot it straight out of that movie also!
Thus 007 must go underground and be off the grid to find the evil mastermind of Spectre, who is held up in a building having a darkly lit board meeting, sort of similar to that Joker scene in Dark Knight, but with a henchman blinding someone instead of the Joker.
The sneaky evil bad guy is chewing scenery because he is evidently some relation of Bond, and wants to torment him into going to his distant and mysterious location. They actually use Google Earth, in England, to find the base because it's not there. That revelation would give too much away.
Anyway, as not to give away too much, Bond must stop the evil Spectre and get the girl all before restoring peace with MI6.
Curiously even though the credits showed a lot of CGI sexy outlines, there are almost no love scenes in this movie! Bond us supposed to be into that, but no, just some making out happens. The 60s version was racier. It could be Daniel Craig at over 40 isn't into being cast in racy roles anymore.
Review by Adam Browne
