Black Bag (2025)

"You Are Cordially Invited to a Night of Fun and Games at George and Kathryn's"

or

"Will There Be a Mess to Clean up?" "Only if We Do it Right"

 

Something is brewing at the NCSC ("Making the UK the safest place to live and work online"), a division of the GCHQ, which is a branch of British Intelligence. Even before the titles come up, George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is called to an off-site meeting with his boss, Philip Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgård—another one! A month of movie releases can't go by without one with a Skarsgård in it) who informs him "we have a traitor in our midst" regarding a very hush-hush program called "Severus" and Meacham wants him to find the "mole" and "ferret" them out. "Give me two weeks" says George. Meacham replies "If Severus is deployed as intended, thousands of people will die."

 

"Okay," says George. "One week."

 

It will be that kind of movie.

 

George, you see, is a highly-regarded agent at intelligence. And so is his wife, Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett) and he is absolutely devoted to her, as she is to him. But, we've seen enough movies with husband/wife teams in the same professions where vows and oaths clash enough that they can hasten the expiration date of "'til death do you part." And in the spy game, trust is everything, depending on verifiable proof. In the marriage game, trust is usually handled in another department and hemisphere of the brain.

And George has been informed by Meacham that his wife is one of the suspects. Oh, bother. That can tests one's concepts of loyalty, what? But, being a punctilious sort he begins his investigation by inviting the suspects over for dinner, prepared by him, and with the added ingredient being a drug to lower everyone's inhibitions—he has a reputation of being able to catch anyone in a lie—and that gets an amused admonition from his wife ("Darling, you must not dose our guests."), but, as we know, he only has a week.

The dinner guests include the agency's psychiatric analyst Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris), her boyfriend and agent, Col. James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page), his counterpart Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke) and his girlfriend, satellite imagery specialist Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela). All work together for the agency for the head of the department Arthur Steiglitz (Pierce Brosnan), but all that really gets revealed at dinner is that Freddie, as is his way, is cheating on Clarissa, which results in her stabbing him in the hand with a steak knife. It is only one of three violent acts in the film, but it gets George no closer to the truth.

And he hasn't begun to investigate his wife, yet. As she was preparing for dinner, she happened to mention that she liked it when he watched her, but, she has no way of knowing how far that will go. He finds out her schedule—she's traveling to Zurich on business—and persuades Clarissa to temporarily way-lay a satellite and discovers that Katheryn is meeting a Soviet operative there. James informs him that she's got access to a Swiss bank account with £7 million in it and that a highly-placed colleague of the fellow she there has gone missing. Perhaps most alarmingly, Meacham—his boss who gave him the assignment of "finding the rat"—has unexpectedly died of a coronary. Things are happening pretty fast.

But, then it's a Steven Soderbergh movie. Black Bag is the second 

film he's directed film to be released in three months (the earlier one was Presence, also written by David Koepp), and it is more in the style of Soderbergh's caper movies (the "Ocean's" films, Logan Lucky, or Out of Sight), although slicker and with more of a professional veneer given the spy/thriller setting. It's stylish, witty, but with an underlying smartness that might leave some watchers in the cold. Things get complicated, red herrings abound, and if you're not paying attention, you could get lost. But, the spy vs. spy bubble the movie moves in gives it a certain edge where you're not sure whose side anybody's on at any given moment.

Call it Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy-lite, with a little bit more tech with spy-satellites and AI-enhancers and the like, plus a bit of sleuthing, psychological games, a big "MacGuffin", and even an Agatha Christie "it's-someone-in-this-room" reveal, checking off a lot of film-fan favorites. And the structure of the thing is a nice little touch. It's a clever little game, if not much of a thriller, although Soderbergh keeps it moving at a fast clip, and the badinage witty even if no one smiles. 

No Time to Die

James Bond's Swann Song

or

In The War of Orphans, Winning is Who You Leave Behind

or

"Tell Mother I Died Game" ("Well, It Just Goes to Show No One's Indestructible")

 

The continuity-conscious Daniel Craig era of the James Bond series has had a through-line simmering throughout all of its previous four films—"Don't trust anyone." 

From Craig's first film, Casino Royale, when the newly designated "00" agent James Bond has a moment of romantic weakness with the wrong person, continuing to the next film when he finds that his service has been compromised, and that the allied CIA works to cross-purposes, through Skyfall, where his boss "M" (Dame Judi Dench) sacrifices agents (including himself) indiscriminately, to the last one, where he discovers he can't even trust his past, this version of Bond walks under a cloud of suspicion, never letting his armor down, lest he be betrayed...by anyone. 

By the time of Craig's fourth film, SPECTRE, he has tipped so far over the edge that he draws down on a random mouse to ask it "Who sent you? Who are you working for?"   

As the song (from Quantum of Solace) says: "...someone that you think that you can trust is just another way to die."

The official series' 25th entry*, No Time to Die, sees Craig's James Bond retired in Jamaica and recruited—by CIA pal Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright)—for an operation that eventually reunites him with the people he does trust to go after people he can't, something involving a missing scientist. Another one. Hey, the series has been going on for nearly 60 years, everything can't be original and nor would the many "James Bond" devotees not allow the "familiarity factor" to creep into the story ("Where's the Aston Martin?" "Where's the martini line?" "I didn't hear 'Bond...James Bond!" "Is he going 'rogue' again?"**).

Still, with all the Fleming novels having been filmed—in one form or another—and a good smattering of the short stories included, the filmmakers have been hard pressed to keep Bond current, the movie-plots being set "a few minutes from now" with call-backs from past novels and films spattered in, as well as acknowledgments from other sources that the producers use to know that they know they're being watched.*** And the films have for the most part been formulaic—Pre-Credit Sequence/Main Title/Meeting with M/Visit to Q/Two Women (at least) with one being of mixed loyalty/The Sacrificial Lamb/Meet the Villain/Big Finish (with Explosion)/Sting in the Tail With a Challenging Henchman/"James Bond Will Return in..."—so that there were things you could count on. Rules were played with, but some you just didn't violate.

 

No Time to Die up-ends them.

As I mentioned, the Craig films are continuity-conscious. When last we left James Bond (Daniel Craig, pushing it this time, in all aspects—age, acting, etc...), he had crushed the international crime league, S.P.E.C.T.R.E., and brought to ground (literally) its ring-leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz)—but didn't kill him—instead walking off into the London night with Dr. Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), daughter of the mysterious SPECTRE middle-man Mr. White (seen in three of the Craig's). The last shot of SPECTRE had the two seated in Bond's recently re-constructed Aston Martin, sharing smug, self-satisfied smiles. They were meant for each other.

No Time to Die begins with an episode from the past (not involving Bond, but will), and the story of the two scar-crossed lovers on a European honeymoon of sorts that is ruined when Bond is attacked visiting the grave of...Vesper Lynd (the "other woman" from Casino Royale). Coincidence? Not much of one, and as Swann and Bond are high-tailing it out of there, it's revealed that Blofeld has engineered the whole thing from his prison and implicates Madeleine. Despite her protests, Bond puts her on a train and she's out of his life. Bond and his trust-issues again.

In the past, we'd gotten used to the disappearing Bond-girl act, where after the final clinch of each movie, she is never seen...or mentioned...again. "Who?" But, the fact that Seydoux is even there—and she's the only actress playing the same Bond-woman part over two movies—means that she's special. And that the producers have "borrowed" a piece of music from the series' past (written by John Barry!!) to serenade the Bond-Swann romance means she's more than special. More on that later—Madeleine Swann Will Return.

Five years later and Bond is retired in Jamaica and alone, spending his days fishing, cooking and (probably) drinking. One day, he comes back to his house and sees evidence that someone had been there—someone who smokes cigars. He goes into town, realizes he's being followed, and manages to catch the culprits in the act. It turns out to be Leiter and a State Department official Logan Ash (Billy Magnussen) who are trying to get Bond to help track down Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik), a biochemist who has recently been kidnapped by SPECTRE. Bond had a hand in bringing him in during his tenure, and under the agency's careful watch, the man had been working on something called the Heracles Project, a form of targeted weaponized virus. MI6 lost him and the CIA is trying to get him back.

But, they're not the only one. Also tracking him in Jamaica is a "00" agent from MI6, in fact, the new "007" ("I'll bet you thought they'd retired it"), Nomi (Lashana Lynch), who's also on the look-out for the chemist. Despite her warnings to back off, Bond travels to Cuba, where SPECTRE agents seem to be gathering. Nomi is there too, and with the help of a new CIA agent (Ana de Armas), Bond walks right into a viper's nest.

The Cuba sequence, with its fights, the jokey repartee of Bond and "Paloma," their pauses to drink, while Nomi is skulking in the background looking for opportunity is probably the highlight of the film. It works like a violent dance, with a Cuban jazz background (part of Hans Zimmer's functional score) that gives it verve and a sense of hysteria. That it follows one of the creepiest scenes in a Bond film probably helps to provide that sense of chaotic relief.

But, just because that's the giddy apex of the movie doesn't mean the rest of its bad. There's a hell-bent Aston Martin chase in an Italian villa, a spooky cross-country shoot-out through a foggy Norwegian forest that is terrific, and another example of those spectacular villain lair designs that have always set the series apart from its competitors. 

This is another of those Bond films that stun for how well done the practical effects are, the cinematography—by not one of the upper tier of photographers—is lush and colorful, the editing is crisp and tight (while giving you a sense of continuity and flow—something not apparent in Quantum of Solace), and the sheer kinetic verve of the action sequences goggle. Credit director Cary Joji Fukunaga for his precise direction and making a movie that never feels like it's 2 hours 46 minutes in length ("We Have All the Time in the World," indeed!). It's a bit of a miracle, really.

Fukunaga has also inspired Craig's most intense performance as Bond, part of which must also be credited to Phoebe Waller-Bridge's re-write of the original Purvis/Wade script. Fukunaga's practice of letting the actors "wing it" gives the film a richer, fuller life, much more than the standard Bond direction of "line (beat)/funny line (beat-beat)" that makes the viewing of the older films of the series seem awkward. Here the dialogue fairly scampers when Craig's present, and only slows to a crawl when Rami Malik's puppet-master Safin appears. "He's kinda creepy" is how he's described early and, indeed, he is, reminiscent of a trembling Peter Lorre, with a philosophy that's a bit hard to decipher, though natter on about it he does. The Bond villains have some motivation, whether it be greed, errant activism, or a power grab. Safin is simply crazy, but a self-important, rambling crazy.

Now, this is going to be a spoiler-free review, but, as mentioned, this one up-ends things, but not in a way that anyone who's read a book by Bond-creator Fleming wouldn't recognize. Because the Bond films have only flirted with a strict continuity lately means they can get away with it with no harm done. The older films had a strict "Bond is fresh with each adventure" edict, which the Craig films have ignored. Bond never got hurt in the old films, but now they keep track of the scars. This is Craig's last film—he's been doing it for 16 years, longer than anybody, and wife Rachel Weisz was getting annoyed he was coming home broken. There will be another Bond, but whether the series will be as continuity-conscious next go-'round hasn't been decided. 

Original Bond producer Cubby Broccoli always maintained that Bond should be "at the top of his game" and that nobody would be interested in an "early Bond" origin story. When his kids got control, they tried it with Craig and it's worked. But, now that they've done it, there's no need to do it again. Bond may go a different route, like going back to stand-alone movies. Maybe they'll do Cold War period pieces. Maybe they'll remake a couple of the bad ones. Who's to say? And who's to say who'll be the next Bond. Finding Craig was something of a miracle despite the initial nay-saying, so I'll trust their judgment on the matter.

 

One thing is certain and that is, as the credit says "James Bond will Return." As long as the British flag flies, and the box office receipts are healthy.

 

* "Official" refers to the films made by EON Productions (founded by Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli), starting with Dr. No in 1962, and featuring the Ian Fleming titles they had the film-rights to, which—at the time—excluded "Casino Royale" and (owing to an early '60's plagiarism suit) "Thunderball". "Casino Royale" appeared ("unofficially") as an episode of CBS-TV's "Climax" (starring Barry Nelson as "Jimmy" Bond, American) and a 1967 "spoof" film starring David Niven, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen, before EON got the rights to it for the first of Daniel Craig's films. Thunderball became an EON presentation when the fellow who won that lawsuit wanted to make his movie with Sean Connery and worked out a deal with EON to "present" the film—with Connery—thus avoiding any competition that might hurt box-office receipts. However, when that same guy wanted to remake Thunderball (which, contractually, he could do after ten years), things were so contentious between him and EON that both sides battled in court before that remake (called Never Say Never Again and starring Sean Connery) was released in 1983, the same year as EON's Octopussy starring Roger Moore. EON now owns the rights to both the books "Casino Royale" and "Thunderball" (even including those "un-official" movie versions). They've since been doing original stories for ages, (and over several agents), and it's a wonder when some morsel of the original Fleming writing sneaks undercover into the films.

 

** The series' Bond has "gone rogue" in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Licence To Kill, Die Another Day, Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and SPECTRE. It's as if the producers have preferred Bond's role to be less a company man and more of a rebel.

 

*** Hmm. Live and Let Die was put in during the craze for "Blax-ploitation" films, The Man with the Golden Gun was taken out of its novel-locale of Cuba to be set in Hong Kong, Thailand, and Cambodia to catch the "Kung-Fu" craze, Moonraker timed to take advantage of the Star Wars-prepped audience, Octopussy threw in some Indiana Jones action, Goldeneye's Xenia Onatopp was a soul-sister to Never Say Never Again's Fatima Blush, the fight sequences of late owe much to the "Bourne" series, and the Austin Powers movies stole all of the series' leering jokes leaving the Craig films to be a bit more stoic—although the Bond screenwriters stole the "villain-is-a-relation-to-the-hero" bit from Goldmember...as either series might say "Tit for Tat" 

 

Related Links: Now I've Seen Everything Dept.: The James Bond Series 

Our Kind of Traitor

Our Man in Nirvana
or
It was My Mother...You Get Sentimental.

It seems to be another good year for John le Carré adaptations. The BBC did a quite honorable version of his 1993 "The Night Manager", and this, Our Kind of Traitor—one of David Cornwell's shorter books—is just concise enough to make it to feature film length without feeling like cheating the source. I have a particular love for le Carré's books, as I've been reading them since the Cold War days with their intricate chess strategies between spy networks, undermined by human frailties and loyalties, often drawn with Dickensian complexity and piquancies. With glasnost, le Carré's antagonists moved from behind the Iron Curtain and into the boardrooms of friendly nations, criminals by nature but with an undercover veneer of prosperity and prominence. Their goals were not political (were the others, really?) so much as a craven desire for power...and more of it and taking down any threats to acquiring it. Although the targets were different, the battles were business, as usual.

His protagonists are not larger-than-life secret agents hiding in plain sight, but government functionaries, rumpled men, flawed and quite extraordinary in their ordinariness, or Hitchcockian innocents caught in the gears of machinations they were quite unaware of working in the background. 

Le Carré's characters either are professionals keeping secrets or amateurs having secrets thrust upon them, but are compelled by their Nature to do the best they can, even to the point of sacrifice. Sometimes they suffer for their efforts and sometimes they can't accomplish their goals with 100% satisfaction. In the current political climate, such might be labeled "losers." They've always been heroes to me, even if they're mourned rather than lauded.

But, the stakes have changed. In the earlier simpler times, they've fought for ideals, for governments. But, around the time of "The Russia House," that changed. In that version of Casablanca-turned-on-its-head, it is not that "the problems of two little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world," but they weigh a lot more in a topsy-turvy crazy world of overstuffed bureaucracies in which ideals are sacrificed for not much and for the most worthless of McGuffins. The loyalties are spoken very plainly in that novel (and film) by it's ex-pat Brit: "You're my country now." When the country of your birth proves undeserving of loyalty, better to take it personally, on a human level, and protect what you can...and what you should.

Perry Makepiece (Ewan McGregor) is good at keeping secrets. A teacher on Holiday in Marrakech with his lawyer-girlfriend Gail Perkins (Naomie Harris), he's trying to patch things up with her after having an affair with one of his students. But Gail is diffident, not trusting him, and business back home pulls her away from a dinner at an expensive restaurant, leaving Perry alone. What do you do to fill the gaps left by absence?

Perry is invited by a fellow restaurant patron, a garrulous, gregarious Russian, Dima (Stellan Skarsgård, looking the worst for wear but giving one of his best performances) to join him for some after-dinner drinking. Drinking leads to gamesmanship and an invite to a party with sex, drugs and rock and roll, but when Perry stumbles on a rape in progress, he interferes despite being physically outmatched by the perpetrator. Dima interjects, and perhaps noting Perry's tendency to "white knight," invites him and Gail to his daughter's birthday party. When Perry comes back in the morning, his lawyer-lover cross-examines him about where he's been and why he's scruffed up, suspecting that he's catting around again. But, Perry tells her about his encounter with Dima and mentions the birthday party. Gail is reluctant, but accompanies him.

At the party, the two are overwhelmed by Dima's extravagance (his daughter is given a camel for her birthday...a camel, not a pony) and by his generosity with his time and his family. But, at some point Perry and Dima disappear, leaving Gail fuming a bit, but this may be one of those times when it's best not to find out too much.

Dima gives Perry a flash-drive, which he wants delivered to "MI6." Dima is a money launderer for a Russian drug cartel, which is going through a spate of extremely hostile take-overs by a kingpin calling himself The Prince. A friend of Dima's, a fellow "account manager," has been murdered, along with his wife and oldest daughter and Dima suspects his organization's next, and when that happens...Perry is tasked to contact Intelligence so that Dima can get his family, and with luck himself, to the West. Perry agrees. He doesn't tell Gail.

At customs, Perry reveals what he's got and authorities detain him, bringing in investigator Hector Meredith (Damian Lewis) and Luke Weaver (Khalid Abdalla) to question him for hours, leaving Gail quite peeved. When she finds out about all the hub-bub at the airport hub, she thinks Perry has gone mad—what has he gotten himself into now? A suspicious alliance forms between Perry and Hector, who has his own reasons for handling all this personally—he's on the "outs" at the Service, due to the arrest and incarceration of his son for drug possession, a prosecution pushed for by a government official (Jeremy Northam) Hector has been investigating for collusion with the Soviets. He's warned by his boss, Billy Matlock (Mark Gatiss, co-creator and "Mycroft" of the new "Sherlock") to not take it too personally or any gains might be "disappeared" again.

But, it's personal for everybody. As personal as family. And governments, bureaucracies and spies know bupkis about "family values." They know little about trust. And act accordingly.

Performances by the cast are measured and assured throughout, everyone having outstanding moments and director Susanna White keeps things low-key and lived-in. Its another fine adaptation of le Carré with no false notes or grand-standing. Definitely recommended, it's my kind of movie.

SPECTRE (2015)

Past-Tense
or
The Importance of Being Ernst

The criminal organization S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (The Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion) was the organization behind all the world's trouble in the first six of seven James Bond movies, and it's head, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (played by, respectively Donald Pleasance, Telly Savalas and Charles Gray) showed up for the first time in the fifth, although he'd been in two of them as a faceless entity stroking a white persian cat on his lap. In those films, his criminal organization had been responsible for toppling American missile launches, pitting the British and Russian spy networks against each other, hijacking nuclear weapons from NATO, sabotaging the Russian and American space programs to create a nuclear conflict, distributing a zero-growth virus as part of an elaborate blackmail scheme, and kidnapping a tech billionaire in order to put a laser firing satellite into orbit in order to offer nuclear supremacy to the highest bidder. These are bad-guys with a ruthlessly entrepreneurial streak.

But they haven't been around for 40 years? Where have they been? Where every bad corporation ends up (unless you're Goldman Sachs)—in court. SPECTRE was created for the first attempt at a James Bond movie in the 50's in a script written by Bond's creator Ian Fleming, producer Kevin McClory, and a screenwriter named Jack Whittingham, in order to create an alternate to the Soviet Union (a potential market for distributing their movie even then), which was traditionally the badski in Fleming's spy series. When the movie didn't pan out, Fleming took the plot and SPECTRE and wrote the novel "Thunderball," based on the screenplay. His co-writers successfully sued Fleming for plagiarism and McClory was given the exclusive rights to SPECTRE and Blofeld. The Bond series couldn't use them anymore. But McClory did when he re-made Thunderball with Sean Connery in 1983's Never Say Never Again (Max von Sydow played Blofeld).

A bevy of Blofelds: Donald Pleasance, Telly Savalas, Charles Gray, Max von Sydow*

The Bond producers (the children of original producer Albert R. Broccoli) only recently acquired those rights from McClory's estate—just as they had bought back the rights to "Casino Royale" to make their own version with Daniel Craig. Now, the long dormant plot element can be legally re-inserted into the series, to be re-invented for this current run of Bond films (the old one having been—oh, "parodied" is a nice word—into unusability by the "Austin Powers" films of Mike Meyers).

SPECTRE has a ring to it: "Vanity has its dangers."

Jesus, that's a lot of back-story for a James Bond movie, but then SPECTRE has a lot of back-story, too, encompassing the entire run of Daniel Craig's Bond. Way back in Casino Royale, there was a "Mr. White" who was part of an unnamed organization that was doing a lot of stock manipulation and he ended up killing the villain of the piece, LeChiffre, and subsequently being shot by Bond. The next film Quantum of Solace started with him being transported to Station I-Italy for questioning by Bond and "M" (Judi Dench at the time) where he cackled: "The first thing you should know about us is...we have people everywhere" then proves it by escaping with the help of one of the supposedly loyal MI-6 guards. "M's" reaction was succinct: "When someone says 'We've got people everywhere', you expect it to be hyperbole! Lots of people say that. Florists use that expression. It doesn't mean that they've got somebody working for them inside the bloody room!" A deleted QOS scene had Bond squaring off against White and a British government official in bed with the organization, which was called "Quantum." It was decided that was one too many endings for the film.**

They use a lot less stainless steel at SPECTRE nowadays.

They're wonderful at recycling at EON Productions—they've managed to make a whole movie out of that deleted scene, grafting "Quantum" into another layer of inscrutability to "SPECTRE," which is a nice touch. They've also thrown in a bit of Skyfall, too. After an unsanctioned hit that causes all too much property damage in Mexico City in the film's pre-credit sequence,*** Bond is disciplined by his new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss "M" (Ralph Fiennes) into some inactivity for the good of just about everybody on the planet.

Jimmy was very bad.

The planet, as it turns out, needs all the help it can get. Nobody's hijacking nukes or space-capsules these days, but there have been sporadic terrorist attacks throughout the globe, that incident in Mexico City being an example. Meanwhile, in London, MI6 is falling down, falling down—it's old HQ on the Thames crumbling from the attack in Skyfall and due for demolition. That's merely infrastructure, but inside the new Service, "M" is under siege. Whitehall is ramping up its "Homeland Security," given the MI6 attack, the previous Lady "M's" death, and the compromising of embedded agents in terrorist cells. There's a new security Czar, nicknamed "C"—Max Denbigh (played by "Sherlock's" mercurial Moriarty, Andrew Scott—whose methods of intelligence gathering involves fewer tailored boots on the ground and more intelligence gathering by remote control and electronic surveillance. There is a Global Surveillance Initiative in the works involving several nations that will soon be up for a vote and "M" is fighting against it, and the highly publicized cowboy tactics of 007 are working against him. Bond is put under heavy surveillance (like that's always worked) to keep him in line, but with the help of "Q" (Ben Whishaw) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), he's able to sneak off to Rome and Austria to investigate the terrorist he dispatched in Mexico, infiltrating the man's funeral and saving his widow (Monica Bellucci, finally playing a "Bond woman" after 25 years of internet speculation) from execution at the hands of her late husband's former business partners.

Caution: double entendre approaching

She gives him enough information (after some prodding) to infiltrate that organization's meeting, which is a combination Mafia conference, Mason's initiation, Illuminati planning session and WWE cage-match. He recognizes—and is recognized by—a man from his hazy past, Franz Oberhauser, (Christoph Waltz, not nearly as good as he could be) which forces an insane car-chase through the streets of Rome between Bond in a purloined Aston Martin DB10 and the assassin Hinx (a mute David Bautista) who has been assigned at that meeting to kill "The Pale King," a name Bond had heard in Mexico (but not from David Foster Wallace).

The "throne room" of "The Pale King"

Bond finds "The Pale King" in Austria and he turns out to have long connections to Bond from the beginning of his career as a "00." That visit is a nifty little scene that recalls one of Fleming's less active short stories, but it leads to a long story of revenge, inspired by another long story of revenge. It makes the final touch of the final confrontation that much more interesting and wise.

Saying anything more will just spoil a lot—some shocks, some surprises, some different zigs and zags from "the formula" as well as some bright spots—as SPECTRE takes another two full hours to complete (at 148 minutes, it is the longest of any James Bond film). I've always liked the tone of the Craig Bond's—hyper-serious even in the most outlandish of circumstances—no winking, no eyebrow-raising, no double-taking pigeons, no machine-gunning grannies, a minimum of slapstick (as was present during the Moore years), and in SPECTRE just a little bit of that starts to seep into the film. You won't see Craig mugging at the camera—he's too straight an actor to do that and he is more than aware of just how quickly one can shatter the illusion of tension.**** But, he will conveniently land on a couch when a building collapses around him—that will nicely pre-figure some stuff at the end.

Look at you looking at me

Performances are good throughout—with Craig, the series' longevity and current respectability, the producers can bring in some great talent without compromise, and Léa Seydoux is a great addition to the women of Bond and that's no tragedy this time. As the chief bad guys, Waltz and Scott are tamped down from their potential, and that seems a shame. Bautista is a considerable presence without words, and man, can that guy move fast. He's one of those things that take you aback and genuinely surprise.

If I have a complaint, it's that SPECTRE is not un-expected. There's a trend of making things neatly tied with bows of motivation in movies and the writers—John Logan, Purvis and Wade and Jez Butterworth—make things a bit too convenient. Everybody has fun with all the call-backs throughout the series—of course, SPECTRE HQ must be in a crater—but, one of the things about the SPECTRE stories is they had octopus-like loose ends. Not here. For all the dust-up's, everything is too tidy—right up to the point where we realize we've been watching a SPECTRE series all along.*****

For many, who have been cranky about the films not being "fun" anymore, SPECTRE will be the proverbial quantum of solace, a return to the more giddy days of Bond, just a dash of it, with a knowing panache that informs quite a number of scenes. ****** A bit of silliness here and there, like sugar in the salt-shaker. For me, someone who likes his spy satires in deadly earnest, it's a bit of a tactical retreat. I like it when the Bonds grab you by the scruff of the neck and wreck some furniture, rather than tickling you to death. I like Bonds to be respectable, even if they never, ever really were...in any incarnation. One worries that it's a trend to make the films more comfortable, more complacent, more what the public expects, which usually spells an approaching sea-change in the Bond movie series. "James Bond Will Return" as the last title says, but as what and for how long?

"Think on Your Sins"

* The cat, presumably, is also different every film. That Blofeld is a persian cat-fancier is a trope that has been used since the first Blofeld "appearance" (his face wasn't shown in either From Russia With Love or Thunderball), but it was never mentioned by Fleming for the character—it was purely an invention by the writers-producers. Or was it?

Here's Vincent Price as Richelieu in the M-G-M version of The Three Musketeers:

And I wonder if Marlon Brando was thinking about it when he picked up a studio stray for a scene in The Godfather.

** Which is funny. In the 60's, the "Bond formula" was that the film's ended with the big finale, only to have Bond have his post-mission relaxation spoiled by a determined henchman or something, who has to be dispatched before the credits can roll.

*** That sequence is a corker. After the opening gun-barrel (yay!) the movie begins with a sequence during the Day of the Dead that starts with one long continuous shot that is so elaborate and circuitous, Martin Scorsese is considering becoming a still photographer. In fact, Stephanie Sigman's entire role is contained in that one shot, detailing Bond's stalking of a target and his subsequent attempt to kill him "by any means necessary." It is one of the dizziest and throat-lumping sequences in the series.

**** Craig's commitment to the series has garnered him something that even Sean Connery could never get and caused him to quit the series—a co-producer credit. I didn't notice it, initially, in the Main Title sequence by Daniel Kleinmann (not one of his best) as I was too distracted by inky octopi crawling over naked silhouettes—that tends to happen to me for some reason.

***** I could go into detail, but the film just came out and I don't want to spoil what goes on and how the producers make the progression, or even point out similar examples in recent movie history. That would be telling. And there must be SOME secrets to the world's most well-known spy.

****** My chief problem is the motivation of the villain, who turns out to be Ernst Stavro Blofeld, on a mission to not conquer the world, but to control the knowledge of all the world's spy agencies, a super-NSA that can tap into any phone, any CCTV, rather like...oh, the NSA. That very lack of motivation could have inspired a nice little dig. For instance, after Bond's comment that Blofeld is "just a voyeur," really, he could have followed up with:
Bond: And what are you going to do with all this knowledge—this power? Feed the world? Heal the sick? (glances at Blofeld's cat) Open a spay/neuter clinic?

And when he finds out that Blofeld has been, basically, making Bond's life miserable the past few films as revenge for a disappointing past:
Bond: Why don't you act like a NORMAL person and just send me an insulting birthday card every year?