Jenny on Spectre
When my sons
were small, it was forbidden for boys to have proper dolls, though now you can
buy baby dolls with convincing male genitalia, which is jolly nice and only
fair to girls. Then, boys had to make do with Action Man and Star Wars
‘figures’ as their dolls. Action Man came with multiple enticing outfits and
opportunities for dressing and undressing, though alas, ultra-masculine though
he was, he did not have anything much under his camouflage pants. Talking to my
older son about all of this, he reminded me that he had also been very fond of a
certain white James Bond car.
It suddenly
came to me watching Spectre that of
course Sam Mendes and his crew must all have been small boys at much the same
time, and now, how wonderful, they get to play with the action figures for
real! This probably accounts for the constant homage to earlier Bond
films. Fluffy white cat with sulky expression? Tick. Train? Tick. Villain’s
strangely retro Space Age Evil Lair? Tick. Villain’s Nehru jacket? Tick. I’m
not sure if we are meant to see these references as giving us a wink of sly
humour or whether they are deadly serious. What is certain is that this is a
Fanboy tribute of an attentive and loving kind.
This movie
is stylish and clever. The pre-credit sequence is set in Mexico City on the Day
of the Dead and it is as good as or better than any other film in the Bond
canon. It has a long tracking shot of staggering virtuosity and I’m still
trying to work out how it was done. The production design is consistently brilliant.
Bond survives his ordeals, as ever, without a scratch, so for instance having been
tortured by having his skull drilled by Christoph Waltz, with one bound is he
free in an immaculate freshly ironed white shirt. Naturally there is no sign of
blood, gore, brain damage or the smoke and debris from the massive explosion he
has just caused. The final reel, set spectacularly in London, is beautifully
made, CGI blending invisibly with the real thing.
My problem
is the one I have always had with the Bond franchise. I have no interest
whatsoever in guns, bombs, handcuffs, cars, helicopters, planes, trains,
explosions, spies, fights, car chases, buildings-demolition, murders, gadgets
or action-driven plots. So I dozed off in the second reel and may have missed
some nuances in whatever sketchy plot there was.
I did notice
that Daniel Craig is not required to do much in the way of acting. All those
doubting persons who thought him too short, too blond, too ordinary etc to be
JB have certainly been proved wrong in a big way. But fine actor that he is,
all he really has to do here is pout, give piercing stares from his lovely blue
eyes, make manspreading poses and point a gun. The love scenes are embarrassing.
He looks as if he can barely disguise his distaste for them so thank goodness
we were spared anything explicit.
And now I’m
a little concerned for Daniel. In my other life as a career coach I have worked
with people who have got all the money, fame and fancy titles that they ever
dreamed of, yet their lives feel empty. He has let slip that he does not want
to make another Bond and I can see why. He must want to get back to something
that will show off his depth and range and not just his gymbod. But that is
going to be so difficult when the world, and not least Ms Broccoli, will press
hard for him to go on being Bond.
As for me,
these exciting super-hero boy-films are not my cup of tea. Give me a nice slow
French family melodrama with terrible subtitles any day.
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