Spectre
{4/5} “You are a kite dancing in a hurricane, Mr. Bond.”
Spectre, released in 2015
When Bond is in the middle of an international incident in Mexico, M grounds him. Meanwhile, M is in the midst of a shake-up of his own — MI5 and MI6 are merging and the double-oh program may be eliminated. Bond is on the hunt for a shadowy organization that has an octopus as its logo. He eventually discovers a shocking revelation about many of his previous adventures — and about his childhood.
This is the 24th official James Bond movie, and the 4th for star Daniel Craig.
It didn’t quite grab me as much as I wanted it to, but there are lots of terrific parts. I had high expectations — due to the brilliance of the previous movie, Skyfall.
There were a couple of aspects that didn’t quite work for me. Since they’re surprises, I’ll talk about them after the “Spoiler alert.”
The characters of M, Moneypenny, and Q are more interesting than they were in the old days.
The movie was filmed in England, Italy, Austria, Morocco, and Mexico.
Stars Christoph Waltz and Léa Seydoux. Directed by Sam Mendes (Skyfall). The music by Thomas Newman is great but some is reused from Skyfall.
Spoiler alert
The idea that Bond’s foes from previous movies were retroactively made Spectre agents didn’t work for me. The idea that Blofeld was someone from Bond’s childhood also didn’t quite work.