Spectre (***1/2)

SPECTRE had perhaps a bit too much anticipation built up before its release, and in that way maybe it was always doomed to fail. The return of director Sam Mendes after perhaps the best Bond film, "Skyfall," had many eager to screen the latest Daniel Craig flick. I'm not upset that the movie wasn't as incredible as its predecessor. Few action films are (and after all, I thought Skyfall was one of the 10 best movies of 2012). What we got instead was a return to form for the James Bond story: a bit camp, a bit over the top, lots of guns and lots of fun along the way.

In penning a screenplay for a new James Bond adventure, it's obvious that the screenwriters felt a need to "up the ante." The opening action scene (a particularly long-take that is sure to catch the eye of vigilant film buffs) centers around a Mexican Day of the Dead festival, with costumes and bodies squeezed to the horizon. Bond, emerging from under a skull mask, tails the actions of a man he was sent to investigate by our late, great M (Judi Dench, may she rest in peace). He's on a trail to solve a mystery surrounding a ring with an octopus embedded on it, and perhaps unlock clues to his own upbringing and the past 3 or 4 movies.

I'll admit, much of the story drifted over my head and looped around near the ceiling in a very confused way. Here is a movie weighted down by dialogue and plot in a way we know is needed but in reality no one really cares about. Audiences want to see car chases (wait for this one) and impossibly accurate marksmanship, not ramblings about what someone said or why. In a nearly 3 hour movie, there were some opportunities to trim the fat.

The throwbacks to earlier Bond films is at times nostalgic but overall a bit of a stretch, especially when a character lists every villain by name from the past few films and basically says "they're all connected by this one thing!" Okay we get it, but do we really care whether or not Silva from the previous film was working for a worser, baderer villain?

Christoph Waltz, speaking of, is of course an unsettlingly calm man for his performance as the villain. Absent as he is from the bulk of the story, his few scenes of torture and exposition are some of the more memorable in a film full of endless locations and scenery. Likewise with Daniel Craig, our Bond, who for once is portrayed as a lethal assassin more so than a martini-sipping womanizer. Even more than in films past, here we recognize that Bond is trained for one purpose only: to kill, and boy is he good at it.

Will most people like this movie? I'm sure they will. The action scenes are well-staged and the story is gripping in ways that a more traditional action flick should be. Is it a great film? No, but I think that's okay, especially when we remember the fact that James Bond isn't meant to be a high-art experience. However, coming from Sam Mendes (the man who truly breathed life into the franchise and has helmed some great American movies), I still get the feeling that he was phoning this one in. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I would like to think we could have expected a bit more from a director of such talent and skill.

(Awards potential: Best Art Direction, Best Original Score, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing)