Set shortly after the events of its predecessor, Spectre opens during a Day of the Dead festival in Mexico City and finds Bond (Daniel Craig) hunting a terrorist who's keen on blowing up a stadium full of people. After an attempt to neutralize his target goes spectacularly awry, Bond is soon chasing his prey through reveler-packed streets, climaxing in a breathtaking helicopter battle that ultimately gives our favorite secret agent a new clue on a much bigger organization operating behind the scenes.
Placed on inactive field duty by the new M (Ralph Fiennes) for his unsanctioned stunt in Mexico, Bond secretly travels to Rome to attend the funeral of the operative he threw out of the copter. There he encounters the man's widow (Monica Bellucci) and through some "friendly persuasion" gleans that the mysterious cabal in question is actually meeting in the city the next night.
Bond of course gains entrance to this shin-dig (a dimly lit gathering of nefarious types in evening gowns and tuxedos huddled around a boardroom) and is soon called out by name by the head man, a soft-spoken, shadow-shrouded figure whose face we never see. Bond flees and narrowly escapes after being pursued in another breakneck sequence by a relentless, hulking thug reminiscent of Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love.
From there we travel to Austria and then Morocco as Bond follows more clues and enlists the help of one Doctor Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), the daughter of his old nemesis Mr. White from Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.
Eventually, Bond comes face to face with the mystery man again and we learn he is one Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz), an individual who shares a hidden past with our hero. As Oberhauser succinctly labels himself: "The author of all your pain."
There's no denying Spectre is wildly entertaining, full of the prerequisite kinetic action, exotic locales and beautiful women the franchise is famous for. It features several nods to previous Bond adventures and actually feels like a more natural follow-up to 2008's Quantum of Solace than Skyfall did.
Where the film ultimately stumbles a bit is in that eventual face-to-face between Bond and Oberhaueser. All the implied backstory, the hidden history the two share and they barely scratch the surface during their climatic encounter. We want Bond to ask questions, dig deeper. Instead he just sits there as Oberhauser peels back the layers of the last nine years. Bond treats it all like old news, a matter of public record, unworthy of response. You've got two great actors in Craig and Waltz just ready to verbally spar, and all we get is polite, benign chit-chat.
The end of Spectre pretty much guarantees hero and villain will meet again. Let's hope Craig does indeed return for another go-around and that we finally get that epic exchange we've all been waiting for. Grade: B
