Spectre – 0 stars

This may be Daniel Craig’s last Bond, which is a shame, because it’s really awful and his turn revived the series. Like Skyfall before it, we again find ourselves delving into Bond’s psyche, but unlike the previous installment, the action sequences in Spectre are humdrum, the plot is even simpler and more obvious, its execution is lazy (at one point, without even a hint of foreshadowing, Bond procures a plane in a matter of 30 seconds, and he ain’t on an airfield), it recycles (an old building collapses in Mexico City, just like an old building collapsed in Venice in Casino Royale) and the bad guy – Christoph Waltz – is barely part of the film.  When Waltz’s true, hilarious motive is revealed, I guess his scarcity makes some sense.  That motive is the only thing that hints at a sense of humor but the inducement of chuckles was assuredly unintentional.  Otherwise, we are apparently supposed to take this seriously.

Director Sam Mendes (Skyfall) doesn’t help matters by focusing on visually striking images above all else. Bond seems to simply appear from the mist in every scene, impeccably and nattily tailored, and after enough of these fashionista turns, the movie feels more like a cologne or car commercial than a picture. Bond romances a woman (the underused Monica Bellucci) against a big mirror in the vast open room of a Roman villa, and you can’t believe the scene does not end with “Obsession. By Calvin Klein.”

Spectre is also cursed by the most vacuous Bond girl since Tanya Roberts. Leya Seydoux is the daughter of his nemesis. In, I am guessing, her late 20s, she is a brilliant and accomplished psychologist with inconvenient but lush offices in the Austrian Alps (she actually has Bond fill out a medical questionnaire; oh to have seen his answers under the section “Sexually Transmitted Diseases”). She’s also weightless and dull as dishwater. It’s as if the producers went out of their way to find a French Taylor Swift.

Finally, Mendes has elevated Bond to the status of super hero.  As he escapes Waltz’s lair (Waltz is experimenting on him with drills for reasons that still don’t make any sense to me but harkens uncomfortably back to Dr. Evil), he manages to blow the entire installation up with a gunshot while killing a dozen heavily armed henchmen with a handgun.  After taking a vicious beating at the hands of a new thug – Dave Bautista, who promises to be a recurring figure ala’ Jaws – Bond and Seydoux are quickly dusted off for a quickie looking no worse for wear; indeed, they actually look better.  And at the end, Bond simply snaps cuffs off of his wrist, one presumes by the mere force of his personality.  Yes, Bond is an exceptional assassin, but one of the joys of Craig was the return to a gut-level, human 007.  Now, he’s Captain America.  Or Captain England.

Even the Sam Smith song is atrocious, as is its accompanying, bizarre title sequence.  Poorly done all around.