I have not watched all of the Daniel Craig Bond films and I have little idea of the story so far. Still strong reviews and the sense of this being the end of an era persuaded me that it might worth watching this last one, especially as we so rarely watch conventional action movies these days. As expected this looks slick and beautifully shot and there is some real emotion in Bond’s relationships. However the plot that serves as its connective tissue is almost perfunctory in how thin it is and it’s hard to feel any sort of real peril in the action scenes. In short, it’s standard, formulaic Bond.

Bond’s retirement with Madeleine Swann is interrupted when an attempt on his life is made at the grave of Vesper Lynd. Both survive but Bond ends his relationship with Swann out of suspicion that she has betrayed him. Five years later, Spectre agents extract scientist Valdo Obruchev from a secret British laboratory that has been developing a bioweapon that targets specific DNA. His habitual CIA contact Felix Leiter asks Bond to recover Obruchev from a Spectre gathering in Cuba. The current 007 Nomi tells Bond that she will be carrying out the mission for MI6 and tells him not to get involved. Naturally Bond goes anyway with the assistance of CIA agent Paloma. Despite being imprisoned, Blofeld is running the party and deploys the weapon to kill Bond. However Obruchev has swapped out the DNA targeting to kill every Spectre agent there instead. It turns out to be a plot by Lyutsifer Safin who is seizing control of Spectre from Blofeld and Swann returns to Bond’s life, this time with a young daughter with her, but it is revealed that she is Blofeld’s psychiatrist.

On a moment by moment basis, this film is stunningly beautiful. It’s probably also because we’ve gotten so used to watching mostly independent films that we’ve forgotten how much wow factor there can be in Hollywood cinematic grandeur. The shots of Bond and Swann driving on the coastal roads of Matera are gorgeous and of course the action sequences are perfectly choreographed and unrelentingly fast. It truly is a wonderful feast for the senses. Unfortunately the plot elements and even the emotional drama are so shallow. The surface is all there is to see so we must believe that Bond leaves the love of his life based on a momentary suspicion without bothering to find out the truth. Everyone wonders how Blofeld manages to still control Spectre while being in prison until he dies and everyone stops wondering. So Spectre controls a weapon capable of killing millions of specifically targeted people and the only thing they want to do with it is to sell it? Safin’s speeches about him being the same as Bond is just mumbo jumbo nonsense. There is so much that this dumb and nonsensical in here that I don’t have the energy to go into it.

One thing I do want to go into is how there is never any real sense of peril in the action. Bond mows down faceless mooks by the dozens who can’t hit the side of a barn. Most of the time Bond doesn’t even bother to take cover, so confident is he in the poor marksmanship of his enemies. The film shows off silly sci-fi toys like magnets to descend an elevator shaft and nanobots but never the essential tools of warfare that are actually dangerous. The thing is, due to the ongoing war in Ukraine this year, we have access to all of the footage of real combat that we could ever want and it makes the pretend combat here look like a joke. No one wears armor, no one uses sights or helmet mounted optics, there are no drones to track Bond’s movements. Why does Spectre keep trying to chase Bond with cars and motorcycles instead of just firing ATGMs at whatever vehicle he’s in? In this film, the enemies do sometimes throw grenades at Bond but they seem more like ineffective firecrackers as they don’t fragment into shrapnel at all. I suppose this is the dilemma of makers of modern action movies: current weapons are too scary and too effective. No amount of personal skill and valor can make up for overwhelming technological and numerical superiority. Until action movies adapt to reflect the true lethality of real weapons, I just can’t take them seriously.

Anyway I’m happy enough to have watched this as it’s good to touch base every once in a while with a top tier Hollywood spectacle film. This seemed to have been a decent success at the box office so I have to concede that the general public likes it. To me though it reinforces my impression that most action movies aren’t made for me. It’s pretty, but it’s too long and too silly that it outweighs any goodwill to be gained from giving the James Bond character an emotional story arc. I’ve never been a fan of the franchise so I hope that they at least let him stay dead for a few years before going for the inevitable reboot.