Why Spectre Has Critics Divided

The release of Spectre has left many critics divided. Is the new James Bond film a dud, or is it a sign of progress towards a more classic Bond formula.

Spectre is a strange case in the Bond franchise. Currently, it stands at 62% on Rotten Tomatoes with 202 total reviews. Those certainly aren’t Skyfall numbers. So, why is Spectre such a divisive movie?

Let’s break it down.

Spectre is doing something that no other Daniel Craig Bond film has attempted to do. It is trying to be a middle-ground between gritty Craig action and the classic Bond formula. Let me explain.

The classic Bond formula is rather simple. It all lies in the evil scheme of the villain. Most of the early Bond films, up into the Dalton era, depict Bond villains who are cool and quietly sadistic. They feed off of the elaborateness of their own plan. They get off on wanting to destroy the world or create World War III or steal government secrets.

The Daniel Craig Bond films have attempted to strip away the campy nature of these overblown evil plots while keeping the eccentricities of the villains. In Casino Royale, Le Chiffre bleeds from his eye, but all he does is fund terrorist organizations and lose at poker. In Skyfall, Silva has an implant in his mouth that hides a major deformity, but all he wants to do is exact revenge on M for causing his demise.

In Spectre, however, we get a villain that hearkens back to the heyday of classic Bond. And I mean, he really hearkens back. See the film, and you’ll understand. Spectre does what the other Craig Bonds don’t do. The villain has a legitimate evil lair sitting in the center of a crater. He runs a worldwide crime syndicate that we have seen in earlier Bond films. He is a true megalomaniac who hates Bond and vies for global domination.

“What’s the point?” I hear you asking.

The Craig Bond’s were meant to be a response to a new wave of action films that were actually doing Bond better than Bond. Mission: Impossible is perhaps the best example of this. As such, they shirked standard Bond formula to introduce a grittier Bond to the mix. The films were focused more on Bond as a rogue agent battling the world that was shunning him. Skyfall was explicitly about Bond as an aging figure who was not a part of the times, but rather a figure of the past. In a way, this analysis was correct. Bond is an archaic figure. No longer are the times of casual misogyny, binge drinking, and using trivial gadgets to foil international destruction.

Spectre tries to carry this through-line over from Skyfall by giving a critical look into the world of government surveillance. Times are changing, and all of MI6 is on the chopping block. However, Spectre also wants to be the archaic Bond of Sean Connery and Roger Moore. We see this on full display in Christoph Waltz’ villain.

What I’m getting at is that Spectre wants to be the best of two worlds. It wants to be current and against the Bond cliches that have developed over the decades. But it also wants to be a throwback to classic Bond. In the end, critics will either enjoy one side or the other, but most likely they will not enjoy both. Spectre is simply trying to appeal to old and new Bond fans alike, and, in the process, they split the vote.

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