Spectre - taps into audience expectations

Having handled Skyfall, the 50th anniversary entry in the 007 series, Sam Mendes is back for Spectre, a direct sequel to the earlier film — a vital clue is found in the burned-out ruins of Skyfall, Bond’s childhood home — which also picks up story threads (and the odd character) from Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace and retcons Daniel Craig’s run as James Bond into one slightly wonky super-saga. Since it’s part of the Bond remit to evoke the franchise’s past, this does for Craig what You Only Live Twice did for Sean Connery, down to the welcome return of the evil white cat stroked by the head of Spectre throughout the 1960s. After three films more rooted in real-world worries than Pierce Brosnan’s mostly fantastical vehicles, Spectre relaxes a little (even if it debates the ethics of surveillance and the relevance of licensed-to-kill boots on the ground in an age of drones). Craig doesn’t get Connery-Moore quips, but allows much more wry humour to sneak into his hardman-in-a-suit hero. When a beautiful woman mentions that the astonishing scenery (and art direction) of her mountaintop clinic can be a distraction, Craig’s smooth throwaway as he focuses intently on her (“Really? I hadn’t noticed”) is typical of the kind of laugh only he can get. Roger Moore would have arched an eyebrow, but Craig is funny because he doesn’t wink at the audience — but can also turn off the charm when it’s time to throw someone through a window.

Skyfall was a knowing victory lap for the series, but also told a different type of story and spent its last half taking Bond home — to his grim childhood house but also, with Ralph Fiennes as a new M and Naomie Harris sitting at Miss Moneypenny’s desk, to the sit-com-like status quo circa Dr. No. This means Spectre has to play by the established rules rather than break or radically overhaul them. There’s an unhelpful hangover from the ‘personal story’ angle in a contrived backstory that links Bond’s unhappy childhood with the creation of Spectre — as if subverting worldwide democracy and massive terrorist attacks weren’t evil enough to annoy the hero.

Other elements are too rote — the tentacular title sequence is cool but the song is a dud; Dave Bautista’s Oddjob-like silent, smirking thug, Mr. Hinx, is a formidable opponent in a From Russia With Love fight-on-a-train, but is otherwise a formula goon; Léa Seydoux works wonders with thin material as one of the more passive Bond girls (her job is to be imperiled and rescued) and Monica Bellucci is in and out with little chance to show her fire. A couple of the car chases — through weirdly depopulated nighttime cities — are oddly frictionless, and the one major gadget turns out to be a get-out-of-certain-death-free card on a par with Bond’s silliest habits.

Even if this is less satisfying overall than Skyfall, there are sequences that rank with Bond’s best. The pre-credits set piece, with a skull-masked Bond in Mexico City during the Day of the Dead, opens with a Touch Of Evil-style tracking shot that’s a stunner (Daniel Craig just walking briskly across precarious rooftops with style is a thrilling spectacle) and delivers a definitive struggle-inside-an-out-of-control-helicopter climax most films would save for a finale. After such things have been out of fashion for a while, it’s great to see Spectre back in business — with an evil business meeting in Rome and a spectacular desert lair in Tunisia, inhabited by a mercurially nasty, whimsical, overconfident chairman (Christoph Waltz) who wipes the taint of Dr. Evil away from the part and matches the amusing menace of Donald Pleasence or Gert Frobe.

Craig had a less tough job at the start than Fiennes does here, taking over from perhaps the most-beloved M in the series (Judi Dench) and entering the superspy arena without reminding you that he was in the Avengers film we don’t talk about. With his own subplot, clashing with a slick new spymaster (Andrew Scott) whose wrong’un status is affirmed when it’s mentioned he was “at school with the Home Secretary”, Fiennes is so convincing in and out of the action that his M could probably carry a series on his own. If this is to be Craig’s last bow as 007 (the credits at least promise James Bond will return), he’ll be remembered as the man who brought Ian Fleming’s grit back to one of the great British film franchises.

Grade - B

Full marks to Mendes, Craig, Waltz, Fiennes and the location finder. But could we please get a hummable song next time?

The Dark Knight Rises - an ambitious, thoughtful, and potent action film

As The Dark Knight Rises, so has anticipation. In 2005, when Christopher Nolan rebooted and resuited Batman, the cinematic reputation of the Caped Crusader was at a pitiful low after the gaudy debacle of The Film That Shall Not Be Named. Now, a short seven years later, Nolan could deliver the print of his trilogy topper in a chariot drawn by flame-breathing unicorns with diamond eyes and some people would still shrug and say, “Meh. It’s not as impressive as The Dark Knight.” In this — as within Rises itself — he could be said to be the victim of his own success. He raised the bar so high, no-one could be expected to clear it. Still, whether you believe this betters Begins or eclipses Knight, it is certainly a satisfying conclusion to what is now — we’re calling it — the best superhero series of all time.

Not that Nolan ever really wanted his Batman to be ‘super’ — instead, he posed what proved to be a compelling question: what if this were real? Sure, it’s hardly Ken Loach’s Batman (though we’d pay to see that: about a Hackney bat-wrangler with anger issues), but Nolan bends more rules of physics than he breaks, with his heart focused on the heart of Bruce Wayne: a child traumatised by the murder of his parents and raised with a rage he cannot quench. Rises asks other probing questions: Can you redeem without sacrifice? Can revenge bring peace? What the bloody hell is Tom Hardy saying?

Actually, the preview footage palaver about Bane’s babble is largely irrelevant: he may sound like Sir Ian McKellen gargling meths in a wind tunnel, but the verbal clarity of the masked, muscled monster is never as important as his brute bulk (though he does have some memorable vocal barbs). Hardy looks like he could have played the Hulk — with a CG Bruce Banner — and is more than convincing as the man who could break the Bat. For the first time, perhaps ever, you really worry for Batman, with his armoured suit unable to disguise a relative physical frailty, his body worn down by years of putting it in the literal line of fire for the citizens of Gotham.

Bane is not fuelled simply by whatever pumps through his mask, either, as Alfred (Michael Caine) observes: “I see the power of belief.” The Wayne family butler has acted as his master’s conscience throughout the films and he’s at it again here, challenging the bruised billionaire about what he could achieve if he sought social justice instead of rough. Indeed, there’s a sense that Wayne has regressed back to the boy of Begins, his journey out of the grief of his orphaning reset by the death of his childhood love.

As Gotham prospers in the wake of the criminal crackdown brought about by the death of District Attorney Harvey Dent — and his mythologising by Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) — Wayne feels he can stay hidden in his mansion, a truculent Beast resisting being transformed by Marion Cotillard’s Beauty. Where his parents were active, engaged philanthropists, giving life to the city, Wayne nurses only his own grief. He walks with a stick as symbolic of his psychological frailty as his physical degeneration. Here, the film could be said to be going over old ground, but Wayne’s mental fissure has been mined in the comics for 73 years and it’s testament to Christian Bale’s stalwart, admirably unshowy but soulful performance that we once again feel for a man born to privilege but eternally trapped in a personal prison.

This is aided by a valedictory feel to the first act, with everything freighted with the knowledge of its finality and a sense that this will not end well. Caine is all heart in a beautiful recollection about his hopes for his surrogate son, while Joseph Gordon-Levitt — who looks supremely dashing despite a somewhat glamour-free role as a rozzer — also has a sorrow-fuelled speech, but with a more positive sense of belief to counter Bane’s destructive faith.

Then, when Batman finally returns, you relish the gleeful comment of a copper to a younger colleague: “Boy, you are in for a show tonight, son.” That you are, even if the film doesn’t, until the very end, match the emotional tenor of its blistering beginning. That 45 minutes or so can be called the ‘beginning’ gives a clue that Batman not only rises but lengthens. This is a long film that feels weighed down somewhat in its middle section, struggling to carry the weight of exposition. The desire for scale and belief-beggaring action also means that, curiously, what would be other movies’ budget-blitzing conclusions are reduced, in a way, to the level of mild incident. There is more plot here than there is story and as impressive as certain scenes are — the sporting spectacle seen in the trailer, for example — they can feel a little like a very expensive treadmill when you’re waiting for the emotions to really run.

As ever, Nolan’s Batman is at its best in the more intimate moments — whether it’s a man finally realising a hero’s identity, or the scene- (and jewellery-) stealing introduction of a new character. As slinky burglar Selina Kyle, Anne Hathaway is superb: physically dangerous, emotionally intriguing and sexy without milking it. (It’s a very different take from the Catwoman portrayed by Michelle Pfeiffer, but no less enjoyable.) As ambiguous as Kyle is, her journey shares with Wayne’s a sense of struggling for a fresh start, for a clean slate, ultimately for redemption.

Many of the best characters in the Batman universe offer a mirror to the man himself, whether walking that razor-wire between justice and revenge, or being trapped by the traumas of the past.

Dedicated fans of the comic books are unlikely to feel surprised by many story twists here, but that’s no surprise in itself given the DC icon’s extensive history. Another story strand feels a little familiar and may unconsciously reflect the director’s love of Bond (please, God, let him and Bale one day deliver 007), but it’s ideas, not schematics, that you will be mulling over afterwards. What’s impressive is how Nolan, his fellow story wrangler David S. Goyer and co-screenwriter Jonathan Nolan have found a way to bring their Bat-cycle full circle without coasting — instead touching on our world within a comic-book context.

Where Avengers demolished New York with a glee unrivalled outside of a terrorist training camp, Rises takes turning Gotham into Gomorrah very seriously indeed. Nolan’s has been the Batman of the War On Terror and the credit crunch, made in an age where belief-driven crazies threatened world security (Osama bin Laden, George Bush) and men with nothing more than computers and a sense of entitlement destroyed arguably as many lives as thugs with guns. Rises plants seeds of sedition, questions the position of the financial elite and presents the plight of the 99 per cent. Even as the jeopardy ratchets and our position — as surrogate citizens, the people Batman has sworn to protect — is dire, Rises doesn’t forget to have some fun, with a pyrotechnical act that brings to mind Fight Club’s Project Mayhem. It’s this balance between sobriety and sensation that is Nolan’s most significant achievement throughout these films. Batman can easily play as either glum or camp — it takes a special talent to not just recognise his inherent absurdity and his inspirational power but also embrace them both: a talent with a taste for the theatrical.

Grade - A+

With spectacle in abundance and sexiness in (supporting) parts, this is superhero filmmaking on an unprecedented scale. Rises may lack the surprise of Begins or the anarchy of Knight, but it makes up for that in pure emotion. A fitting epitaph for the hero.