The 24th installment in the Bond series was one for the books. Daniel Craig stars again as James Bond, as he did inSkyfall, Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale; and as always, he gave an incredible performance. In what most viewers believe is Craig’s final appearance as 007, director Sam Mendes offers a number of tributes to the Bond legacy throughout the film, giving this one a unique air of nostalgia for Bond fanatics who are familiar with earlier films starring the likes of Sean Connery and Roger Moore, among others.
A picture of masculinity, strength and mystery, James Bond overcomes his fiercest enemy in this new installment: his brother.
After his mentor M, beautifully portrayed by Judi Dench, passed away at the end of Skyfall, Bond discovers that she has left him a cryptic mission to complete after her passing.
The movie’s opening scene is in Mexico City as Bond is completing the first task M has left for him. It is, ironically, the Day of the Dead, and there is an enormous parade and the streets are filled with celebrating Mexican citizens wearing skeleton costumes.
He kills the man she asks him to kill, and while doing so steals the ring bearing an unusual emblem: an octopus.
After befriending the widow of the man he murdered, 007 infiltrates and discovers and infiltrates a sinister organization known as Spectre. The plot continues as Bond searches to find the leader of the group, who as he slowly realizes, connects all his previous nemeses from Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall.
Bond begins to connect each of the antagonists of the other films to a man once believed to be dead, and soon realizes the identity of the man behind all of the tragic events of his life, his adoptive brother Franz Oberhauser, who supposedly died decades earlier.
This Bond film is different because here the audience gets a window into Bond’s past as an orphan. After Bond joins Oberhauser’s family, he begins to detest Bond.
After killing his father and faking his own death, formed Spectre and continued his vendetta against Bond. Oberhauser reveals that he is responsible for the death of all of Bond’s past lovers, and was responsible for each of the acts of terror Bond has tried to prevent in the past films. But the real twist comes when Bond is captured by Oberhauser, who reveals his new identity, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Bond’s classic enemy in a number of the earlier films. He is the key to Bond’s anger, and only by killing Blofeld will he be set free.
But does he? Or will he give it all up to be with the latest Bond girl, the beautiful daughter of one of his former enemies with whom he seems to be quickly falling in love?
Besides the differences in the plot line from the other Bond films, Spectre was very well done, with many of the usual blending of political drama, intense fighting scenes, scenic settings and very expensive cars.
However, instead of the almost playful air of many of the other films, this movie seems more emotionally serious, since it drags Bond’s emotional damage from the past. Spectre provides spectacular closure to Craig’s time as Bond, and leaves the audience impressed and able to part with the latest installment of the Bond franchise.
