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REVIEWS IN BRIEF
equivalently grandiose status.
Yet even before the opening credits
are cued up , one senses that Mendes and
producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara
Broccoli have, somewhat paradoxically,
set out to surprise by resetting the status
quo — albeit with a few administrative
complications, after the death of Judi
Dench’s M at the climax of “Skyfall.” The
indefatigable agent’s solution, and in turn
the film’s, is to get stoically back to work
almost as if nothing had happened, and
let the baggage emerge where it may. And
while Daniel Craig’s reputation as the
series’ sternest Bond stands intact when
the ride — rumored to be his last — is
over, his half-smile count is higher than
usual. A handful of wily quips point to
the addition of rough-and-tumble Brit
playwright Jez Butterworth to the sturdy
“Skyfall” writing team of John Logan,
Neal Purvis and Robert Wade.
The tone is set by an enthrallingly
ludicrous and expensively extraneous
opening sequence, set in Mexico City on
the Day of the Dead, that ranks among
the great 007 intros. Weaving through
the jubilant masses, Hoyte van Hoytema’s
dust-veiled camera alights on Bond in
masked skeleton costume, luring a local
bombshell ( Stephanie Sigman) back to his
hotel room before the quickest of quick
changes finds him suited, booted and
planting a hit on venal Italian mafioso
Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona) from the
rooftop. Cue explosions, architectural
carnage and vertigo-inducing combat in
a helicopter buzzing perilously over the
city’s crowded Zocalo square.
In winning the fistfight, Bond secures
his opponent’s ring, engraved with a
telling insignia. It’s a typically circuitous
outcome in a film that, certainly in its
MacGuffin-stacked opening hour, feels
somewhat underplotted: Large expanses
of “Spectre” play as diverting action
travelogue, as one transitory character in
an exotic locale leads our hero to another,
in pursuit of opponents who don’t get to
bare their teeth until the halfway mark.
Back in London, Bond is grounded
for his unauthorized Mexican hijinks by
Ralph Fiennes’ exasperated replacement
M. The new boss’s crankiness is
forgivable, given other professional
worries on his plate — most of them
involving Brylcreem-slick new MI5 boss
Max Denbigh (a splendid Andrew Scott),
code-named C, who is spearheading
a reorganization that could see the
entire 00 program shut down. Bond
considerately stays out of his hair by
flagrantly disregarding his orders, jetting
off to Rome and promptly seducing
Sciarra’s not-so-grieving widow (an
underused Monica Bellucci). While there,
he also gains access to a secret meeting of
a shady global cooperative, presided over
with lethal authority by the mysterious
Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz).
With the assistance of his authorityflouting
MI6 underlings Moneypenny
(Naomie Harris) and Q (Ben Whishaw),
and via a brief catch-up with “Casino
Royale” and “Quantum of Solace”
antagonist White (Jesper Christensen),
Bond ultimately makes contact in Austria
with Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), a
young doctor who identifies Oberhauser’s
operation as the powerful, terrorisminclined
SPECTRE. That confirms
the title’s promised resurrection of a
collective enemy that has been featured
in six previous 007 romps, though none
since 1971’s “Diamonds Are Forever.”
The unveiling of SPECTRE cues a
modern-day rewrite of classic Bond
mythos, teasing the audience with wry
winks to series-affiliated imagery and
gimmickry dating back to the Sean
Connery era . The film finally hits fifth
gear when Waltz’s louche villain emerges
from the shadows, though he’s not as
eerily vivid or playful a presence as Javier
Bardem’s Silva in “Skyfall.” Like much else
in “Spectre,” Waltz is working to match
comforting series archetypes rather than
transcend them.
Relieved by the script of any impulse
to reinvent, the ensemble appears to
be having a good time — enjoyment
infectious enough to make auds overlook
the relative workaday nature of Bond’s
final quest. (Bond’s working days are
more exciting than most of ours, granted.)
Given notably expanded duties this time
is Whishaw’s Q , who gets to venture
beyond the equipment room with plucky
good humor . With Harris and Fiennes
also settling amiably into their new MI6
positions, the office seems in safe hands
with or without Craig’s anchoring steel.
CREDITS:(U•K•-U•S•) A Sony
Pictures Entertainment
release of an Albert R•
Broccoli’s Eon Prods•
presentation of an
MGM, Columbia Pictures
production. PRODUCED BY
Michael G• Wilson, Barbara
Broccoli. EXECUTIVE
PRODUCERS, Callum
McDougall. CO-PRODUCERS,
Daniel Craig, Andrew Noakes,
David Pope.
DIRECTED BY Sam Mendes.
SCREENPLAY, John Logan,
Neal Purvis, Robert Wade,
Jez Butterworth. CAMERA
(COLOR, WIDESCREEN, 35MM),
Hoyte Van Hoytema; EDITOR,
Lee Smith; MUSIC, Thomas
Newman; PRODUCTION
DESIGNER, Dennis Gassner;
SUPERVISING ART DIRECTOR,
Chris Lowe; SET DECORATOR,
Anna Pinnock; COSTUME
DESIGNER, Jany Temime;
SOUND (DOLBY DIGITAL),
Stuart Wilson; SUPERVISING
SOUND EDITORS, Per
Hallberg, Karen Baker
Landers; RE-RECORDING
MIXERS, Scott Millan, Gregg
Rudloff; VISUAL EFFECTS
SUPERVISOR, Steve Begg;
VISUAL EFFECTS, Industrial
Light & Magic, Double
Negative, MPC, Cinesite,
Peerless, Bluebolt; STUNT
COORDINATOR, Gary Powell;
LINE PRODUCERS, Roberto
Malerba, Wolfgang Ramml,
Zak Alaoui; CASTING, Debbie
McWilliams. REVIEWED AT
Odeon Leicester Square,
London, Oct. 21, 2015. MPAA
RATING: PG-13. RUNNING TIME:
148 MIN.
CAST: Daniel Craig,
Christoph Waltz, Lea
Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes,
Monica Bellucci, Ben
Whishaw, Naomie Harris,
Dave Bautista, Andrew
Scott, Rory Kinnear, Jesper
Christensen, Alessandro
Cremona, Stephanie Sigman
FILM
ROCK THE KASBAH
Mere weeks after the horrific
bombing of an Afghan hospital and
President Obama’s announcement
of extended U.S. military presence
in the region, last weekend might
have been an ideal moment to
release a film that treats the slowmotion
tragedy of Afghanistan’s
recent history as an exotic backdrop
for broad fish-out-of-water comedy.
Then again, there will probably
never be a good time to release a
project as fundamentally misjudged
and disjointed as “Rock the Kasbah.”
Extremely loosely inspired by the
true story of Setara Hussainzada, an
Afghan woman who braved death
threats after appearing on the
country’s version of “American Idol,”
this Bill Murray starrer utterly fails
to connect as a Muslim-world farce,
a cynical skewering of American
foreign policy, or a cuddly ode to
the unifying power of music — and
to the film’s dubious credit, it does
attempt all three.
— Andrew Barker
DIRECTOR: Barry Levinson
CAST: Bill Murray, Arian Moayed, Kate
Hudson, Leem Lubany, Bruce Willis, Scott
Caan, Danny McBride, Zooey Deschanel,
Fahim Fazil
FILM
INDIA’S DAUGHTER
The 2012 gang rape and murder of
Jyoti Singh, a 23-year-old medical
student in Delhi, India, sparked a
massive nationwide outcry against
an entire culture’s systemic abuse
and dehumanization of women.
Delving into the horrific particulars
of that case, “India’s Daughter”
makes for grim, infuriating and
sadly necessary viewing, its despair
tinged with a sliver of hope that the
protesters’ call for gender equality
may yet be reignited. If Leslee
Udwin’s dramatic reconstruction
of events at times veers from
sensitive toward sensationalist, her
unflinching access to the convicted
rapists offers chilling insight into
the minds of men who are taught to
view women with a matter-of-fact
contempt that can escalate all too
easily into lethal aggression.
— Justin Chang
DIRECTOR: Leslee Udwin
FILM
FAMILIES
An old family estate reveals a
fresh family scandal when a
globe trotter decides to revisit
the house where he grew up in
Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s “Families.”
Featuring Mathieu Amalric as a
loosely fictionalized version of the
fastidious “Cyrano de Bergerac”
director, this tony character drama
is Rappeneau’s most personal film
to date — a picture that could easily
be dismissed as a light after-dinner
trifle, but actually proves to be as
rich and layered as a mille-feuille.
The contemporary setting will make
this elegantly crafted romance
trickier to export than much of
Rappeneau’s other work, though
it should be warmly adopted by
fans of Olivier Assayas’ thematically
similar “Summer Hours.”
— Peter Debruge
DIRECTOR: Jean-Paul Rappeneau
CAST: Mathieu Amalric, Marine Vacth,
Gilles Lellouche, Nicole Garcia, Karin
Viard, Guillaume de Tonquedec, Andre
Dussollier, Gemma Chan, Claude Perron,
Jean-Marie Winling, Yves Jacques
FILM / LONDON
DON’T GROW UP
Nursing aspirations to the seamless
mix of likable teen drama and
Carpenter-esque horror achieved
by the superior chiller “It Follows,”
French helmer Thierry Poiraud’s
“Don’t Grow Up” is a well-meaning
coming-of-ager that perpetually
threatens more full-throttle
entertainment than it finally
manages. Flashes of acute genre
instinct leaven this sporadically
atmospheric hybrid, but its
characters are too often bogged
down in unpersuasive angst. In his
first feature without a co-director,
Poiraud demonstrates a genuine
talent for realizing action and horror
elements; if only his tale of kids vs.
grown-ups were prepared to fully
exploit its promising adulthood-asevil
subtext.
— Catherine Bray
DIRECTOR: Thierry Poiraud
CAST: Fergus Riordan, Madeleine Kelly,
Natifa Mai, McKell David, Darren Evans,
Diego Mendez
Full reviews available
on Variety.com
Final Cut
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