The new Bond film has a problem
What sort of a Bond flick is called Spectre, anyway? As if being made to drive a Fiat in his upcoming film to look suitably real was not enough (that's after baulking in Skyfall over being asked to take aim at a woman he has a soft spot for), James Bond's latest comes tagged with a title that seems more sci-fi horror than 007 adventure. On top of it, the dapper spy this time has the tough task of facing a baddie that seems too true to be a Bond villain.
Fanatics who eat, sleep and live all things Bond would know Spectre peculiarly spells out to SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. It is a fictional global network of villains notably appearing in early 007 hits such as Dr No, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Diamonds Are Forever, and it gave Bond's world Ernst Stavro Blofeld - widely regarded the most sinister villain the superspy ever faced.
Daniel Craig's return as Bond will probably make for a great watch what with Sam Mendes returning as director after Skyfall. Spectre headed by Christoph Waltz's mysterious Franz Oberhauser is set to act as Bond's nemesis, and the idea seems irresistible.
But how much of that great watch will actually define a Bond movie, purists have already started asking. Can Spectre look as gloriously repulsive as ever without its evil pomp?
The questions pop up because the Craig era has shown a slant at stripping the franchise of all larger-than-life baggage synonymous with the films of Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan. If Mendes, best known for his Oscar-winning tragicomic realism in American Beauty, tries retaining the bleak tones he rendered to Skyfall, Spectre in Spectre will be a very gloomy bargain indeed.
One understands the urge to overhaul the Bond idiom realistically. In an era when Jason Bourne gives a younger, sleeker option to screen espionage, Bond had to emerge beyond being the "sexist, misogynist dinosaur" that Judi Dench's M famously called him in Casino Royale.
If that redefinition has to be complete, Bond villains also need to be in sync with mainstream Hollywood's ongoing fad of hawking smartly-manipulated reality. In Spectre, Waltz as Franz Oberhauser is apparently "the son of the late Hans Oberhauser, a ski instructor who once acted as a father figure to Bond" - at least that is what Daily Mail has claimed.
If that is true, a big challenge for Mendes will lie in moulding such a guy next door into a villain who is malevolent enough to set James Bond scampering urgently across half the globe to save the world. All this, without losing touch with what constitutes the basic 007 brand of entertainment.
Ironically for the "most realistic Bond", Daniel Craig's defining sequence so far has been his entry shot into the series, in Casino Royale, where he snubbed logic and every iota of realism to set up a daring Parkour-styled stuntfest. If Spectre manages a brute force show to match that sequence, hardcore fans of what Bond traditionally stood for would find some reason to be appeased.