Reseñas de la crítica

Even with the botched final act, Spectre's self-consciousness is less stifling than Skyfall's. Mendes is still trying to laboriously inform this series with torment, but that ambition has been subsumed primarily into the fabric of Hoyte van Hoytema's incredible cinematography, which emphasizes a lusty, dusty, alternately lush and over-exposed realm of pleasure and old-world rot.

What I appreciate about Spectre as the potential capper to the Craig series of films is how it finally embraces the absurdities that Casino Royale, Quantum, and Skyfall tried to quell (to varying degrees of success) with oh-so-serious emoting.

Bottom line (for me) is that Skyfall cashed in 50 years' worth of chips - peeking behind the mask for the first time - but those chips are gone now, and I can't stay invested in the emotional life of a (deliberately) shallow pop icon.

It brings me no pleasure to report that Sam Mendes's Spectre is a bloated, stodgy and on-the-large room-temperature affair, content to reiterate the same formulas that gave Skyfall a surprising, ultraluxx spryness even while its every narrative back alley was flushed with still more needless exposition.

The first shot in Spectre begins above a carnivalesque party during Mexico's Day of the Dead... It is a very impressive opener and Hoyt van Hoytema's cinematography is one of the best elements in this serious, entertaining and yet somewhat routine instalment.

Let me say that I half share my [British] colleagues' enthusiasm for Spectre—personally, I had my own unexpected burst of belated 007 enthusiasm with Skyfall, arguably the most elegant, sophisticated Bond film ever. And for me, Spectre is no Skyfall. Still, Sam Mendes has once again brought a lavish feast of effects to the table, and applied them with seriousness and grace, as well as the mandatory brio. You won't be disappointed—well, not too disappointed.

In trying to further jostle the moral and emotional order of the Bond universe, director Sam Mendes and his collaborators paradoxically succeed only in stultifying it. The script's anxious speechifying about advanced surveillance tech and drones ring of hollow sociology (à la The Dark Knight), and as it's never, ever clear exactly how the villains plan to use the damned things once they're in place, the sense of threat is rather abstract.

Christoph Waltz sleepwalks through an underwritten part as the villain, though hulking Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy) is more imposing as the chief henchman; his encounters with Bond have an intensity lacking in much of the film.

The portent of Mendes' style works well in individual scenes, but it works against the fizzy nonsense of the film's broader narrative arc (such as it is). The film never cracks a smile, until you realize that it's all one big joke. On some level, Spectre is a betrayal of the More Serious Bond promised in Casino Royale. But it's also the first Bond film in a long time that actually lets you have fun with it.

Much as the perfect is the enemy of good, originality is often the enemy of the global box office. And so Mr. Craig has suited up to play [Bond], with Sam Mendes occupying the director's chair for a second turn. They're a reasonable fit, although their joint seriousness has started to feel more reflexive than honest, especially because every Bond movie inevitably shakes off ambition to get down to the blockbuster business of hurling everything — bodies, bullets, fireballs, money — at the screen.

It can't help but impress with sheer scale, as well as with certain bold images, like... the overhead shot of Bond entering the bombed-out ruins of MI-6 headquarters and literally casting a long shadow. But an hour or two after you've seen "Spectre" the movie starts evaporating from the mind, just like "Skyfall" and "Solace" before it. It's filled with big sets, big stunts, and what ought to be big moments, but few of them land.

Spectre comes across as just another collective of disposable goons. And despite having been born to play a Bond villain, Waltz never comes within striking distance of the volcanic menace of Javier Bardem's Skyfall heavy; perhaps the former has done the false-civility thing too many times for it to land anymore. Like most of Spectre, he's not quite old, not quite new, and not quite distinct enough to shake (or stir) this sequel out of second-tier Bond lethargy.