Spectre 1

The latest installment of the James Bond Film Series, Spectre, is a little bit too long. A few times during the film, I found myself getting a little bored. But I knew the film was directed by Sam Mendes so I sat through the whole thing. I have to say that I really did enjoy the film.

James Bond has changed over time. In the very first James Bond films, James Bond seduced women, but did not really care about them. Seducing women became synonymous with imperializing a country or a region. After all, James Bond has always had a Puritan contradiction. He wants to keep his own culture local and parochial, and yet he wants to imperialize other countries or nations. Now Daniel Craig's James Bond really cares too much about women. He is really willing to do almost anything to save them (there are exceptions) and yet he still wants to keep his culture local and somewhat parochial.

In Spectre, a new branch of intelligence wants to get rid of human spies altogether. Instead, 9 nations have formed a surveillance and information sharing system that can pretty much see what anyone is doing or saying at anytime. The visionary leader of this surveillance system, as we later find out, is actually James Bond's brother. Let me clarify, the visionary leader's father adopted James Bond into his family. Then, the visionary leader's father treated James Bond so well that the visionary leader actually killed his own father. Here, we have the theme of patricide and also the theme of a "twin" brother. We also learn throughout the time film this man, Blofeld, has been constructing the narrative of James Bond's life. Most or all of James Bond's love interests have been killed by him. All the antagonists of James Bond have been sent by him. So the film attempts to explain why James Bond is the way he is. And the answer is that his "brother" has been plotting to kill him because his father loves James too much. Blofeld is jealous. And because Blofeld could not kill Bond, he killed those who were nearest to him.