An essay about the film’s greatest success, un-tweeted tweetnotes on why it struggles. SPOILERS throughout.

It’s All About Death

In SPECTRE Bond is the agent of death who must go from killer to saviour. And the whole movie circles around this message. Or did you miss the mask he was wearing at the start?

From Blofeld’s discussion of the man he and James saw snuffed out to M’s explanation that Bond’s is also a licence not to kill, it’s all utterly on-point. The funeral, the Day of the Dead parade, even the clinic Swann works at where prolonging life is the aim (even if you’re miserably downing health shakes to do it).

There are dead parents all over the shop. Bond’s mum and dad, Oberhauser Snr., Swann’s poisoned pop, even the previous M. And boy do those lost Bond Girls get mentioned.

But that tells you SPECTRE is about death. Why is it about changing Bond?

It’s All In The Structure : The Blown Roses

What happens as standard in Daniel Craig Bond films?

In Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall there are key things that always go the same way. When SPECTRE diverts away from them, it makes a statement.

Informant Bond Girls die. That’s the standard. They sleep with 007, help him out, and the moment he leaves them alone, they’re in danger. Solange hammocked to death in Casino Royale, Fields drowned in oil, Severine William Telled. All imperilled while Bond was absent.

Even Dench’s M, figuratively his Bond Girl for Craig’s third film — and with whom there’s a mother-son subtext we’d better not dwell on too closely — only gets to start dying when she’s torn away from Bond as Skyfall burns.

In SPECTRE Monica Bellucci’s character, Lucia Sciarra, lives.

And let’s be clear: she lives in spite of what’s around her. She’s defined as a widow, the funeral is a haunting, lingering, black-and-white thing. She’s marked by death, and then Bond walks up to her…

And we cut. We cut to her life. A miserable final drink at home as assassins come for her. We’ve stopped following Bond — a rare thing in these movies — and for a moment she’s the lead. Two figures line up to execute her. And Bond takes them out.

If you think that’s normal Bond, look again. Typically we get those scenes from his perspective, not hers. This is all about her reaction, not his action. It’s not an action hero facing the odds, it’s a sudden reprieve from a saviour.

And then, okay, back to normal. They do sex.

But after? Bond’s doing his usual thing of walking away with the information he wanted, leaving the woman — Solange, Fields, Severine, whoever — behind, alone. And to be a Bond conquest is to be marked for death once he’s left the room.

Bond leaves Lucia a phone number. He puts her under the care of Felix Leiter. It’s perhaps the only name you could mention, loaded with history as it is, that would immediately make you feel she’s safe. Felix isn’t in the movie, but his name carries weight…and by not being in the movie, oddly, we know he can’t screw up the job.

Lucia will survive. Bond’s found a way to offer aftercare.

By the way, if you think this ‘parallels across movies’ stuff is unintentional, have a look at the relative finales of Casino and Quantum: first Bond loses a woman to water, then he saves a woman from fire. There’s intent here.

It’s All In The Structure: The Hit Men

What else happens as standard in Daniel Craig Bond films?

In Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall there are killers for hire who Bond chases down for information, but whom he’s forced to kill before they can be useful.

They’re all people who run along rooftops, too. Parkour-ing bomb-maker Mollaka, M’s traitorous bodyguard Mitchell, Skyfall’s train-topping, building-dropping Patrice — each film shows Bond trying to execute an intelligence mission only for it to fall into death. Death Bond delivers.

SPECTRE starts this way too, with Sciarra dropped out of a helicopter rather than being usefully interrogated. But that leads 007 to The Pale King, aka Mr White. Standard Bondian procedure would lead to a rooftop chase and an unfortunate execution. But Bond shows up and White is in the basement (as far from a roof as one can get)…and he’s already dying.

Poisoned and rotting, the man-corpse White faces perhaps Craig-Bond’s first civilised, sit-down interrogation. Bond’s only just ahead, but he’s beaten the reaper. And when it’s time to die, White executes himself, without provocation.

The Bond of SPECTRE has grown. He’s no longer death incarnate. And if he can just persuade Madeleine Swann of that, he might have a shot at becoming a rounded human, beyond the hollowed-out shell of duty he became in those first two (Craig) films.

And what do you know, it works! Come the finale of SPECTRE, Bond’s in the role of merciful saviour. We get a third act where he personally kills practically no-one — possibly two men who have him hooded at gunpoint, and a helicopter pilot; no character with a name. A record low for third-act 007.

Instead, Bond becomes saviour to a captured Swann and then allows Blofeld to live.

It’s a conclusion that only works, if it does, because the theme of the film is Bond’s transition from death-bringer to saviour.