Alright, we need to talk about Oberhauser. At the first ever screening at Spectre, the head of Sony UK came on stage and after stoking the flames of anticipation politely asked for everyone there to not spoil any of the movie's big twists. We all knew what that meant immediately. And, now the film's been out a bit, we can talk about it without having the might of Sony coming crashing down (not that stopped some other reviewers heavily alluding to it in their "spoiler-free" reviews). About two hours into the film (it's a long-un), Bond is captured/gives himself up to S.P.E.C.T.R.E. because of poorly plotted reasons and is tortured by Franz Oberhauser, his presumed-dead stepbrother who has been secretly orchestrating his doom for the better part of a decade. Except he's no longer called Franz Oberhauser. His real name is (drumroll please), Ernst Stavro Blofeld, a reinvention of the famed 007 nemesis who menaced Messrs Connery and Lazenby back in the sixties. And... nobody reacted. Not me, not Adam, not the famous film critic I found myself say next to at the screening, not anyone. (And yes, that was a shameless, nameless name-drop.) Part of that may because the reveal was rather tepid, with Waltz delivering his self-given title as if it was a takeaway order, but the real reason is that it wasn't a surprise. At all. So let's take a look at the half-hearted rug-pull and get into why it just doesn't work.
