6. The MI6 Subplot Is Silly And Repetitive
London's involvement in Bond's adventure's used to be M handing him his mission, Q throwing out an endless stream of hilariously specific gadgets and Moneypenny flirting unsuccessfully, all in the first ten minutes before sitting behind their desk twiddling their thumbs for the duration, potentially returning at the end to send some troops to help Bond or getting all squirmy at his womanising. Not in the modern era though; throughout Craig's tenure their roles have been expanded greatly. By Skyfall they were reworked to be integral to the story, and now in Spectre the MI6 top brass get their very own subplot. M is coming under attack from Denbigh, Andrew Scott's bureaucrat who is trying to revolutionise secret intelligence, introducing more technological gizmos and ending the 00-program. There's a nice idea in there about the balance of man- to machine-power, but the execution is all very cliché; a hammy sort-of-antagonist is forcibly introduced at the start and then it's just periodic cutaways to Ralph Fiennes being angry or Andrew Scott being Andrew Scott that feel consistently disconnected from whatever Bond's doing. But, worse than all that, the whole point of this story seems to be just to rehash something that was already done much better in Skyfall - the case for spies in the modern age. The tech angle promises something new, but it's all so undernourished that it doesn't really add anything. In fact, it's so repetitive to the point where Skyfall's "Have you killed a man" exchange is reused, only with M on the other side of the conversation.