Brow Beat

James Bond Is Back, and More Brooding Than Ever, in the Trailer for Spectre

A figure from Bond’s past returns in Spectre.

Still from YouTube

When all’s said and done, Daniel Craig may be remembered as the man who humanized James Bond. It’s an unexpected legacy: When the boxy, icy-eyed actor was first cast in the role, he seemed more rough-and-tumble than any of his predecessors, more likely to make Bond a bona fide action star than a man wracked by inner turmoil. But with Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan, Bond’s antics always seemed effortless; with Craig, you see the spy work, struggle, suffer. And now, in the trailer for Spectre, we see him confront a deep, dark secret from his past.

In other words, this looks a lot like Skyfall: Part Two. At the end of the last Bond film—spoilers ahead—mentor M (Judi Dench) died in a shootout at Bond’s childhood home. Now, with another M installed and MI6 in crisis, Bond is after the eponymous evil agency previously featured in films like You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever. But there’s no sign of cat-stroking, SPECTRE-leading supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld; instead, Christoph Waltz makes a shadowy appearance as one Hans Oberhauser.

Oberhauser seems to have an intimate, mysterious connection to Bond, with the trailer allowing a quick peek at a photograph that suggests the two grew up together. Spectre is out Nov. 6.