Great cast, bad script and directing

Rating: 6/10 (2 November 2015)

What do you get when you put Voldemort, Moriarty and that nazi villain from Inglourious Basterds in the same movie? If your first thought is "pure epicness", well, sadly you would be wrong. Even great character actors could not save this movie. The real problem lies in a poor scripting and directing. First of all, there is nothing in this movie that couldn't be guessed withing the first 10-minutes. The plot and so called "twists" are rather blatantly thrown in your face within the first minutes. Also, maybe not go with such obvious and typecast villain actors if there's supposed to be twists, hmm? Despite this, it was oddly difficult to comprehend what the heck was happening withing the first hour or so: Bond seemed to randomly go meet some people, and it took me half the scene to orient myself why he was doing what he was doing. I just kept waiting for the real plot to begin.
The movie just felt very lazy. There was a good idea somewhere there, but due to the lack of subtlety and anticipation, it just fell flat. It's also obvious that there will be a sequel to this Spectre thing, and I honestly don't know how they could kick any life to this born dead horse.
The blonde woman was a really bad casting call btw. She was lacking in the kind of toughness and charisma that she was meant to portray; she was instead just a pretty face in high heels. She was also too young to play an "Oxford and Sorbonne psychology graduate", and also too young for the now- graying Craig. Although, since Bond movies generally employ really young women, I'll let that one slide... but other than that, no real chemistry between her and Craig, she seemed almost resigned to play just another blonde one- night stand. Hence our surprise when all of a sudden they were supposed to be in love. What?!
Many of the movie's actors, some of who have played iconic villains in other movies and are therefore guaranteed to be actors worth their salt, were disappointing here. The script probably didn't give them much to work with.
C's character could have been completely written out of the script and nothing would have gone amiss. If anything, M's character could have been more throughoutly examined if that had been the case; a bureaucrat fighting for his unit in the face of an organisation-level change, against the demands of faceless "higher-ups" who send him memos or other impersonal communication. All in all, maybe die-hard fans are able to enjoy this, but for casual viewers like myself it just felt like a flat, money- grubbing Hollywood attempt to milk the franchise for all it's worth.
Stereotypical and often corny, it's an easily forgottable action movie which leaves viewers' heads blank enough to wonder totally arbitrary stuff during the movie. Examples include: why did Monica Bellucci have to awkwardly stand in grass wearing Lomboutins? The heels are clearly sinking into the ground. Why does it seem like there's no people in the entire cities of Rome and Vatican during the car chase? Is the sexy hentai tentacle opening in fact the most corny opening of all time? Is that what Putin would look like, if he was making out with Monica Bellucci? Did the Mr. White character intentionally channel Walter White/ Heisenberg in his near-death log- cabin times? I guess we'll never know. But for a budget of 300 million, I sure as heck expected better.