Inconsistent, lazy and overly long

Rating: 4/10 (6 April 2016)

5 months after it came out, I'm still not quite sure where to rank 'Spectre' among all the Bond movies. But it is definitely the weakest of the Daniel Craig ones. Yes, including Quantum of Solace.
There's nothing wrong with making a silly old-school Bond movie with lots of gadgets and explosions. There's nothing wrong with making another dark, gritty post-reboot Bond movie in which Daniel Craig has to fight his inner demons. But what's wrong with this movie is that it just can't decide what kind of Bond movie it wants to be. I honestly think it would be a better movie if it just concentrated on the goofiness and had a different actor playing Bond, e.g. Clive Owen ripping off his own performance from 'Shoot 'Em Up'. Then while still not being a great movie, you could at least say it was true to the series' origins. But the way it is we're switching back and forth between the hallmarks of the more subdued Craig era, Brosnan era action, Connery era references and a pre-mortem one-liner from Bautista that surpasses everything in terms of goofiness Roger Moore has ever done. That makes it confusing and annoying. Plus, at times the screen writing seems just lazy. Most of the 'big reveals' are obvious from the beginning. The movie is called 'Spectre' and the actor playing the main villain has a German name. He's Blofeld, who would've guessed? There are some ties to the previous Craig era movies, but they are limited to mere name-dropping. The main villain? Copy&pasted from a Tarantino movie. Christoph Waltz doing what we know him for, which isn't bad, but then again, there is hardly anything about his performance that feels original. The car chase, sadly, is not only a huge wasted opportunity - the whole parking lot is full of exotic supercars owned by the bad guys, and only one guy in a Jaguar is following Bond? - but also looks completely fake, including Bond's car itself. Remember 'The Man with the Golden Gun', when they actually made a car barrel roll while being airborne and then land successfully, just to have a cool stunt to insert into the car chase scene?
There is one truly great moment in 'Spectre', in which for once the potential of the Connery era references is fully used (SPOILER ALERT!). When we learn how Blofeld got his scar. THAT was great. But the rest? Inconsistent, lazy and overly long. And as someone who's familiar with the traditional Bond movies, I was really looking forward to this one. So much wasted potential!