The weakest of the Daniel Craig Bond films

Rating: 2/10 (1 March 2017)

The ending of Skyfall was very promising, as it showed James Bond finally manning up and becoming the brilliant secret agent that everyone knows once again. He was ready to take on new missions and possibly provide more stories that could expand on his character. Well, we got a partially traditional Bond, and it sucked. If not for other disasters like Moonraker and Die Another Day, I would call this the worst of the Bond films. Why, might you ask? Well, for one thing, the film is too long and too slow. Two-and-a-half hours is pretty extreme for a Bond film. Yes, Skyfall was slightly shorter, but it truly felt like "the" epic Bond story that gave people something special. Here, we have a typical Bond adventure that has additional pieces of filler that we didn't need like the talk about drones and surveillance that Skyfall weaved into its story much better. Other old Bond tropes come about that I'm really tired of at this point; it's been a while, though, since I've seen an action scene on a train in one of these movies.
Another problem is the performances. Ralph Fiennes is fine as M and shows himself to be very capable. Ben Whishaw is also good as Q, and he's almost as fun to watch as Desmond Llewelyn was in his Bond films. However, Craig is inconsistent this time as Bond. Sometimes he looks invested, but other times he looks tired. Lea Seydoux was also very dull as the newest Bond girl, Madeline Swan, and Christoph Waltz as Blofeld (let's not kid ourselves here) sucks. He's more like an annoying cartoon villain I would have expected from some of the earlier films than a worthy threat. He's no Le Chiffre or Raoul Silva. And the fact that Bond didn't just shoot him dead at the end like a truly tough Bond would left me feeling very unsatisfied.
The story is that after a mission in Mexico that he undertook himself, Bond is suspended from field duty and undertakes a secret mission when he finds a video that has M telling him to seek out a specific target if something happened to her (Was there any reason she couldn't have told him about this during the end of Skyfall?). In Rome, Bond finds out about a secret villainous organization named Spectre (not an acronym), and is tasked by Mr. White from Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace to protect his daughter, Madeline. Together, they find Bond's believed-to-be-dead half-brother, Franz Oberhauser, who claims to be responsible for the events of the previous three films(????). This is basically the main plot condensed into a single paragraph, unlike the movie. Hmm.....
The big "twist" about Oberhauser being responsible for the previous films and being Blofeld is what ruins the rest of the film for me. It clearly demonstrates that the film can't decide whether it wants to be a traditional Bond adventure, or a more serious adventure like Casino Royale. The whole backstory is that after Bond's parents died, Oberhauser's father took Bond in and Franz got extremely jealous and offed his dad...instead of killing Bond and making it look accidental for some reason. Then...for some reason he decides to call himself Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Blofeld was his mother's maiden name, conveniently). Then...for some reason he decides to form Spectre and have control of the world. Next thing, he'd be saying that he lost Le Chiffre's money so the events of Casino Royale would happen or that he got Silva out of his jam with the Chinese so he could take revenge on Bond when it was clear that Silva was acting out of more personal motivations. What bull. What in the name of God were you thinking, Sam Mendes? You ought to be ashamed of yourself for allowing such poor writing to be part of your movie. And I'm not invested in Bond trying to rescue Madeline because the performances don't move me.
Bottom line, if the 25th Bond film features Craig again, I hope that that film can correct the mistakes of this film. However, as it stands, this is the final Bond film with Craig as of yet, and it's a truly sucky way to end things. This franchise has seen better days, regardless of how few and far between they were.