Not the best Bond film, but the best Daniel Craig Bond film

Rating: 7/10 (6 November 2015)

Spectre certainly looks beautiful. The opening scene in Mexico City during the Day of the Dead has a wonderful, washed-out, older look to it. The whole movie itself has an older look and feel, making many references to famous scenes from prior Bond movies. I keep wondering whether any of the newer, more serious Bond movies will have any of their own iconic scenes, or inspire any parodies.
Spectre brings a more tongue-in-cheek, self-awareness that made all the pre-Daniel Craig movies fun. The Daniel Craig movies have attempted to bring a Christopher Nolan-esque darkness to the Bond world. But you can't have a half-hearted attempt back into camp. It either needs to be full on, or not at all, and Craig's stoniness just doesn't play well when it comes to wink-wink cajoling.
Possibly as one of the worst-kept secrets in movie history, Christoph Waltz plays Ernst Stavro Blofeld, in a casting that many have declared obvious or too easy. Far from it, he is the perfect choice to bring back Bond's iconic nemesis, but he gets no clever dialogue or wittiness. He simply dishes out cold-hearted idiocy, which even Bond points out as annoying.
Bond becomes Frodo-style infatuated with a ring bearing a logo that looks like the Bat Signal met Spiderman's chest, but is actually an octopus, its tentacles slinking surreptitiously around the world. You see, that's a metaphor for Specter's shadowy control over all the crime and violence in the world.
Bond villains used to have higher aspirations, though. Goldfinger wanted to nuke Fort Knox, Zorin wanted to flood San Francisco, and Drax wanted to kill everyone on Earth. Even Telly Savalas's Blofeld had higher aspirations by wanting to destroy food crops to create mass starvation.
Not so, here. Here Spectre is about to complete a global surveillance system, because information is everything. While that might be true, we don't see any real nefarious uses, only talking about talking about how bad such a system could be when placed in the wrong hands. The Bond movies usually try to make plots du jour, as with this obvious reference to NSA spying, but Blofeld and Spectre come across as merely greedy and sadistic, which lends no specialness.
Nonetheless, Spectre is an enjoyable romp around the world, a half- way attempt to bring fun back into the Bond series. Even at a running time of 2:28, I was never bored. I hope the next installment can keep up the pace, but dive head-first into fun.