Too much fan service, not its own movie

Rating: 5/10 (10 November 2015)

While the film does a great job being fan service and making long time Bond fans smile and gasp, it doesn't exactly work as its own film. The opening shot we receive promises a strong fourth installment into Daniel Craig's James Bond world. However, what we receive is not particularly what we expected. After a great and promising opening credits scene, we see a lot of talking and a lot of unnecessary things. Firstly, whatever happened to the girl after she tells James about Spectre. We think that she is going to be a primary character but simply ends up disappearing. There was no closure on her character whatsoever.
Dave Bautista does a great job at being a villain. The silent, beat the hell out of you type of guy came across extremely well for him. However, his character was used very poorly. Only having a few on screen moments, only one of these scenes really made my jaw drop. The car chase in which the two are involved was awful. This may be due to the fact that Bond is talking on the phone the whole time and the car chase needed much more focus. In the end we are only treated to about 30 seconds of the chase. The next scene is yet another chase scene which comes across as "okay." It doesn't make much sense but it is a cool scene nonetheless. And then Dave gets to show his stuff. In one of the greatest Bond fights of all time, he beats the crap out of Bond on a train. And then they kill him off. They needed more of himeverywhere.
Staying on villains, let's talk about Christoph Waltz. By far one of the best actors they've ever nabbed in the Bond series, we expected him to play a key role in the film. However, his story gets twisted in the fan service with all of the previous villains working for him? There is also the added fact that Waltz is only in about 4 scenes which is unforgivable.
Despite some intense scenes, the movies two and a half hour run time is simply too much. If I could sum this movie up, it would be too much where there should have been less and too little where there should have been more. Though Daniel Craig and Lea Seadoux are great, there relationship feels somewhat forced and is difficult for the audience to buy it. Ralph Fiennes is able to show some action chops and more. However, a couple fight scenes isn't enough to save this film from the scriptwriter's desire for nostalgia and money.