Spectre of the past

Rating: 7/10 (7 November 2015)

After the brilliant Skyfall, Spectre became one of the most anticipated movies of 2015 for me, the hopes were pretty high. Upon seeing all the mediocre reviews, I rightfully got them down somewhat, but in the end my opinion is that this movie still doesn't deserve a 60/100 rating.
I'll begin with the bright sides. First off, from the cinematographic point, the movie's slick, stylish and polished, as expected. Bond's team of Moneypenny, Q and M is given more screen time and a larger role, and it plays that role very well. The action scenes are gripping and tense. For its lengthy runtime of roughly 2 and a half hours, the pacing is fairly even, an improvement over Skyfall's drop in the 2nd act of the movie. Heck, I even liked the generally criticized main theme performed by Sam Smith. Sure, the guy might've overdone it with the high notes, but it fits the signature intro really well.
However, I found there to be two main issues with this film. The first one may be a matter of taste, in particular, the casting choice for the main Bond's girl, Léa Seydoux. Not only is she not attractive at all, with circles under her eyes and a gaping hole between her front teeth, but (this is not her, but the screenwriter's fault) the overall love line between her and Bond is strikingly unconvincing. Going from "don't touch me, you bastard" to "I love you" in a day and Bond's apparent decision to leave his craft in favour of riding into the sunset with this woman just seems too implausible.
The second faulty aspect is the titular organization and its nefarious leader. For starters, the whole "we've got our agents everywhere" plot is so outdated and overused it has even been in the centre of a recent Bond movie with Craig himself, the mediocre Quantum of Solace. Now we are told that that sinister organization which had its agents everywhere was merely a subsidiary of an even bigger and more sinister organization that has its agents everywhere. (Shocker!) Moreover, in an attempt to connect all Craig's movies into the same continuity, it is revealed that all the main villains from the last three films were part of Spectre, which doesn't really add any depth or any alternative perspective to the previous plots. Sadly, Spectre's leader is also not above criticism. For one thing, his whole motivation just seems flawed - there is no real reason given for why he does what he does. His ties to bond are even more unconvincing - his father took up young Bond as his foster son and they grew close, so Ober... I mean, Blofeld killed his dad and held a grudge on Bond. Seriously? I've got a proposition for a plot twist for a future Bond villain then - they used to be classmates and James bullied him and took his lunch money every now and then, so the villain became a leader of the biggest and the most sinister organization ever and swore an oath that he would torture and kill Bond. My final complaint is the whole Blofeld revelation twist. It was clear from the beginning that it wouldn't work. People who know that Blofeld is a classic Bond villain and the leader of Spectre in the novels and older movies saw this coming from a mile ago, even after the first trailer. And for casual moviegoers the whole revelation didn't mean absolutely anything.
A lot of things in Spectre were intended to be homages to the previous Bond era. While some things, like the exploding watch, the customized Aston Martin and Dave Bautista's silent henchman fit well, others like Blofeld's character appear not like an subtle nod, but as something abruptly taken straight out of a 60s film and as a result looking out of place.
Yet in spite of the apparent plot faults, Spectre still manages to work and I enjoyed it thoroughly. It is inferior to Skyfall (and Casino Royale, for that matter), but putting it in the same line with Quantum of Solace is unjust. It still is a potent action movie, and agent 007 just refuses to go out of style. Perhaps it's time to stir things up and change the main lead? I personally am looking forward to see which direction will the franchise take in the nearest future.