Good, but not great. Conflicting end for future Bond films.

Rating: 8/10 (4 November 2015)

I saw this last night at an advanced screening. I will say I came away a little disappointed, but perhaps my expectations were too high due to the excellence of Skyfall, and the casting of Christoph Waltz as the antagonist.
The good - the scenery and locations were excellent, as always. The acting of Waltz, Craig, Fiennes, Whishaw, Harris, and even Seydoux (for most of the film) was pretty good for the most part.
The bad - I felt the writing was weak. Not a lot of dialogue or character development outside of Seydoux's character, and even that was somewhat unrealistic, as she went from cold to Bond to completely in love with him in a matter of one train ride. Didn't utilize Waltz or Bautista enough.
I left feeling fairly conflicted about how this movie wrapped things up for future Bond films. On the one hand, it tied up all the Daniel Craig movies together (albeit not very neatly) should this be his last run as Bond (I hope it's not). At the same time, the introduction to Spectre and Oberhauser is one that I felt would have been a good entry point for the Spectre storyline to continue in future films. The problem? It was made clear that Waltz' Oberhauser had a personal connection to Craig's Bond, which fueled the rivalry between the two, and I think it would need both actors to continue in the role in the future for it to be effective. I think replacing either actor and having Waltz try to duplicate that connection with a different actor (or Craig with a different actor) would be odd.
In any case, if this is Craig's last turn as Bond, it was another solid performance from a solid actor, and arguably the best performance as James Bond in the fifty-year run of the series. I would rank it behind Skyfall and Casino Royale (although not too far behind the latter), and well above Quantum of Solace.