Bond goes on a mission to avenge the previous "M," uncover the truth about S.P.E.C.T.R.E, and protect the spy agency he grew up with.

Rating: 5/10 (17 October 2017)

For almost fifty years, the James Bond film franchise became one of the longest continually-running film series in movie history. Though the twenty-fourth(and the most recent)installment of the series, Spectre, was the second highest grossing James Bond movie(grossing $880.7 million dollars), the film was mediocre, boring and did not live up to the expectations of audiences and standards compared to the previous James Bond movie, Skyfall. Spectre had a 64% Rotten Tomato approval rating, compared to Skyfall retaining a 93% approval rating, and was described by the Los Angeles Times critic, Kenneth Turan, as "exhausted and uninspired." Although parts of the movie generally had good humor, the simple plot, unsatisfactory character development and lame fight choreography made the movie dull and predictable.
Only the beginning of Sceptre had the best action scenes. Bond tracked down Marco Sciarra and fought him, thwarting a bombing plot on the Day of the Dead. They ended up taking their brawl to a helicopter and Bond killed him by kicking him out of the aerial craft. It all goes downward from there. Afterwards, the quality of action scenes went down from there, there was just the usual car chases, gunfights and tracking down of clues; there was nothing new audiences haven't seen before. There were not enough moments of intense suspense or elements of surprise to keep Spectre watchable. At least the danger levels were so high in Skyfall that the audience clench their armrests and wait for a good fight scene or plot twist to happen. The story line of Spectre is nothing compared to the plot of Skyfall. The reasons why Skyfall had a good rating was because of the way the previous M's past haunted her and the kind of mental toughness Bond had to exert to save the M16 program. Remember, Bond only recently went back to duty after he was shot and left for dead. Naturally, he had a tough time putting down criminals because he was out of practice. The scriptwriters had weaved the story line of Skyfall into a complex story that was more than enough to satisfy audiences. Bond's only "real" challenge in Sceptre was to assassinate Oberhauser and save his new girlfriend. His friend and the quartermaster of the M16, named Q, did the majority of the work to save the M16 program from Oberhauser's plot to steal all data from countries around the world. In fact, the movie Spectre made me want to know more about Q than Bond and whether there will be a sequel starring Q. Bond had little to no character development in Sceptre. The only attribute I saw change in Bond was his womanizing(after he started dating Swann). Compared to Skyfall, his character went from a confident agent, to a distrustful broken man and back to a solemn one. His character development was interesting and made sense; Bond was shot and left for dead by the organization he gave his life for, then he was hired back and saw his boss died right in front of his eyes.
The fight scenes in Sceptre were definitely not as good as the fight scenes in previous James Bond movies. At least some technique was used in Skyfall. Sceptre fight scenes were based off brute strength but did not feel real enough. There are some rules when incorporating fight scenes into American movies; the fight choreography either has to be just brutal enough to the point that the audience likes it, or it can look brutal but strategically executed, with one move leading to the next. The only strategic thing Bond did in his fight against Mr. Hinx was tie Mr. Hinx's neck with rope to heavy cartons that were rolling out of the train, causing the henchman to fall to his death. In Skyfall, there are way more examples of Bond combines the techniques of using teamwork, analyzing clues and clever use of technology more efficiently to complete his missions. Once again, the reasons why Sceptre was a horrible sequel to Skyfall is that Sceptre did not have a complex plot, Bond's character did not change or develop over the course of the film and the action scenes were just plain boring. This recent installment of the James Bond film series is truly disappointing. Movies sequels are supposed to be better than the prequels every time they are released. If not, how else can movie series retain popularity and show people Oscar-quality films?