Close, but not quite there.

Rating: 7/10 (11 November 2015)

With Skyfall in mind, I had really high expectations for Spectre. A great opportunity to really get into the whole Bond thing from the start but better and more modern. Did the creators use that opportunity? If the answer can be only "Yes" or "No", the answer is "No". In reality the answer is probably more a "Not really". There are several run-ups to "all things Bond" that we know so well, but more often than not, the "Bond thing" is toned down way too much or we never arrive there. Regarding the matter of the car, I think it's simply done wrong altogether. The only thing that could excuse the lag of Bond-esque features is that we are still in the process of "establishing Bond". But maybe they could establish Bond a little faster then? The risk is that if you leave out the things that are so typical Bond, you run the risk of making an action movie and not a Bond movie. Bonds gadgets has always been a big part of the Bond movies, including the gadgets being handed over to Bond from Q.
They try to implement a number of throwbacks to the Bond history, but they rarely follow through on them, which is mostly a shame.
If you don't know who the villain is, this is where you stop reading. The thing that counts against the movie the most is casting Christoph Waltz as Blofeld. He is simply not Blofeld. It's actually that simple. Partly because I don't think he plays the role right, he's not sinister (or evil) enough. He's just a normal guy in appearance. Partly it's because Christoph Waltz is .well, Christoph Waltz. Hand Landa. The Django-dentist. I like him, I really do, but he simply does not work in this movie. Naturally I have no clue as to what the decision making was when picking him for the role was, but you could get the idea that he was cast because he is a hot item these days. I hope I'm proved wrong 5-10-15 years down the road, but I fear time will show the longevity of him in that role is minimal. Even worse 1: If I'm right we might be stuck with him for a number of movies because they have to. Even worse 2: If the creators are in line with my thinking, it could be the end of new-Bond Spectre even before we really got it started!
In short: It's a great movie (not quite Skyfall, but better than Quantum of Solace), but the Bond-factor is too low and maybe they should have added a little more story or action or cut about 15-17 minutes of running time.