Lackluster follow up to Skyfall

Rating: 5/10 (30 January 2016)

After the release of Skyfall, Sam Mendes stated that he would not return to direct the 24th installment of the 50+ year old James Bond franchise. After Eon Productions offered him a sizable pay increase, he changed his mind.
Unfortunately for us all, the finished product is proof that that pay increase was the only thing bringing Mendes back, and the film is as dull, tired, and retrograde as Skyfall was lively, fresh, and unique.
Daniel Craig's turn as Bond has really been an interesting one. It has been four films continuously obsessed with how to tweak and make meta commentary on the James Bond formula.
If you've seen one of the 24 Bond films, you've seen them all: the film opens with an action sequence. The credits are highly stylized and feature a theme song performed by a prominent singer. Bond sleeps around. A villain has plans for world domination or some other nefarious thing. The martinis are shaken, not stirred...
In all four of his turns as Bond, the Craig films (with wildly oscillating degrees of success) have tried to find new ways to play out this formula. Casino Royale and Skyfall are rightly regarded as two of the best films in the whole franchise. There's a good case to be made that they are THE best films in the franchise.
Casino Royale came on the heels of Pierce Brosnan's last outing, the wildly cartoonish and very divisive Die Another Day. For Casino, Bond was stripped of his campier trappings. Gone were the cheeky puns and futuristic gadgets, replaced by a Bond who was a cold-hearted killer. It is, I would argue, the only time the character was believable as a real human being over the course of 24 movies. Yes, I'm counting Connery.
For it's follow-up, 2008's Quantum of Solace, the James Bond formula wasn't so much brought down to reality as removed entirely. An unpopular outing, I will take it over Spectre any day of the week.
Because while Quantum might have drifted too far from this long established formula for the taste of fans, Spectre commits a far graver movie sin: It's quite dull.
Predictable, overlong, and with a story which laboriously and awkwardly connects the four Craig films into a single narrative, Spectre makes J.J. Abrams Star Trek Into Darkness look like a model film in terms of reviving a classic, long dormant franchise villain... Yes, Cristoph Waltz plays John Harrison.
Needlessly making a personal connection between Bond and Blofeld, the diabolical leader of Spectre, the film gives us no reason to feel threatened by Waltz's character. After Oscar winning turns in two Tarantino films, Waltz is completely wasted here. He's largely absent screen time, and the personal connection between him and Bond appears to have been inserted only because Bond had a personal connection to Javier Bardem in Skyfall.
There's a stunning laziness to the proceedings. Stunning, because Mendes Skyfall was such a blast. If you did not see the same name in the credits you'd likely assume that the two films were made by different directors.
Whereas Skyfall was colorful and energetic, only Spectre's opening sequence captures this sense of style, and it sticks out in a film that sticks out for just how indifferently it appears to have been made. Mendes Skyfall was full of luscious cinematography and crackerjack performances.
In contrast most of Spectre is shot like a sitcom, and virtually every actor deadpans their role. The action scenes (the real point of any Bond film) are startling only for their lifelessness.
You'll notice I gave this film a 5/10. No, this is not Plan 9 From Outer Space. It is competent, but only competent. I go to a James Bond movie for entertainment, not mere competence.
2 stars (out of 4)