Weakest Daniel Craig Bond

Rating: 5/10 (21 November 2015)

Like most of the world, it seems, we have been quite impressed with the Daniel Craig era of 007, but Spectre is the least satisfying of the four. There's still bravura film-making here, notably in the eye-filling opening spectacle set in a too-perfect fantasy version of Mexico City's Day of the Dead, but that leads into the series' worst title song and bad decisions by the filmmakers only continue from there. (Bond has survived mediocre title tunes before, especially post John Barry, but they've never been saddled with one this dreary.) While the film includes virtual re-enactments of some past action scenes, such as the train fight from From Russia With Love, they were done better the first time. And even though a little more humor is allowed to creep back into the series (I liked that not all of his gadgets were working) the film overall feels bloated, lugubrious, and self-important.
Worst of all, if you're going to resurrect a major villain from the books and early movies, and even name the film after his evil organization, why would you then ignore the Fleming version, and artificially, almost arbitrarily, tie him not only to Bond's childhood, but to the villains of the past three films? It's not believable, and twists all four plots into one big personal vendetta against one British agent. This feels like a major miscalculation.