Messy, Waltz should be ashamed of himself.

Rating: 5/10 (13 November 2015)

Spectre spends a lot of the time patting itself on the back, and undeservedly so. Sam Mendes' follow up to the flawed but satisfying Skyfall might as well have been called James Bond: Genisys.
We open on a gorgeously choreographed long take in Mexico, during which Bond walks from the crowded street to a hotel room and then onto the balcony for an assassination. Come to think of it, that opening sequence is pretty much indicative of the entire film - it doesn't make any sense in the narrative (we learn that M sent Bond on this mission after her death, but for reasons never established - if she knew about Spectre why didn't she deal with it when alive?) but boy does it look great. Filling the shoes of Roger Deakins is nearly impossible, but Hoyte Van Hoytema does a great job with some gorgeous lighting and aforementioned long takes. Thomas Newman's score is incredible - weaving in beautiful music with the Bond theme flawlessly. Its very reminiscent of Harry Gregson-Williams' gorgeous score in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. There's one majestic moment when Bond and Bautista speed towards the Vatican and the music kicks into a reverent tone. Sam Smith's song has its powerful moments over a gorgeous opening credits, but if you're going to get a man to sing the song mostly falsetto, just get a woman to do it and stop cheese grating my ears.
Spectre's plot kicks into gear at the funeral of Bond's victim, where Bond goes on the hunt of the titular association. There's also the subplot ripped straight out of Mission Impossible 5 where an agent named C is trying to shut down the "obsolete" 00 program. It plays out very differently - do not interpret that as "better" because it has no fun - and exists primarily to give Ralph Fiennes something to do. Heaven forbid that Fiennes be involved in the plot!
Daniel Craig has coasted a lot since his crackling debut in Casino Royale. He phones in a hybrid of Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt and Bruce Willis as John McClane (seriously, there's at least one scene that I was preparing for "Yippee Ki-Yay"). Spectre congratulated itself a lot for being progressive by casting a Bond girl older than Bond himself - Monica Belucci pops up for 5 minutes, gets nailed and then is never seen again. Lea Seydoux then takes over, keeping the Bond girl age at a level Hollywood is comfortable with. Seydoux is a gorgeous girl with some fine moments but mostly the duo are subject to bad writing (neither seduction makes sense, we know he will seduce them so the writers clearly don't try anymore) and some unconvincing delivery ("can't you see I'm grieving?" says Belucci with the conviction of Twilight Kristen Stewart; "I"m scared" says Seydoux, looking anything but). The film may actually have been better if it were a daughter seduced for information and a wife in need of protection - at least the self congratulation would have been justified.
Dave Bautista cuts an imposing figure as a henchman Hinx. Mendes and Bautista make the decision to make him nearly silent (a wise decision, as his single spoken word sounds awful). Bautista gives Bond a pounding for the ages in a well choreographed fight scene on a train, where Hinx is always able to turn Bond's upper hand against him. Hinx suffers most from awful writing - he comes out of nowhere, his allegiances and motivations are never explained, and he's gone far too soon. Ben Whishaw crops up again as Q and ruins the only joke in the movie by laughing himself silly at his own delivery. Just because Simon Pegg managed to become a good part of Mission Impossible doesn't mean that Bond needs to copy.
The film's plot is clunky and Mendes fumbles a number of scenes. The Italian meeting room scene is gorgeously shot but tries way too hard to make Waltz intimidating and botches the Bautista introduction by having Waltz expose Bond like something out of a Carmen Sandiego game. The writing is absolutely atrocious at times - a joke about "what C stands for" is immediately undermined by a lame follow up. The screenplay makes a feeble attempt to connect every Craig film together without doing anything beyond saying "its connected". Waltz gloats about the deaths of M and Vesper, yet the film does nothing to suggest that their deaths from stray bullet and drowning were more affected by Waltz. The word limit on reviews prevents me listing every plot hole I had a problem with, but suffice to say there are many (such as a torture scene that fails to have the consequences promised).
I must now turn to Christoph Waltz, who delivers the worst performance of his career as the worst Bond villain of all time. Not once in the entire film does he actually do anything that doesn't involve talking. If I ever have to choose between overacting Waltz (Big Eyes) or this, I'll pick Big Eyes every time for cheap fun.
Its gorgeous looking, entertaining and is strong for Bautista and Seydoux in places, but lets just say I know what the C stands for in Spectre...
Crap.