Still good in overall but the ties in seem too forced

Rating: 7/10 (11 November 2015)

The movie continues on from Skyfall. In Mexico City James Bond tails a target. He eavesdrop him talking to another, mentioning The Pale King. Bond shoots him but misses. He chases him all over the plaza, eventually killing him out of a helicopter, retrieving his signet ring. In London Bond's agent status gets suspended, as the Mexico incident blows wide, and MI6 merges with MI5 with MI5's head C in charge. Bond asks Moneypenny to inquire about The Pale King, showing the late M's order to kill Marco Sciarra, which he did in Mexico, and to attend the funeral. Planted tracking blood by Q and stealing Q's car, Bond goes to Sciarra's funeral. He meets Sciarra's wife Lucia, who tells him of her husband's organization meeting at midnight to appoint Sciarra's replacement. Bond goes there and passes the guard easily. But the organization's leader recognizes him. Thus he has to escape the organization's new henchman Hinx in a car chase.
Moneypenny reveals The Pale King is the previous movies' Mr. White, now in Austria. Bond locates White and persuades him to reveal the organization's leader in exchange for White's daughter's safety. White points him to his daughter's place then kills himself. Bond finds White's daughter Madeleine Swann. Q intercepts Bond, pleading with him to go back quietly to London. Bond gives Q the ring for analysis. He prevents Hinx from kidnapping Swann and Q avoids capture. After an argument, Swann with Bond meet Q, and she reveals the organization's name SPECTRE. She takes Bond to White's old suite in Tangiers hotel L'Americain. Bond finds a secret room with coordinates of the SPECTRE's leader place. They take a train there, only to find Hinx barging on their dinner. They defeat him with great effort.
In London a summit of nine country's heads of intelligence is held to approve Project Nine Eyes system which will converge their intelligence. The vote is halted due to South Africa not agreeing. Soon Cape Town gets an explosion, sending the system to its approval. Arriving at the place, Bond and Swann are taken to a base. The SPECTRE leader reveals his hackers intercepting intelligence and CCTVs; and also plays Bond and White's conversation recording, swaying Swann's heart. Bond gets knocked out and wakes up strapped on a therapy chair. The SPECTRE leader reveals himself as Bond's stepbrother Franz. He adds that Franz died years ago with his parents, and he's now Ernst Blofeld. As he increases torture to Bond, Swann approaches Bond and he gives her his watch. It activates a bomb, creating an opening fro Bond and Swann to escape.
Back in London M, Q and Moneypenny finds a safe house where Bond and Madeleine are waiting. Bond goes with them to stop the system's countdown to operational while Madeleine parts from them. On the road Bond gets kidnapped while M escapes. Bond gets taken to the old MI6 building scheduled for demolition, while M orders Q to hack the system to disable it before it operates. Bond escapes, eventually finding Blofeld behind a thick glass, who gives arms a time bomb with Madeleine in the building. Bond finally saves Madeleine and escapes the blast. They chase Blofeld's helicopter and Bond shoots it down. Bond refuses to kill Blofeld and M arrests him. Next Bond says goodbye to Q as he quits MI6.
The movie in overall is good. It meets the anticipation people may have from the heavy promotion. The story may impress moviegoers who watch this as a single movie. But if you are a Bond fan, or at least like me had seen the previous Daniel Craig Bonds and remember the critical plots, you'll find that the story culmination as indeed forced too much.
First there's the SPECTRE. While its presence is hinted well in Casino Royale and also Quantum of Solace's beginning stage, Skyfall didn't give any SPECTRE's hints. Thus this movie's naming Skyfall's Silva as a SPECTRE agent feels weird. Furthermore, Quantum of Solace had already has its own evil organization Quantum. It gets weird as Blofeld admits Greene worked for him. Then what about Quantum? What's its difference from SPECTRE that the franchise had to have it instead of focusing it all on SPECTRE?
The stepbrother issue is quite interesting at first. But as Skyfall didn't hint this at all; where there are already many scenes inside Skyfall house, the appearance of the burnt photo feels too forced. Furthermore, Blofeld appears after the movie's midpoint, add with his contrast mood swing, didn't really help to create an intimidating villain, despite Christoph Waltz good acting.
I quite like the movie's approach in minimizing Bond's dependence on his spy gadgets and instead focusing more on his skills. The opening uncut sequence, which gives a nod to last year's Birdman, looks very good. Yet I think this movie seriously lack the usual Bond action dose as there's more vehicle chase sequences than actual fighting. The train fighting with Hinx looks great, although I still think Casino Royale's stairs fighting and Skyfall's train fight are better.
The acting overall doesn't disappoint. Daniel Craig deserves to be named the best James Bond so far. Lea Seydoux did enough, although I think she still has to work on her expressions. Christoph Waltz did well, as usual, in portraying the bad guy. His Blofeld is quite good considering his little screen time. Monica Belluci proves that even in her fifties she still deserves to be a Bond girl. Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw, here with increased screen time, really give the movie the more elaboration on their characters' relationship with Bond.
My say is that SPECTRE (2015) deserves a score of 7 out of 10. A recommendation still is a yes. Although it's a good movie, for me it still doesn't rival Skyfall, especially as it failed in linking its story to the previous movies, instead forcing its logic into the franchise.