Spectre is Entertaining, but Subpar Relative to Other Craig Bond Films

Rating: 7/10 (23 January 2016)

"Spectre" is best enjoyed after consuming a martini, shaken, not stirred – or two. The film is successful as a piece of entertainment, but fails the audience in other ways.
In "Spectre" (directed by Sam Mendes), James Bond (Daniel Craig) embarks on another two-and-a-half-hour adventure of rule breaking, car crashing and general badassery alongside Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux).
I am impressed with the decision to cast Seydoux as the latest Bond girl. Her class and nontraditional beauty shine in the movie with every lovely word she says in her smooth, French accent.
The classic artistic opening credits were my favorite of the Bond movies thus far. I was intrigued by the swirling imagery of men, women and octopi, set to Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall."
The modern music in the opening made me nervous that this Bond movie would not continue the nostalgic fun of "Skyfall," but I was pleasantly surprised when I heard the iconic James Bond score and the appearance of a silver Aston Martin.
"Spectre" takes the audience on a global journey to Mexico City, Rome, Austria, North Africa and back to London. Bond seems to find a way to destroy at least one building per city in one of his classically flashy fight scenes.
While the action in the movie holds up to my expectations, the script leaves me wanting more from the impressive cast.
I was excited to see a new performance of the classic villain, Blofeld (Christoph Waltz). I expected Waltz to do another one of his Oscar-winning villain performances, but his part in the movie was brief and not written for his talents. The script (written by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth) provides an underwhelming portrayal of the character M (Ralph Fiennes), which does not flatter the Feinnes's acting talent.
Often in movies when there are this many writers working on the screenplay, the script suffers, which can definitely be said in this instance. The film's main flaws come from its poor script writing.
It is apparent that the writers spent more time writing the action scenes than developing the characters and explaining Blofeld's carelessly mentioned involvement in Bond's many misfortunes from the previous three movies.
Overall, the movie was more good than bad, but, as a longtime fan of James Bond movies, I'm disappointed. On a scale of 001 to 0010, I give this movie a 007.