For this blonde Bond franchise, the writing's on the wall.

Rating: 4/10 (7 November 2015)

Spectre – oh dear. The latest disastrous portrayal of what is meant to be a suave, stylish and sophisticated 00-agent played by the ever un-inspiring and haggard Daniel Craig. A movie with so many holes in the plot that viewers have been left struggling to truly comprehend what it actually was! A tragically bad theme song which doesn't actually reference the film title and some of the most absurd 'action' scenes that you'll see in any Hollywood film all wrapped up into 2.5 hours of theatrical-drivel. How anyone can rate this film 7 or 8 / 10 is beyond belief.
Some of you may have seen Craig's interview recently in which he concedes that the thought of playing Bond again made him want to 'slash his wrists' – and whilst I wouldn't suggest he goes that far (not that it'd probably do anything judging by how bullet-proof he has been in the last 4 films!) I would encourage a younger, sleeker Brit take over from this aged, weary soul.
Plot summary in a short paragraph? Very awkward plot in which Bond learns about a criminal syndicate (SPECTRE) lead by a supervillain going by the name of Franz Oberhauser. Bond finds himself floating about Austria where he meets with a man called Mr White – a former member of Quantum (linked to SPECTRE). White is on his death bed after being poisoned and points Bond in the direction of his daughter – she can lead Bond to SPECTRE. Parallel to this, not all is rosy in MI5. M is having a power-struggle with newly appointed C, who has a radical idea to close down the 00 programme and replace it with a world-wide surveillance system called NineEyes. This is the really daft bit – it turns out that C is part of SPECTRE, Oberhauser is actually Blofeld and is the son of Blofeld Snr: who looked after Bond when he was orphaned as child. Blofeld and C work together to feed data to SPECTRE and all of this is stored in a massive facility in Morocco. It isn't really made clear why Blofeld wants to be / is a supervillain – nor is it explained what his motives are for the infiltration of MI5 / MI6 - nor why he hates Bond so much seeing as they shared a parent. No matter, all of this is wrapped up in London in a pathetic climax on Westminster Bridge. Needless to say, there are 4 or 5 other sub plots adding literally nothing to the overall story.
Some of the praise for this movie has centred around the linkage of certain topics and characters to the Fleming novels, but let's review the movie for what it is. It's not really that entertaining – I think Sam Mendes must suffer from ADHD the way he jumps from one location to another, one story to another, one embarrassing 'romantic' encounter to another. M and Q are both decent but for me when it comes down to it, the title of the theme song really does sum up this tired, leggy movie.