Average at best with too many callbacks to previous movies.

Rating: 4/10 (31 October 2015)

The opening pre-title scenes are OK, but there is little to make you feel connected with the characters. A theme which continues throughout the movie.
I was hoping the annoying voice of Sam Smith would work better underneath the opening graphics. Again another disappointment. Other than the string arrangement this is nothing more than a generic love song.
The first hour of the movie moves along a decent pace but there is no connection to characters. It's almost like the actors were going through the process for the sake of it.
The car chase is Rome could have been so much better, and the track "The Eternal City" by Thomas Newman would have been better suited to a Sci-Fi or Fantasy film.
After this the film just plods along, play homage to previous Bond films rather than ramp up the story line.
Dave Bastista as Jinx is sorely under-used as the bad guy.
Christoph Waltz played his part well, but was just not menacing enough and the semi twists are telegraphed in advance.
I have seen better episodes of Spooks on BBC1 than Spectre.
Overall I think this proves that Skyfall was a fluke.
Time for director Mendes and composer Newman to move on. Hopefully David Arnold will return with a new director and the feel of Bond will return.
At best I give this 4 out of 10.