Leave your intellect at the door

Rating: 5/10 (3 November 2015)

OK, there's a great opening sequence in Mexico, which was classic Bond. Then it all went downhill, and never recovered.
Bond infiltrates, with ease, a new shadowy institution, that talks about prostitution rings, whose leader recognises Bond. Before this, Bond "has" his first older woman, in an improbably brief scene.
He discovers from a dying Mr White that the institution has people everywhere; they've suddenly gone up from prostitution to a threat to the world, but what exactly this threat is, well, no-one knows...something to do with everyone viewing our data, which post- Snowden is somewhat old hat - guess what, everyone can see it anyway, and the world still turns.
The leader of the organisation claims he's been behind all Bond's misfortunes, but does the classic "slow torture so you can escape" routine that was getting old in Roger Moore's day. Later he sets a trap for Bond, which we know he's going to escape.
The concept of Spectre as a threat to the world doesn't really exist. The link to its leader and James Bond's past, which could have been so well handled, was lame and under-utilised.
The actors do what they can with the script, but it's a terrible waste of their talents. There were a few - only a few - great Bond style moments, but ultimately - what a waste.
Apparently 7 people wrote this. One half-decent writer could have come up with something much, much better. Far too much of it involved concepts, ploys and mechanisms done to death too many times before.
"Casino Royale" sadly remains as the best Daniel Craig Bond by far. This film would be great if you could remove your intellect at the door. It's a dreadful shame that given some great locations, good actors - I think Craig is one of the best Bonds ever and certainly the finest actor to ever play him - they come out with a storyline that could and should have been so, so much better.