A return to cheesy, camp Bond

Rating: 4/10 (19 December 2015)

Opening scene was excellent. Soon realised this was going to be the best part of the movie. Much as I wanted to love it, this movie is Bond-by-numbers - with Sam Mendes demonstrating again that he isn't able to sustain exciting, coherent plot development with suspenseful action. This was only a shade better than some of Moore's poorer outings as Bond.
Casino Royale had paired things back, much closer to Fleming's true Bond. That movie was all about his character it wasn't so much about chases and gadgetry. There are much more chases and gadgetry in SPECTRE but none of it really amounts to much - none of it ever packs a punch. There wasn't a single scene (opening scene excepted) that was proper, edge-of-your-seat, nail biting stuff. It all just happened without any moments of pure tension.
Some reviews have suggested that simply because there was a car chase scene in SPECTRE, that this meant this was a return to proper Bond. That's rubbish - the car chase scene lacked any peril or any "I can't look any more!" moments. For me, the airport scene in Casino Royale where Bond is trying to stop the villain crash the fuel truck into the plane, is still the best action sequence in Daniel Craig's stint as Bond.
I can't think of anything that was amusing or clever about the storyline or the dialogue. Some people say that Q provided some comic relief - no he didn't. The jokes now seem to fall flat and Daniel Craig almost seemed embarrassed at some of the trite, rubbish he was given to say.
The final scene is so poor it beggared belief - when Bloefeld is getting away in a helicopter, Bond simply chases after him along the Thames in a speed boat and just keeps shooting until he hits the helicopter, which crashes and that's basically the end of the movie.
If Mr Hinx wanted to kill Bond on the train, why not sneak up on him and shoot him? Why brazenly walk into the dining car, fully suited up, hours into the train ride and then attack?
Bond's relationships with his female co-stars in this movie were creepy. One scene with Monica Bellucci felt inappropriate and close to being a sexual assault. The relationship with Lea Seydoux also felt inappropriate because she is so much younger than him. There was no chemistry between the two of them and no development in their relationship which justified the two of them getting together at the end of the movie.
Why go all the way to Bloefeld's layer in the Sahara without any real plan? What did Bond ever think he was going to do there? Bond got there, was then taken into captivity there by Bloefeld, then Bond escaped all too easily, blew the whole place up all too easily, then came back to England after allowing Bloefeld to escape from the burning layer (all too easily).
Why do M, Moneypenny and Q all now need to tag along as part of the Bond action? It felt as if Ralph Fiennes had insisted on getting a bigger part in order for him to agree to do the movie. But his involvement in the action (likewise with Moneypenny and Q), just gave the movie a scooby-do feel to it and was completely unnecessary.
The climax of the movie was woeful - a countdown until SPECTRE takes over the world's spy cyber network. But the movie didn't really commit to the countdown (editing was poor), so it lost any sort of dramatic impact - i.e. the audience didn't really care. Whilst Q was all too easily beating the countdown to stop SPECTRE's computer system, M was having a woefully poor scrap with the rogue M-15 agent and their fight ended all too easily without ever giving the sense that M was in any real danger.
And did we really need Bond to have a childhood link to Bloefeld? Did Bond need to be the catalyst that led to Bloefeld's evil? I don't think so. And - just supposing we're all okay with Mendes hijacking Bond's history to create this relationship - couldn't the delivery of this revelation been bigger and better than the damp squib we got? The Bloefeld character wasn't given any space to really come to life - he screen time was marginally more than a cameo figure and when you compare the impact he made in SPECTRE to the menacing presence he had in other Bond movies, then it demonstrates again that Mendes didn't do a great job here. Which seems strange given how desperate he seemed to be to take the helm for a 2nd time.