A huge letdown, especially after Skyfall

Rating: 5/10 (20 November 2015)

Man was I hyped for this movie. Coming off of Skyfall, my 2nd favorite Bond movie of all time (behind Casino Royale) and ESPECIALLY after finding out Sam Mendes was coming back to direct this one, I was jacked. And my hype went through the roof when I found out the Jew Hunter himself, Christoph Waltz, was going to play the villain. Man, if I went back in time and told my few-months-ago self knowing all this that I was giving this a 5/10, he'd laugh his ass off. Such is life, though. This series is really falling into a pattern; odd numbered movies are great, even numbered ones, not so much. Not to say this movie is anywhere close to the abomination that Quantum of Solace was, in fact, I wouldn't really call it BAD, per se. It's just a huge letdown. Granted, it was always going to be a challenge to follow Skyfall, but out of anyone in the world, you would think the DIRECTOR OF SKYFALL HIMSELF would be up to the challenge, right? Apparently not. Daniel Craig is still great as Bond, and I'd like to see him come back for one more and go out with a bang (which he will if his movies keep following the odd/even quality pattern). Really, the acting is not the problem in this movie, at all. I really enjoyed Lea Seydoux as the Bond girl. I thought she had a much more dynamic role than usual Bond girls do, and Daniel Craig and her had very good chemistry. Ray Fiennes was sort of wasted as M, but he's fine. Nothing he could've done, really. They just didn't give him enough to work with. Speaking of not giving great actors enough to work with... THE JEW HUNTER. Christoph Waltz, my man. I love this dude. He was by far the best part of this movie, for the 10 seconds he was actually in it. He was all I was thinking about as I left the theater, and he probably makes up roughly 5% of this 148-minute movie. If he had been given more to work with, he would definitely be known as one of the all-time greatest Bond villains. But his character Franz Oberhauser is just a disappointment. Every aspect of this movie is, honestly. It's just dull, it's boring. Really the only intrigue involved in the main mystery Bond's involved in is the lingering hope that you might get a Jew Hunter scene soon. A subplot involving M and Andrew Scott's (another good actor wasted) character is just an obvious attempt by the movie to be "politically relevant". Skyfall was politically relevant, but in an interesting way, and every time the movie transitioned to the corresponding subplot you didn't roll your eyes. I don't want to compare it to Skyfall too much, but the Andrew Scott subplot is just ineffectual, irrelevant should've been cut from the movie completely. That would've shaved about 20-30 minutes off it, which could've brought the movie down to a cool 2+ hours. Or perhaps those extra minutes could've been used for more Jew Hunter time. The action scenes are also just really dull. Nothing of interest really happens in them, I was basically just sitting bored during them. Even the opening sequence, which is supposedly 'spectacular', I didn't find all that great. Pretty much, it's just a huge letdown. I still remember how excited I was after I left the theater 3 years ago after seeing Skyfall, both about the movie I'd just seen and for the next movie. You could call it unfair that I'm comparing it so much to Skyfall and expected it to be as good- I don't think so, though, considering this movie has the same director, same screenwriters, same lead actor, a just as good actor as the villain, and even a similar story, thematically. I'm still a sucker for some 007, and I'll see the next movie with a smile on my face, especially if Daniel Craig comes back. At the risk of sounding stupid, though, Spectre left me neither shaken nor stirred.