Success breeds success, and in Hollywood, when some combination strikes lightning once, they’re going to do the exact same thing until it is no longer feasible. Three years ago, Skyfall was a revelation for the Bond franchise and its current star, Daniel Craig. With Sam Mendes (American Beauty) at the helm, no Bond movie had ever looked better, and everyone was alive with excitement. Cut to Spectre and it is clear that star Daniel Craig is just over this whole Bond thin, the writers stopped caring, Sam Mendes got bored halfway through and nobody told anyone that maaaaybe they could take out a good thirty minutes to tighten up this thing. Spectre, as it turns out, is an excellent metaphor for the film: we are looking at dead men – ghosts – drifting through scene after scene after endless, interminable scene.

When even Christoph Waltz – the same Christoph Waltz whose Hans Landa is one of the best movie bad guys of the last decade – playing one of Bond’s most iconic villains fails to raise the pulse of this movie, you know something is up. Looking back over Craig’s list of foes, Waltz fails to be as menacing as Mathieu Almaric in Quantum of Solace. Quantum of Solace! The movie nobody likes. At least Almaric had a great plot; here in Spectre, we get another ‘all-seeing eye/Big Brother is watching’ narrative. Furious Seven did a similar thing and did it way better; and that film’s climactic helicopter battle was leagues better than this one. Give me international espionage about water rights any day. Now that is terrifying.

It is a good thing James Bond is meant to be ‘half monk, half hitman’, a driven man with a nearly blank exterior. Gone is the Bond who would climb, fully dressed, into the shower to comfort Eva Green, replaced instead with all the emotional intelligence of a vodka martini, neither shaken nor stirred. Craig looks bored at best, irritated at worst. Even when he’s standing in front of a topless Monica Bellucci, his mind is clearly on what’s for dinner that evening.

Side note: why was Monica Bellucci in here? She’s not only extremely beautiful but extremely talented, too. Yet you use only the former, for two scenes.

The only people who are having any bit of fun are those who haven’t been around for the long haul. Ralph Fiennes as the new M, Naomie Harris as Moneypenny and Ben Whishaw as Q are all energized to be here; their brief shenanigans in helping to prevent an omnipresent surveillance system from going on-line may be absurd, but at least there is some caring there. I perked up whenever any of them showed up on screen; and they’re the pencil pushers! In a James Bond movie!

Raimi’s command of the action, so precise in Skyfall, lessens here. Much of it is just filler.

WWE wrestler Jose Bautista, who stole the show as Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy from 123 Movies, is relegated to a silent tough guy whose only job is to appear every now and then and bother Bond. He feels so perfunctory that you imagine he was added in later after Mendes saw that there was a good thirty-five minutes in which no punches were thrown or things blown up. The film begins with an extended ‘hidden cut single take’ shot through the crowded streets of Mexico City during the Day of the Dead celebration. The take is a terrible lie; and while technically impressive, is not that ambitious. Bond is tracking a target and the shot is broken right before all hell breaks loose. During the ensuing chase scene, we’re treated to all sorts of great effects – tracking, fighting, culminating in a ridiculous helicopter sequence that is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. I did not know that helicopters even could go upside down! However, the film never reaches that type of energy again, and you wonder if the Mexico scene was shot first before everyone stopped caring.

Spectre treats its characters rather poorly. By film’s end, James Bond has turned into a bonafide superhero, a man so powerful that he can have his brain cut into, and instead of losing a part of himself, he gains the SUPERHUMAN POWER OF AIMING. With a goddamn machine gun. Any tension left in the film is gone; Bond will not be in an ounce of trouble. Waltz – playing Blofeld – is a nonentity. He monologues incessantly and, upon surviving one exploding building, doesn’t seem to think that maybe this James Bond character could also manage the same. Worst of all, I think, is the way they toss aside Mr. White (Jesper Christensen), the one recurring villain throughout Craig’s tenure, is a waste. He was the major player for the first two, and I understand his diminished presence was meant to show us Blofeld’s power, but he’s just…tossed aside. It’s a compelling scene – Christensen is a great actor – you just want him to stick around, forever to be a thorn in Bond’s side.

Second side notes: don’t hire the guy who played Moriarty in Sherlock to play a sniveling turncoat of a bureaucrat if you want his sudden, yet inevitable betrayal to be shocking. Trust me, I’m not spoiling a damn thing for you.

With the end of Spectre, the storylines begun in Casino Royale have been wrapped up. In that regard, Spectre is a fine send-off for Craig. His story arc is complete; he is the true 007 and still, in my opinion, the best. One hopes that whoever they get to replace him – I will be very shocked if Craig returns to the role – will be a part of a new grounding of the world’s most famous secret agent. Spectre went big and loud and endless, let’s hope that when the series rises from the ashes of the demolished MI6, it will be with a reinvigorated focus and determination. But do leave the pencil pushers; like Judi Dench, they would make an excellent bridge to the new guy.