Spectre is a 2015 film directed by Sam Mendes, and starring Daniel Craig with Léa Seydoux. It follows James Bond as he takes down a secret organization that has up until now, been the architect of all Bond’s troubles. Sadly, this Bond film doesn’t live up to the previous one, and it’s a notable downgrade from Skyfall.

Specter follows James Bond soon after the events of Skyfall. He soon discovers a shadowy organization called Spectre, that’s been behind all the previous movie’s problems. He later discovers that the person behind Spectre is none other than his half brother Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Together with his old enemy’s daughter Madeleine, he takes down Spectre.

First off, this Bond film has great action, and easily some of the best action scenes in the whole series. There are a lot of memorable scenes such as the opening one shot take during the day of the dead in Mexico, or the scene where Bond chases a car with a plane in the Austrian alps. Additionally, the organization of Spectre itself is really interesting. At one point Bond infiltrates a secret meeting in Rome, and spies on their shadowy dealings. The general air of mystery about Spectre was fascinating to me, and seeing how vast the organization was made them feel like a formidable adversary.

However, Spectre also has a lot of flaws. For starters, it has a really forgettable and silly villain, as well as an annoying Bond girl. I love Christoph Waltz, and I was very excited to hear that he was in this film. However, he’s underused severely, and frankly he just isn’t that scary. Christoph Waltz is an amazing actor, but he really wasn’t given the time or writing to really make a good character. Also, the Bond girl here, Madeleine Swann, is really annoying, and seems like she’s in a bad mood all the time. Also, this movie doesn’t seem as unique as sky fall, in that it kinda feels like they just tried to fulfill a checklist of everything a Bond film needs. It sometimes feels like it lacks soul.

Overall, Spectre is a pretty big disappointment. They had a lot of opportunities to do make a great movie, and they failed on most of them. It’s worth watching, but it’s definitely not as good as Skyfall.