Perhaps it's my own fatigue with the Bond franchise and the knowledge of exactly where it will go and how things will turn out that makes the old-fashioned and nicely campy Spectre not as gripping a ride as I would have wanted it to be.

| Jan 2, 2019

It is a tired retread that offers little new or original, taking 007 to the one place he's arguably never been before: irrelevance.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 22, 2016

Daniel Craig recently said that he'd rather "kill himself" than do another Bond film -- and in Spectre, his misery shows.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 12, 2016

'Spectre' isn't the best of these films, but it may well be the most thought-provoking, because there's always something fascinating about art at war with itself.

| May 3, 2016

On some level, Spectre is a betrayal of the More Serious Bond promised in Casino Royale. But it's also the first Bond film in a long time that actually lets you have fun with it.

| Dec 7, 2015

Instead of propelling Spectre over the top where it belongs, Waltz instead becomes its unhappy avatar, the thinly grinning face of sadly diminished returns.

| Dec 7, 2015

Spectre is sloppier than other recent Bonds, but it also feels like it's exhausted the idea that fueled the franchise's relaunch -- darker and more realistic can only last so long when it's paired with a rotating cast of Bond girls and supervillains.

| Nov 9, 2015

I regard it as a ravishing exercise in near-despair, with Bond beset by the suspicion that, were he to desist, both his character and his cause would be unmasked as a void. Killing is his living, and his proof of life.

| Nov 9, 2015

Dazzles early and fizzles late...Bond is not Batman; he does not need an origin story.

| Nov 7, 2015

There are signs of Bond bloat within many of the action sequences - it must be hard to trim such extravagant footage - but they are at least partly overcome by an increase in levity.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 6, 2015

The problem may be that Mendes is trying to offset the inherent pulpiness of the series by playing up the class.

| Nov 6, 2015

Spectre falls somewhere in the middle; it's not as routine as some of the Roger Moore films, but it falls short of the high standard set by the earlier Craig films and almost all the Connery films.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 6, 2015

If one of the most successful and long-running franchises in movie history wants to keep pumping, it's once again time to change the formula.

| Original Score: C+ | Nov 6, 2015

It's just too bad the rest of Spectre is such a disappointment -- relative not just to its opening scene, but to other recent Bond films.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 6, 2015

For the most part, it's efficient-enough Bond fare - overlong car chases, beautiful women in eternal danger, crazy stunts, suave cool under fire. Nice fitting suits.

| Original Score: B- | Nov 6, 2015

If this chapter, reportedly Craig's last as Bond, is not up to the "Skyfall" level, it is still a solid entry in this series.

| Original Score: B+ | Nov 5, 2015

The result is fun, even if it's a mishmash, leaving you shaken, not stirred.

| Nov 5, 2015

Landing short of the "Skyfall" bar, "Spectre" still glides in at an above average action fare film.

| Nov 5, 2015

By the time Spectre reaches its conclusion, the backstory has become so fraught, the motives so unclear, and the layers of scheming by the villains so convoluted that it's exhausting.

| Nov 5, 2015

A gorgeous and dreamlike but ultimately frustrating Bond film. I blame Mendes.

| Nov 5, 2015