They’ve finally managed to take a almost guaranteed entertaining movie franchise and turn it into a another routine, generic action film. From the ridiculous opening sequence (a building explodes and helicopter is diving towards the ground yet the area is still packed with people?) straight the way through to the anti-climatic ending it never really felt like a Bond movie and always felt like it was trying to reach the plot of a Mission Impossible or Bourne film.

It was disappointing to see Sam Mendez delivery something this poor given the excellent work he had done with Skyfall but perhaps this is down to the deplorable script which was filled with (I wont give any spoilers in case you still have to see the movie) so many plot holes it felt like the writers all wrote different parts to the movie but never compared notes and the final ‘twist’ was the worst of all.

While some may have had issue with the number of women the Bond character has bedded over the years in general, there was always some form chemistry between Bond and the ladies however if this spark was present between Daniel Craig and Léa Seydoux then I must have looked away for a second and missed it as they never left like a couple and their ‘romance’ was nowhere near believable. What was the hype over Monica Bellucci  being the oldest Bond woman ever, while I’m not doubting her beauty, she was on screen for all of two minutes. I was expecting her to play a central character but she disappears from the screen as quickly as she appears.

The acting talents of Christoph Waltz were vastly underused and I can only hope that as Blofeld he will be given some better material in future movies, although that is supposedly only going to happen if Daniel Craig stays on as Bond. On that point perhaps he has done as well as he could with what was an awful script and potentially poor casting but I think it’s best if Craig leaves it here before he undoes the great work he has done bringing Bond into the modern era with both Casino Royale and in particular Skyfall as he looked bored for most of the movie. (Idris Elba time perhaps?) From an acting point of view the only real bright spots in the movie were the further development of Ben Whishaw into a Q character for the modern age and Ralph Fiennes who is very believable as a more hands on M who gets out from behind his desk and is not afraid to get his hands dirty.

It will be interesting to see where this franchise goes from here as, while I have no doubt there will be another appearance by Bond, unless the quality is better it could be the start of a slippery slope given how much the bar was raised by Ghost Protocol.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5.5 out of 10