Spectre, the latest installment in the James Bond film franchise, is a disappointing follow up to Skyfall.

While Skyfall managed to add darker and deeper layers of character to the infamous British super spy and assassin, Spectre falls numbingly flat, rendered bland with predictable clichés, senseless logic and a gigantic minefield of plot holes dappled throughout.

Director Sam Mendes, who also directed Skyfall, seems to have dropped the ball with Spectre.

The movie kicks off in a strong fashion, with a scene showing Bond (Daniel Craig) tracking down assassin and terrorist, Marco Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona), during the Festival of the Dead festivities in Mexico City.

In Bond'€™s effort to hunt down and kill Sciarra, a building blows up and both men finally end up trying to kill each other, culminating in an intense fight scene inside a helicopter, flying recklessly above the crowds of Mexicans participating in the festival below.

One might wonder how in the world the festival participants remain in a party mood when a building nearby just blew up. And this is just one of many plot holes, dug with senseless logic, shown throughout Spectre but, hey, this is a Bond world after all so, screw logic.

Bond'€™s actions in Mexico were not carried out with the official authorization of Her Majesty'€™s secret service back in London. Thus, disgusted with Bond'€™s actions and his decision to keep his mouth closed about what he was planning after, his boss, M (Ralph Fiennes), decides to ground Bond and forces upon him a smart blood application injection from Q (Ben Whishaw). The application will allow M'€™s organization to track Bond'€™s whereabouts, non-stop, 24-hours a day.

Predictably, Bond finds a way to defy M'€™s order and he goes about conducting his private investigation, a treacherous journey that will take him to Italy, Austria and the exotic desert plains of Morocco. Apparently, Bond'€™s mission is to follow up on a cryptic posthumous video message made by the previous M (Judy Dench), who was killed-off during Skyfall.

Although the late M'€™s message is unclear, at first, Bond'€™s solo investigation finally leads him to an organization named Spectre, a multinational underground criminal organization consisting of well-dressed and sophisticated rich assassins and terrorists hailing from all corners of the globe. Old school Bond film fans should be familiar with the organization, as it has been featured in the past, particularly during the golden 1960s era of the 007 franchise.

Bond'€™s investigations lead him to Franz Oberhauser (Chistoph Waltz), the leader of Spectre and a ghost from Bond'€™s past. Oberhauser, who also uses the alias, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, is supposedly Bond'€™s step brother and was thought to have been killed during an avalanche years prior.

While Bond is busy investigating Spectre and trying to kill Oberhauser, his colleagues in London '€“ M, Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Q '€“ are entangled in a power struggle with C (Andrew Scott), who is mandated by the British government to merge the MI6 secret service with the 00 organization.

It turns out that C has no interest in merging MI6 and the 00 organization. He, instead, is more interested in shutting down the 00 program. He considers it to be outdated and launches his own draconian intelligence surveillance and monitoring program.

As a move to ensure peace and order, under C'€™s new program, all people in Britain are expected to be fully monitored, around the clock, non-stop. Using this program, C is also able to spy on M and he also reveals how Bond has been defying M'€™s orders. This establishes high tension between the two bosses and eventually leads to a kill or be killed finale between the two of them.

In his quest to protect English soil from its enemies and save the world, as in previous Bond films, there are always women who accompany the icy cold yet charming super spy.

Feminists have consistently criticized the Bond franchise as misogynistic due to its depiction of women as objects that the main male character can exploit. In Spectre, there is an attempt made to address this issue by featuring two women with strong characters but, in the end, it just feels a bit awkward.

Spectre features Monica Bellucci as Lucia Sciarra, a widow whose husband was killed by Bond, but the character shows very little resistance when her husband'€™s killer charms her for sex and information, and Léa Seydoux as Madeleine Swann, the daughter of Bond'€™s old enemy, who initially refuses his advances but then falls for his charm during later scenes after the pair are involved in an intense battle scene with Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista), Spectre'€™s own super assassin.

None of the girls in Spectre end up as memorable characters. In spite of Mendes'€™ clear attempt to show these characters as strong, independent and somehow unique from previous Bond girls, both manage to end up as little more than a mere side show.

A good Bond character always needs a good villain. In Spectre, Mendes had the luxury of exploiting the huge talent of Waltz, an Austrian who had won two Academy Awards for best supporting actor and whose performance in Django Unchained earned him worldwide critical acclaim.

Yet, despite having cast Waltz to play the main villain, Mendes failed to add anything special to the Oberhauser character. The script for Oberhauser is just too weak to convince the audience of his megalomaniac motives and ambitions. There are references made to his bitter past history with Bond but, despite the 150-minute duration, the longest for a Bond film, the storyline fails to clearly define any strong reasoning for the grudge he holds against his step brother.

With a budget of nearly US$300 million, also the highest for a Bond film, Spectre is underachieving. It may possess a big name cast and a plot with the potential to explore, arguably with potential to achieve a memorable Bond film, audiences are left wanting. This addition to the Bond franchise is merely an extended version of super car and brand placement adverts filled with a plethora of boring clichés and plot holes.
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James Bond: Spectre

Director Sam Mendes
Producers Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli
Screenplay by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Jez Butterworth
Story by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade
Based on James Bond by Ian Fleming
Starring Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Dave Bautista, Monica Bellucci, Ralph Fiennes
Running Time 148 minutes

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