One of the film's problems is that I think Mendes and co. had a bunch of ideas that should have been used to rewrite the script as they went along. Like Batista's Mr. Hinx; Mendes and Batista clearly decided to make him intelligent and clever, but nobody had the initiative to order the kind of on-set rewrites that might have benefitted the character. It seems indicative of disinterest in the story and innovation that were major components of ten previous three films.
- One of issues with Spectre here is that it's presentation is just the same one we've seen in the 60s and in the Austin Powers movies; the Quantum organization had a great deal of imagination in its creation. It felt modern and updated, all things that were missing from Spectre. I loved having everyone scared of Oberhauser, but it would have been better to have him mysterious until the end, and then give him serious and consecutive screen time.
- The entire Spectre base felt like a parody to me; that may be a generational thing, since I was a pre-teen and teenager when I watched the original movies and the Austin Powers series. Again the execution was cool, but it felt so banal and generic. Bloefeld had a freakin volcano lair in the 60s; a crater housed hipster palace ain't going to cut it. And since they're most atmospheric area was the bombed out remains of the original M-I6 building, that would have made a better and more surprising HQ.
- The train sequence just felt weak to me. The romance angle is a pale imitation of Casino Royale, and while Seydoux is good, she's not portrayed in any way that would really surprise you, instead going through the kind of clichéd "will you ever leave this life? conversation that showed up in 1980's Schwartzenegger. Then Hinx shows up for a fight that seems fun, but has no tension. In fact, it's perfunctory, not fun; like the script writer said "okay, enough of that, time to try and recapture some From Russia With Love magic!" Imagine how much better it would have been if we saw both men getting serious injuries as the fight progressed, and maybe even end it on a serious "Bond can't do the horizontal mambo right now, he's in serious pain" note.
- And the climax is really sad compared to the previous film entries. Bang bang, game's over. Seriously, that was kind of sad.
- And one thing that just sticks in my craw is how they handled the exposition and the tying of the film's together. You've got Mr. White, the direct link to CR and QoS, and to the Quantum organization; why not just have him provide a quick briefing of the ties between the groups. Or Oberhauser's grudge; have Bond explain it to Swan, maybe give us some serious first hand context for all of that. But if they focused on making it sound better, they might have realized how they went too far with some of the reveals; there's no real way to sweep Silva's autonomy under the rug like they tried. There should have at least been some kind of "Spectre found a man with common interests and funded him" explanation, but instead they try to retcon him.
