Dull, plodding, nonsensical waste of some of the Bond franchise’s most iconic material. As disappointing as Quantum of Solace, but without the excuse of a writers’ strike or Marc Forster’s uneven hand at the helm.

The enormous success of Skyfall, with its nostalgia-driven inter-film continuity, seems to have steered the Bond brain trust badly awry. Spectre’s wretched excuse for Marvel-style world-building is the result.

Not having been given anything resembling clear motivations or believable reactions to play, the various players…

A beautifully shot and thrilling film that goes badly wrong in its last hour, becoming a pastiche of half a dozen films held together by limp fan service. The movie quite literally goes off the rails after the absurd plan by the pathetic villain is revealed, and never recovers.

Skyfall looked gorgeous the first time I saw it—on opening day, perched in my preferred seat in front of an eight-story IMAX screen—and it looks gorgeous on Blu-Ray. Unfortunately, the insufferably…

For years, the Bond franchise was fundamentally unsound, slowly sinking into tragic irrelevance like a flooded Venetian building. Casino Royale reversed the trend, but all restorations are an act of skilled interpretation. Even as it claims to return to the ruthlessness of Fleming’s original character, the film makes structural adjustments in line with modern best practices, and surface concessions to current taste. The precise nature of the ornament—from parkour to poker—is unimportant, and little different in any event from the…