Warning! This post contains spoilers for the new James Bond movie. If you don’t want to learn about any plot surprises, do not read on.

Daniel Craig has had a strange tenure as 007. It began with Casino Royale and promised a new, tougher, more realistic Bond, one with far more in common with the blunt instrument of government policy that Ian Fleming saw his creation as being. Craig’s Bond was a lot more human than most of the previous incarnations and yet he managed to keep the glamour associated with the character. Quantum of Solace was an odd disappointing film, then Skyfall was commercially the most successful movie of the franchise. It too was a reboot of sorts, looking back towards Bond’s tortured childhood.

Now comes Spectre and we’re once again delving into Bond’s murky past. The movie looks beautiful, has great settings and awesome set pieces and yet, as with Quantum of Solace, it ultimately disappoints. It’s let down by a number of factors, the biggest of which is lazy storytelling.

In Spectre things happen because the plot needs them to happen. Usually there is no more explanation than that. The movie opens with Bond on an unauthorised mission to Mexico. There is a spectacular assassination attempt during the Day of the Dead. Things explode, for no reason other than to set up the spectacular setpieces.

Bond eventually gets his man but not before laying waste to large sections of the city in a way that will get him suspended from duty when he gets back to London. The jokey, uneven tone of the film is set by a stunt in which he falls through a collapsing roof and lands in a sitting position on a sofa amid the rubble. It’s a moment worthy of the late-period Roger Moore incarnation of Bond and I don’t mean that in a good way.

After this we are back in London and Bond, yawn, is suspended from duty. We learn that he performed the Mexican mission at the behest of the late lamented Judy Dench version of M. She left him a recording containing instructions to kill that guy back in Mexico City and then pay close attention at his funeral. That’s it. M does not tell him why. It never occurs to our hero to question instructions from a VHS tape. SMERSH could have photoshopped the whole thing to send him on a rampage but who cares.

Then it’s off to Rome. Apparently M’s plan was that Bond find the assassin’s wife at his funeral and sleep with her. She would then reveal the location of Spectre’s HQ. The collect-the-coupons nature of the plot is fully revealed. Everything is a paper trail that leads to the next set-piece. There’s no human connection or any hint that the plot is going to make sense. Everyone exists in a fictional reality where people serve only to act as milestones in the storyline.

At the Spectre meeting we first encounter Christopher Waltz’s soft-voiced Ernst Stavro Blofeld, possibly the least frightening Bond villain ever. He’s about as menacing as an incontinent hamster. Later we will discover that Bond and Blofeld are sort of adopted half-brothers and young Ernst offed his dad because he was jealous of his old man’s affection for the orphaned Bond.

Yes, the script is really that lazy. Its a parody of Screenwriting 101. You know, everything has to be connected with family and childhood and we need to know the reasons why the villain is doing these unspeakable things. Except that it’s tosh. Blofeld has daddy issues– boo-hoo. I prefer my comic book villains a bit more comic book villainish. But I get ahead of myself.

At the Spectre board meeting we learn its a sort of cartel of international crime run in a business-like manner. Except that people apply for the position of assassin by walking into the room and poking other people’e eyes out. During the board meeting Bond discovers his next plot coupon, the location of the Spectre renegade who will lead him to the plot token beyond that. Bond is discovered, flees through Rome in an Aston Martin which he manages to crash into the Tiber, having flamethrowered his pursuers.

Next comes Austria, where Bond accepts a commission to protect the Spectre renegade’s beautiful daughter, Madelaine Swann. He tells her he is there to keep her alive, after ramming the car she is being kidnapped in with the airplane he crashes. She understandably has trouble beleiving his claim at this point.

Together they set out for Tangier to discover the next plot coupon. This consists of a drunken night destroying their hotel room, as if Led Zeppelin were playing at being secret agents. Then it’s off on a train where they are attacked by the super-assassin from Rome again. Bond and the hit man destroy half the train during the fight, yet no one else seems to be present at this point or thinks to pull the emergency cord.

The Spectre HQ is so secret, it has its own train stop. A Rolls Royce wafts our heroes to Blofeld’s luxury spa cum base in the middle of nowhere. You wonder why they bothered to send the train assassin as Bond and Swann cheerfully hop into the Spectre limousine. The baddies could just have put a bomb in the boot of the Rolls and saved themselves some trouble.

Anyway, it’s off to Spectre Central for a spot of being tortured. Mostly this consists of excruciating dialogue where Blofeld claims responsibility for every bad thing that ever happened to Bond. This is intended to make him seem omnipotent and omnipresent but just makes him seem really, really sad, as if he had nothing better to do with the gigantic international criminal conspiracy he had built. Get a life, Blofeld!

Blofeld then claims he is going to start the torture by destroying Bond’s sense of balance. The net effect of having robotic torture needles drill into Bond’s brain is to make him a better shot. Out he gets from the dentist’s chair, and off he goes to slaughter the mooks. He then destroys the Spectre base by looking at it. It’s the least thrilling destruction of a supervillain hideout I have ever seen.

Back to London for the grand finale. In theory it’s about Spectre taking control of the 9Eyes global surveillance program but actually it’s about ESB taking revenge on Bond again. Ms Swann walks off announcing that she can’t take this life anymore. She might just as well have said, “See you in 15 minutes, James. I’ll be the one strapped to the ticking bomb.”

So then we have countdowns and bombs and computer hacking. The denouement comes with a boat chasing Blofeld’s escape helicopter down the river. Bond tries to take it down with a handgun. It looks like Mexico City all over again. Our hero apparently intends to protect the citizens of London by crashing a blazing helicopter in their midst, right next to the Houses of Parliament. Which he does. With a handgun. At night. From a moving speedboat. At considerable distance. He then confronts Blofeld for the last time and refuses to kill him. Apparently the scriptwriter thought this proved Bond was a better man.

It’s Screenwriting 101 time again. There has to be an arc. The character has to change. Bond has gone from being a man who would kill a complete stranger on orders from a videotape to turning down the chance to kill the man who claims to be the author of all his miseries. Of course, there’s no visible reason why this change has occurred. It just happens because well, that’s what happens in movies. If ever there was a villain who deserved to be offed with a headshot and a crass quip, its Blofeld, if only for his annoying voice. Bond doesn’t bother. Love has made him a better man. Or something.

Don’t get me wrong. Spectre was very watchable most of the time, and not just in a train wreck, I-can’t-believe-I-am-watching-this sort of way. I like Craig’s Bond. The backing cast were great. The locations made me want to visit them. But at the end of the day, the story was a letdown. The Daniel Craig incarnation of the Bond franchise has not lived up to its early promise and that’s sad. It could all have been so much better. Hopefully next time they’ll give the script as much attention as they gave the set-pieces and the locations and the clothes.

If you’re interested in finding out when my next book will be released as well as in getting discounts and free short stories, please sign up for my mailing list.