The first hour and a half here is fantastic. I loved the little nod to Live and Let Die and I thought they did a great job blending real stunt work with blue screen shots for a very raw and impactful helicopter fight sequence. The evil board meeting that Bond infiltrates looked amazing and felt genuinely ominous. Batista’s metal thumbnail thing is kind of lame but they still used his brawn and presence to bring to life a very threatening ultra-Oddjob type character. The car chase afterward was EXCELLENT and probably the best of the Craig era. The airplane chase also nears the top of the list for best sequences. Say what you will about these movies but they weren’t pulling any punches in this one action-wise. Seydoux is stunning and one of the most interesting Bond girls by a mile but naturally they squander it. Nothing unusual there sadly so I’ll take it for what it’s worth. I consciously decided to temper my expectations for Walz as Blofeld and somehow I was still immensely let down. The man is a one trick pony if ever one existed. Great writing can make amazing things out of that but we didn’t get that here. Tbh it seems like they were so unsure of what to do with Blofeld that they shoved every lazy/bad idea they had into him and it just fails miserably (literally closed my eyes in anger when he revealed himself to be Bond’s step-brother). I really can’t wrap my head around it. It’s the exact opposite of his original introduction to the series where we not only didn’t even see his face but he wasn’t even directly involved in the story, leaving the entirety of his plan to be handled by an underling. I really can’t say enough bad things about this ending lmao but I don’t want to harp. Overall the movie is a success for me because of the outstanding first 90 minutes. That’s enough greatness to be its own movie and I don’t think it should be cast aside for failing to stick the landing.