“Spectre” sees the James Bond franchise return as a ghost of its former self. Following the tremendous success and critical acclaim of its predecessor, “Skyfall,” the newest Bond film had big shoes to fill but ultimately fell short of greatness.

The 24th installment of the franchise sees Daniel Craig return for the fourth film of his five film contract playing the role of James Bond. Craig has stated before that he is tired of his role and it is currently up in the air whether or not he will return to play Bond in the series’ next film. “Spectre” also sees the return of “Skyfall” director Sam Mendes. The film opened in theaters everywhere on Nov. 6.

The film opens strongly with an exciting chase scene set in Mexico City on the Day of the Dead. “Spectre” keeps the momentum going throughout the first half of the film, but loses its magic with redundant action scenes that outweigh the plot. The second half of “Spectre” feels thrown together and confusing for any viewer, Bond fan or not. It relies too heavily on cliches and incorporates too many unnecessary and not-so-surprising plot twists to stand out from any other films in the franchise.

The film reintroduces James Bond’s traditional archenemy, Ernst Blofeld, leader of the mysterious organization known as SPECTRE from which the film takes its title. Blofeld is portrayed by two time Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz. Waltz does an excellent job at portraying the classic Bond villain as the sadistic megalomaniac that he is. Unfortunately for the viewers, Blofeld does not appear as much as one would expect of the main villain. Much of his character, such as motive, is also left in the dark. There is very little detail given on the nature of SPECTRE and there is only a brief mention of its connection with the earlier Daniel Craig films in the franchise.

A large portion of the film deals with the diminishing usefulness of secret agents in the modern age of technology (a concept that should have been buried along with “Skyfall” villain Silva). The film’s overreliance on this theme seems like an attempt to prove that the James Bond franchise is still relevant in today’s society (which is already so inherently obvious that it does not need to be proved). The scenes that dealt with this were not only unnecessary, but also incredibly boring and consumed time that could have otherwise been spent on Bond’s struggle with Blofeld.

“Spectre” can most likely be seen as a transition film for the series between “Skyfall” and whatever may follow. In this respect, assuming the elements left out from the plot are dealt with in the subsequent film, then “Spectre” does its job excellently and sets the series up for a very good follow-up (especially with the expectations from “Skyfall” out of the way).

Despite the shortcomings in the plot, there were several aspects of “Spectre” that upheld the quality of Bond films that we have come to expect. The action scenes, although overly plentiful and sometimes drawn-out, were very exciting and were accompanied by a very well done musical score that incorporated elements from old school James Bond and modern day action films. The script was also sprinkled with many examples of subtle (and not-so-subtle) humor which, in addition to the action scenes, made the movie very enjoyable and worth seeing.