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10 Reasons Why Spectre Doesn’t Top Skyfall

Sam Mendes' Spectre, the 24th entry in the James Bond franchise, is not a bad film. Critical consensus indicates it's flawed, but still basically enjoyable and artfully made by a director who's proven surprisingly adept at blockbuster filmmaking. Nevertheless, Spectre has the misfortune of following one of the greatest Bond movies of all-time: Mendes' own Skyfall. A Bond film made to simultaneously bring 007 up-to-date and celebrate 50 years of the character, Skyfall is comfortably the best of the Daniel Craig Bonds. Spectre comes in at a respectable third.

2) It’s Around 30 Minutes Too Long

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Spectre could have been leaner, to say the least. It starts invigoratingly with the Day of the Dead sequence, and doesn’t let up with the great set-pieces from there. Before long though, it’s a case of too much of a good thing, as all the great action moments stack up to inflate the relatively straightforward story to two-and-a-half hours – the longest any Bond movie has been.

That being said, Spectre is still only five minutes longer than Skyfall – yet with its bloated frame and exposition-heavy dialogue, it feels much longer. A major screenplay polish was needed to bring Spectre up to shape – a good 30 minutes of fat could have been trimmed off – but alas, the production team didn’t get the chance before wheels started turning. So, what we have now is a highly entertaining movie that occasionally feels like a slog.