1) The Third Act Is Just Not Good Enough
Skyfall suffered from third act problems, but it at least wrapped its story up satisfyingly. Spectre, on the other hand, almost falls apart in its own final stretch. It’s a sign of the talent of everyone involved – cast, director, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and composer Thomas Newman included – that it doesn’t quite feel like an unmitigated mess, but Spectre‘s third act is still just not good enough.
The generic, reconstituted action set-pieces, the two damp squib showdowns (between Bond and Oberhauser, and M and Scott’s Denbigh), and the romantic conclusion of Bond and Swann’s affair – it’s all finalized too neatly.
You can tell why execs weren’t happy with Spectre‘s finale, as revealed in the Sony hack: the film isn’t concluded nearly as gracefully as Skyfall was.