SPOILERS FOR SPECTRE FOLLOWS
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Saw the movie yesterday, and while I'd say that it is definetely a good movie, it was a bit of a disappointment. It also made some weird choices at times.
Let's talk the villain first, which is the main problem with the movie. Waltz does an excellent job with the role he's given, but the role itself isn't as impactful as it feels like they wanted it to. Silva was way more threatening and intense. Le Chiffre was also a much better villain overall. They tried to tie it all together and make Blofeld a bigger presence as a villain by having him be behind the events of all the previous movies. And while I think stuff like that is cool, the execution of that idea was a bit underwhelming. I didn't really get the connection between the various villains over the years. Le Chiffre and Mr White I can sort of get, but it's still pretty flimsy. And was Quantum a sub-organisation of Spectre? I guess, but why? What's the difference between those two groups? The movie never really attempts to explain. And Blofeld was connected to Silva? Same as the other movies, there is no hint at a higher power in Skyfall, so it just seems like an afterthought.
Blofeld also says at some point that he was responsible for the women in his life dying, specifically Vesper and M. Vesper died from drowning in a sinking building. Did Blofeld plan that? I don't see how he could. Also, it was Silva's plan to kill M, which might have benefitted Spectre. But Blofeld makes it sound like M dying was a punishment because Bond interfered with his work. But Silva's plan to kill M had already started before Bond had interfered. And it was super personal for Silva, he would probably have done that anyways, Bond interfering or not.
Also, he causes no damage for Bond himself in the movie. Nothing of real consequence happens here. The drilling into the skull torture scene was certainly intense, but it resulted in nothing. There was the idea that Bond might lose the ability to recognize faces, which would have been huge, but that didn't happen... for some reason... despite Blofeld actually doing the thing that was supposed to make that happen.
So all of those attempts to give more weight to Blofeld failed a bit for me, and he disappointingly ended up a not really memorable Bond villain because he never really did anything. Which is really a damn shame.
Also, some scenes were a but dragged out. One being through the stylistic choices made during the Spectre grand meeting scene. Long passages where no one says anything, there's no music, nothing really happens. I get what they were going for, I absolutely do, but I think they took it a bit too far and the scene ended up being a bit dull. It ended in a very cool way though, with Blofeld announcing that he knew Bond was there watching. And when he turned his head and looked straight at him was really cool.
Unfortunately, what followed was a way too dragged out car chase. A car chase in a movie shouldn't feel slow, but something about it was just off.
The stand-out part of the movie though was the part at Blofeld's desert headquarter. The meteorite chamber, the Blofeld speeches, the torture scene, and then the escape, all really exciting stuff.
It is also clear that they wanted to have a "final movie" feel here. But again, nothing of real impact happened to reach that goal. Skyfall felt much more like a "the last movie".
This was me really focusing on the issues though. There is still a lot to enjoy about this movie though, and like I said in the beginning, I overall think this was a really good movie. And from a visual and productional stand point, it's brilliantly made. I'd rank it above Quantum of Solace (which I like more than most), but below both Casino Royal and Skyfall.