It won't be a massive surprise to anyone who has smartly been keeping their expectations in check, but the almost universal consensus is that Spectre simply isn't a patch as good as Skyfall, and in fact is even hurt by the inevitably direct comparisons to it. Our own Alex Leadbeater said, "the biggest problem with Spectre is being a follow up to Skyfall", noting its overt effort to tether itself to the previous film plot-wise, which certainly only exacerbates the tendency for the viewer to compare them. Reviewers on the whole used phrases like "placeholder" and "formula-driven" to describe it, with only a few outliers sticking to their guns and declaring it a genuinely great film in its own right, such as the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Star, both of whom gave it 5-stars. Most seem to concede that it's a middle-tier Bond flick: not as disappointing as Quantum of Solace, but a pretty far cry from the brilliance of Casino Royale and Skyfall, as well as Bond's other top-shelf outings.