10 Movies Totally Ruined By Fan Service

3. Spectre

Skyfall was a pitch perfect example of how a movie can tow the franchise line while also doing something different.

Director Sam Mendes expertly melded classic Bond tropes with a distinctly modern style and tone, which Mendes himself admits was inspired by Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy (and it shows).

But follow-up Spectre, also helmed by Mendes, disappointingly felt like a regression, a misguided attempt to restore some of the "classic" irony of the Roger Moore era to the franchise.

After Skyfall, this "old school" approach felt positively stodgy, especially its egregiously questionable approach to its female characters, its rather tepid use of a brilliantly-cast Dave Bautista as a classic-style henchman, and worst of all, its treatment of re-imagined Bond villain Blofeld (Christoph Waltz).

Despite Waltz's perfect casting as Bond's most iconic enemy, the script strained too hard to create a personal connection between him and Bond, and by the time Blofeld explains that he was the puppeteer behind all of Bond's prior run-ins, it's hard not to laugh at the contrived silliness of it all.

All Spectre had to do to be a good Bond film was follow the template set by Skyfall, but for some reason the decision was made to slide back into the creakier old habits of retro Bond, which in 2015 just wasn't a good look.

If older Bond fans want to re-live the classic Bond movies, they've got more than a dozen classic-era Bond movies to watch. Let modern Bond move with the times rather than cling desperately to the past.