<Snipped quote by Halo>
Half of Mexico City was gold. The Bautista fight (on the train) was gold. Everything else in the movie was god awful. Most of those shootouts made stormtroopers look like Vasily Zaitzev. A full thirty minutes of screentime was devoted to social commentary more hamfisted than Winter Soldier (and I don't say that lightly) -- which at no point involved Bond in the least regard. There was a low-speed car chase featuring Moneypenny's smoothie fridge. This was a terrible movie.
I'm glad someone else sees the Winter Soldier parallels.
They massively under utilised Andrew Scott to simplify a complex issue, because double 0s would never use secret surveillance on anyone. Christopher Waltz is always good, but also felt underutilised to a lesser extent, which is a massive shame for the character he plays. The torture was unimaginative, and there seemed to be no reason it didn't work. There wasn't enough detail given to the suggestion Bond was raised to be a spy, which could have linked the movie together better. Equally they could have unified the past bad guys much more neatly, though it was funny how they ignored Green. The chemistry between Bond and Swan was poor, and forced. It featured an inferior copy of the Vesper Lynd train scene too.
I like the start and the end I guess, the middle was very slow. Giant, silent minion was a nice throwback. The use of MI6 headquarters to reflect Scaramanga's island was pretty cool. Should have finished up like On Her Majesty's Secret Service to redeem it.