Sandy Kenyon struggles to find excitement in new 007 film 'Spectre'

NEW YORK (WABC) -- 007 is back in theaters this weekend, as the latest installment of the franchise brings Daniel Craig back to the big screen in his fourth film as James Bond.

The spy's new adventure reportedly cost a quarter of a billion dollars to make, but viewers just have to worry if Spectre is worth the cost of a movie ticket.

Craig's Bond is still bold, but also kind of blah, which seems odd given how hard everyone clearly worked to make this movie. He pushed one scene so far that he got injured, and between the opening montage in Mexico City, the car chases and the derring-do, it seems poor form to complain. But it is also hard to find the excitement.

The heat Craig once generated as "Bond, Jame Bond," is hard to come by, and after two dozen films, the franchise is getting old. Especially since Bond is romancing ladies so much younger than himself.

French actress Lea Seydoux is miscast, her trademark sensuality dialed way down, and the script, credited to four different writers, is just as much of a hodge-podge as that number would suggest. Sure, all of the familiar bits are there, but without much coherence, it is a movie in search of a unifying theme.

So is Spectre as good or even better than Skyfall? Sadly, it is not.