This past weekend the highly anticipated "Spectre" film hit theaters, making it the third James Bond film with Daniel Craig in the title role, but how has it held up with the critics?

The success of 2012's "Skyfall" makes "Spectre" a hard act to follow, especially since this film is rumored to be Craig's last reprisal. In "Spectre," Bond is paired back with his signature group, Ralph Fiennes as the new M, Naomie Harris as Moneypenny, Ben Whishaw as Q, along with newcomers Monica Bellucci and Léa Seydoux.

Here's what the critics had to say:

Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly saw this movie as an underwhelming finale for Daniel Craig's Bond and believes "Skyfall" is partly to blame.

"The stakes are surprisingly low considering how high we're told they are. Bond is given a love interest (Léa Seydoux), and while it's nice to see a female lead who's more than a damsel in distress, she seems like a plot device. It's possible that 'Skyfall' created expectations that were too high for 'Spectre' to match. But with all he's done for the franchise, Craig deserves to go out with a bigger, smarter bang."

New York Times

New York Times feels that the movie lacked a certain element of surprise, but feels that it was well intended.

"There's nothing surprising in Spectre ... which is presumably as planned. Much as the perfect is the enemy of good, originality is often the enemy of the global box office. ... [Craig and Mendes are] a reasonable fit, although their joint seriousness has started to feel more reflexive than honest, especially because every Bond movie inevitably shakes off ambition to get down to the blockbuster business of hurling everything -- bodies, bullets, fireballs, debris, money -- at the screen."

San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle saw the film return to the original Bond formula that has worked for so many films before it.

"Spectre has everything anyone could possibly want in a James Bond movie. It has virtuoso action sequences, imaginatively crafted and meticulously filmed. It has two beautiful Bond women -- ever since Eva Green, there are no Bond girls. It has an international conspiracy that taps into the current paranoia just as the Cold War Bond movies did in the 1960s. And it has a villain who immediately enters the pantheon, both for the way the role is written and for the way it's played..."

Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times complimented the film's stunts and sets, but criticized Craig's performances and the overall story.

"Some of the individual stunts and action set pieces temporarily hold our interest -- at that cost, they'd better -- but the story itself is not convincing on its own terms, playing like a series of boxes (Bond asking for a martini shaken not stirred) that need to be checked off and forgotten. Part of the problem is that Craig, a potent actor whose resume includes Steven Spielberg's 'Munich' and playing the poet Ted Hughes in 'Sylvia,' seems to be feeling increasingly strait-jacketed as Bond."

The Hollywood Reporter

The Hollywood Reporter saw "Spectre" as no rival to "Skyfall," but sees it as a valiant effort.

"In pure action adventure terms, 'Spectre' delivers the goods, with plenty of revved-up supercar porn and several kinetic high-speed chase sequences on road, river and snowy mountain slope. Thomas Newman's busy score amps up the pulse-racing bombast, smartly invoking operatic melodrama in Rome and sinewy Arabic folk music in Morocco. Sam Smith's flimsy theme song is a weak entry in the canon of 007 classics, but admittedly it sounds better blasting out of huge cinematic speakers as Daniel Kleinman's gorgeous, gothic title credits billow across the screen. 'Spectre' contains enough dazzle and derring-do to keep the Bond brand afloat, but not enough to make it a game-changing reboot in the manner of Skyfall. Two steps forward, one step back."