Instruct: Classify a given review into positive or negative sentiment.
Query: A far cry from the early heights

I have read almost all of the books in this series and this one is nowhere near the best. Compared to the early books, this one is pale and weak. The plot might have been OK for 100 or 150 pages, but there's at least 150 pages of boring filler material in this one; besides, a very similar idea was used in another book not so long ago. Although slightly better than some of the other recent editions, the satire is still strained and unfunny. The characters are reduced to caricatures who exercise their "trademark" behaviors too often, like Remo absently rotating his wrists or Smith's grey suit. Lastly, the racial and scatological jokes are the product of laziness and a severe underestimation of the readers. I love the Destroyer series, but I am finding myself more and more disgusted by the low quality of the current books.