SPECTRE FIRST REVIEW: Bond is back - and with a bang - in a movie that warrants ALL the hype with 007 returning to his murderous, glamorous best
Glamorous: Spectre features the oldest of all Bond 'girls' in 51-year-old Monica Bellucci, pictured with Daniel Craig in Rome during filming earlier this year
Spectre (12A)
Rating: 
Does it warrant all the hype, the secrecy, the breathless anticipation? Indubitably, yes.
From the exhilarating pre-credits sequence, against the backdrop of the Day of the Dead festival in Mexico City, to a spectacular denouement in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament, Spectre is a proper joyride of a James Bond film.
It features everything (with the exception of a really memorable theme song) that most of us hope for in a 007 picture: great gadgets, stunts, and a handful of laugh-out loud one-liners
Will it overtake Bond’s last outing, Skyfall, which took over $1 billion at the global box-office, to become the most successful British-made film ever? Well, it stands every chance.
And we live in record-breaking times. Spectre not only features the oldest of all Bond “girls” in 51-year-old Monica Bellucci, it is also, at nigh on two and a half hours, the longest of all 24 Bond films.
Just occasionally in that time, the narrative becomes muddled. Yet at no point does the action flag, or our interest sag.
It is a pleasure, too, to find Bond back in control of his own destiny. As good as Skyfall was, it was disconcerting to see him quite so vulnerable.
Here, even though the story follows on from Skyfall and has the same director in Sam Mendes, Daniel Craig’s 007 seems more in keeping with Ian Fleming’s original creation.
For the most part he is the embodiment both of murderous ruthlessness, and debonair glamour. It’s always good to see Bond in a white dinner jacket.
Fleming would also applaud a striking super-villain in Christophe Waltz’s Franz Oberhauser, who, intriguingly, knows Bond of old, long before the licence to kill.
In flames: For the most part Craig is the embodiment both of murderous ruthlessness, and debonair glamour
Aerial battle: New 007 film Spectre features great gadgets, stunts, and a handful of laugh-out loud one-liners
Romance: The narrative is occasionally muddled - yet at no point does the action flag, or our interest sag
But is Oberhauser really Ernst Stavro Blofeld, as rumours have had it for months? You’ll find no spoilers here.
I can report that Spectre is downright playful in its multiple nods to previous Bond films, going all the way back to From Russia With Love.
And although Judi Dench’s M expired in Skyfall, she lives beyond the grave, leaving a video message for Bond to pursue and kill an assassin called Sciarra.
That’s what takes him to Mexico, thence to Rome for Sciarra’s funeral, and a tryst with the not-so grieving widow (Bellucci).
Explosive: Traditionalists will exult as Bond hasn’t grappled with Spectre since Diamonds Are Forever in 1971
Shooting practice: If it does prove to be Craig’s final hurrah after four goes at it, he’s exiting with a bang
Shaken, not stirred: Spectre, out on October 26, is downright playful in its multiple nods to previous Bond films
Incidentally, much has been made of Bellucci’s age; four years Craig’s senior. Well, three cheers for the casting director. She could hardly be sexier.
The name's Bond: Spectre is downright playful in its multiple nods to previous 007 films
But in truth the real Bond girl here is Dr Madeleine Swann, the daughter of another of Bond’s foes, played by 30-year-old Lea Seydoux.
Spectre does not quite strike the blow for older women that we were led to expect.
It is Dr Swann who reveals the name of a shadowy organisation bent on world domination and known, you’ve guessed, as Spectre.
Again, 007 traditionalists will exult; Bond hasn’t grappled with Spectre since Diamonds Are Forever in 1971.
Meanwhile, as Bond follows Oberhauser from Rome (where there’s a marvellous car chase by the Tiber) via the Austrian Alps (a memorable pursuit down a mountain) to Morocco (a fabulous grapple on a train), there is office in-fighting back in London, where the uppity new head of the Centre for National Security, codenamed C (Andrew Scott), is challenging the authority of M (Ralph Fiennes).
In this alphabet soup of a confrontation, C thinks that M and Q (Ben Whishaw) should stop sending agents into the field, relying instead on drones.
It is a neat nod to 21st century espionage and warfare.
Yet this film is very much a throwback.
And if it does prove to be Craig’s final hurrah after four goes at it, he’s exiting – and this isn’t a spoiler, I promise - with a bang.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/reviews/article-3283684/Spectre-review-Bond-s-white-suit-spectacular-joyride-film-BRIAN-VINER-says-Spectre-warrants-hype.html#ixzz3pHLlm7wA
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