Spectre. The fourth and possibly the last time we will see Daniel Craig don the famous Walter PPK, although I am confident that Spectre WILL supersede Sam Mendes’ previous contribution to the bond franchise. Following on from the enormous success of Skyfall that grossed just over a billion dollars worldwide shortly after it was released in 2012, it was clear that the stage was to be set on a much grander scale for the ultimate unveiling of Spectre. From an array of exotic locations from Morocco to Rome, Austria, Mexico City to Bond’s hard-hitting political roots of London, it seems every effort had been implemented to slingshot the modern depiction of 007 to even greater heights. The intertextuality within Spectre was greatly nostalgic with references to some of the earliest Bond productions including You Only Live Twice (1967) & Goldfinger (1964) although I do feel this diluted the depth of the sinister past between Bond and the man behind the terrorist organisation, Spectre. We see Christopher Waltz(Inglourious Basterds [2009] Django Unchained [2012]) as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and I thoroughly enjoyed the ambiguity surrounding his identity and his connection to 007 whilst still maintaining the traditional omniscient presence of the archenemy. For years we have seen various interpretations of Ian Fleming’s Blofeld; the epitome of a supervillian; his blue eyed white chinchilla, the evil lair, only such a satire Mike Myers could manage to get away with. Dave Bautista’s character doesn’t seem to be much more than a mute psychotic bodybuilder although most of the Spectre henchman from as far back as the 70’s never seem to have much more than a physical role and I believe giving him a spoken part would only humanise him and defy the tradition of Spectre’s robot-like killers. Ralph Fiennes character of ‘M’ did seem to progress in exactly the same way as Skyfall, which I did find annoyingly typical of the whole modern VS traditional argument surrounding MI6. For anyone watching Spectre in the hope of seeing Monica Belucci caught up in a girl-girl fistfight wearing a bikini made of fishing wire, you’ll be sadly disappointed by her extremely brief role within Spectre, but this really didn’t annoy me at all. I can respect that the success of any Bond film shouldn’t purely hang on the shoulders of its leading female but I can’t be convinced that it would be Léa Seydoux to be yet another woman to steal 007’s heart, this should have stopped with Eva Green, but that’s another story. For me I feel it was all a bit too cliché and for anyone priding themselves on being somewhat of a Bond enthusiast, the disjointed storyline progressing with suspense and disappearing after every ‘narrow’ escape annoyed me too much to be able to put Spectre on the same spectrum as Casino Royale (2006) . In Daniel Craig’s first role as James Bond we are shocked to see a usually untainted gentleman talking his way out of any situation repeatedly hanging by a thread; battered and bruised, poisoned and mutilated beyond any such imagination of us men that quiver like a leaf during a routine ball-check by the GP, but this is Bond and he is invincible. We know that he’s going to eventually erupt from his restraints and shag your wife on the way out, but don’t by any means make it too easy for him. This was my main annoyance with Spectre but I do understand that it’s purpose was to delve deeper into Bond’s past rather than be overwhelmed by an unnecessarily violent display of action. Overall I did enjoy Spectre, purely because it features the end of a nine year storyline marking Daniel Craig’s contribution to the bond franchise as well as the traditional themes and typical bad-ass-ery featured in the more recent, modern depiction of the classic 007. Hopefully in the next five or so years Il be seeing Christopher Waltz out of jail, terrorising the world once again, and it’s not Idris Elba chasing him.