WALKING out of Skyfall I thought to myself ‘they’ll never top that’ and so it proved but Spectre (12A), Daniel Craig’s fourth outing as 007, goes pretty close.

Director Sam Mendes was persuaded back to continue the journey he set many of the characters he resurrected for Skyfall, particularly Ralph Fiennes’ M, Naomie Harris’ Moneypenny and Benjamin Wishaw’s scene-stealing gadget nerd Q.

And he has delivered an intriguing, often funny, occasionally hair-raising and always entertaining romp that sees Bond globetrotting around Mexico, Italy, Austria, Morocco and London in pursuit of Christoph Waltz’s shadowy villain – who just might know a bit more about Bond than we realise.

Along the way he makes time for 51-year-old Monica Bellucci in an uncomfortably crowbarred-in romantic encounter (which looks as if it is only there to make a point about older women) and then forms an alliance, in all senses of the word, with Lèa Seydoux, the daughter of an old adversary, as he closes in on his prey.

The hunt is set against a threat to Bond’s very existence as the Double O programme faces being shutdown by slimy political climber Andrew Scott, whose shiny new spy headquarters on the South Bank, complete with drone surveillance technology, is in sharp contrast the the crumbling edifice of the MI6 HQ over the river, which still bears the scars of the bomb that blew it apart in Skyfall.

That means retirement for Bond and M with all the government cash being spent on cost effective satellites and in formation analysts rather than Aston Martins, smart suits and five star hotel suites. How ridiculous.

Bond might be heading for his pension but having no official backing has never been a drawback for 007 and so he clocks up the air miles in the hunt for Waltz, who might just be the nemesis with whom he has been heading for a showdown since the first punch-up of Casino Royale.

Mendes and Craig are worthy custodians of the Bond legacy and they treat the character with the respect the fans crave. 

The story often echoes previous films – the jaw-dropping pre-credits sequence at Mexico’s Day of the Dead brings to mind Live And Let Die; a fight on a train has shades of From Russia With Love, Live And Let Die again and The Spy Who Loved Me and a violent dust-up at a snowy Alpine clinic is a hark back to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Of course there are issues as well. The film is too long, Seydoux’s love interest inconsistent and a bit dull, and the big reveal as visible on the horizon as the villain’s so-called secret lair.

But Craig, Fiennes, Waltz and Wishaw are all excellent, assured and achingly cool.
Craig may well have shaken not stirred his last Vodka Martini but Bond will definitely be back. He has never looked more secure.