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James Bond movies have always opened with thrilling set pieces, and that’s even before the credit sequence/music video for the theme song. When we first see Daniel Craig (who should probably enjoy doing what he is extremely good at, that has made him a global star, instead of wanting to get out of it) as 007 in Spectre, he is wearing a death’s head mask and a suit with a skeleton design. It is the Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico, and to go out without a costume is to call attention to one’s self. Even without seeing that rather ugly but scorchingly hot mug we know it is Daniel Craig because his posture radiates arrogance and mastery. And then there is the matter of the tailoring. We know that Q provides the cars and gadgetry, but is the tailoring also MI6-issue? Is there a portable 3D printer in the glove compartment that can produce a perfect suit in minutes? And how much lycra is in the trousers, given that they are almost tight but never rip despite his exertions?

Throughout the movie we found ourselves asking when he had time to pack. We do not believe that he dresses off the rack. We’ll assume that he knew he’d be in the Day of the Dead procession so he had his tailor make the costume, but what about his other outfits? Between fleeing goons led by Dave Bautista (How strange to see a movie in which the biggest guy is Filipino. But yay!) in the snows of Altausee and catching the train to Morocco, he manages to produce a dinner jacket, and his lovely charge with the Proustian name of Dr. Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux; to extend the metaphor she should be a neuroscientist specialising in memory) walks down the dining car in a fabulous gown.

But going back to the opening scene, Bond kisses a woman, ditches the costume, goes out the window, and walks along the roof carrying a large gun with a microphone. The point of the longish walk is to highlight his casual disregard for danger and show the celebrations below, and surely to advertise a series of videos called “Daniel Craig Walks Somewhere”, which we will pre-order. Then he takes down a building and has a fight in a helicopter, and we’ll shut up with the spoilers except to note that our friend finished an entire tumbler of popcorn during this thrilling sequence. Then there was the credit sequence/music video featuring the song by Sam Smith, which is less of a downer than the Adele song for Skyfall, but face it, there’s nothing like a big, brassy number by Shirley Bassey. The tentacle porn is kind of funny.

When we were a child back in the Cretaceous, our parents used to sneak us into revivals of the Sean Connery Bond flicks while disdaining the Roger Moore editions that were showing at the time. Spectre reminds us of the Connery movies, minus the fashionable lechery of the time, which is alluded to when a white cat jumps onto Craig’s knees and he says, “Pussy”. Moviegoers expecting the nonstop kinetics of the Bourne-Mission Impossible school will be disappointed—director Sam Mendes likes the movie to breathe between the action scenes, though at nearly two and a half hours that’s too much breathing time. Also, Mendes is so respectful of human life that whenever Bond kills a bad guy we’re not allowed to cheer. We’re supposed to feel guilty. Ayyy political correctness.

Written by Penny Dreadful showrunner John Logan and others, Spectre is about the impending obsolescence of the Double-00 intelligence program in favour of surveillance technology. The new head of MI6 is played by Andrew Scott a.k.a. Moriarty on BBC’s Sherlock, so the mere casting is a spoiler. Ralph Fiennes returns as M (the new Judi), Naomie Harris as Ms Moneypenny (Give her a spinoff), Ben Whishaw as Q, and Rory Kinnear (Frankenstein’s Monster in Penny Dreadful) as another guy whose name we didn’t catch. Fiennes, Whishaw and Kinnear are three of the finest Shakespearean actors of the day (See Whishaw and Kinnear in The Hollow Crown as Richard II and the future Henry IV), so maybe Daniel Craig should consider that as Bond he gets to be supported by these wonderful actors who are probably happy to have the parts. Also, what is the point of casting Monica Bellucci if she gets just five minutes of screen time? The snows of Altausee get more screen time (We’ve actually been to Altausee, obviously not skiing, en route to the picturesque town of Gmunden to see the toilet museum).

Christoph Waltz, also with a very good tailor, is the arch-villain who turns out to be another classic Bond villain. With a white cat, so you know who the arch-villain’s boss is.

Rating: Highly recommended