In his 24th outing, James Bond returns to the theater in Spectre, the highly anticipated sequel to the far superior Skyfall.

Spectre starts off promisingly enough, with a very delicious 5 minute single long shot in Mexico. We see the massive procession, men and women in costumes, and we follow Bond in a mask with girl in arms. Bond is on a mission to kill a prominent Mexican and surely enough, things go wrong and an intense chase scene ensues with the right amount of thrills, adventures and lucky escapes. We know Bond has returned to form.

I won’t get into the story a whole lot, but the basic premise is this:

• C wants to shut down the 00 operations, rendering spies like 007 useless, and bring into plan a nine security agency.
• Bond attends a funeral in Rome, where the widow tells him of a secret organization. Bond goes to the meeting and is caught out. He is pursued on yet another intense and awesome car chase.
• Bond is informed by Moneypenny about a Mr. White, former member of Quantum, who is in Austria
• Mr. White tells Bond to search for his daughter, Madeline Swann
• In the meantime, Q finds out who Oberhauser (Christopher Waltz) is; and how he leads the secret organization.
• We find out the connection between Bond and Oberhauser

For most part of the movie, Spectre keeps you engrossed and involved, till you get towards the climax where things begins to slightly fall apart and characters conform to stereotypes. Perhaps in an effort to repeat the success of Skyfall (the most profitable Bond movie to date), Sam Mendes, the director, tried going down the same route again, with back story and adding a deep gravitas to Bond’s profile.

The movie slowly begins to falters when long dialogues are spoken and one’s attention tends to drift away. But then again, Mendes know when to thrown in the action sequences, and boy, are they spectacular or what? With the opening scene in Mexico being a perfect start to the movie, along with the car chase in Rome and the whole snow filled sequence in Austria are extremely fun, the action does keep you on the edge of your seat. By the time we reach to Morocco towards the end, we are slightly bored and not sure where the movie is going.

On a side note, the movie is 2 hours 30 mins, which is fairly long. In the Pakistani cinemas, the movie has been cut by 2 minutes to censor all the kissing/ love-making scenes.

It’s not my favorite Bond movie; that accolade goes to Skyfall. But, Spectre is a decent enough of a watch at the theater. If anything, perhaps one should see this since it may be Daniel Craig’s last outing as Bond.

One does wish though that Craig would leave with a huge bang, but instead leaves via a quiet exit. One does wish that, just like when Bond orders a dirty martini, exposing his seductive and adventurous side, the audience should have been given a Dirty martini too, instead of the tried and tested straightforward martini.

3 out 5