Director: Sam Mendes

Starring: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Léa Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Wishaw, Naomi Harris, Andrew Scott, Dave Bautista, Jesper Christensen, Monica Bellucci, Rory Kinnear

SPECTRE, the Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion, has an iconic place in the James Bond series, with the evil organisation having been 007’s nemesis in six of the first seven films. But in the 1960s, Kevin McClory, the co-author of Thunderball, launched legal action against Ian Fleming after Fleming failed to give him appropriate credit for the novel, and was awarded sole rights to the SPECTRE name. For this reason, despite its iconic status, SPECTRE has not been mentioned in a Bond film since Diamonds are Forever in 1971. In 2013, four decades and sixteen Bond films later, a deal was struck between the McClory estate and MGM to return the rights, and the studio wasted no time in reintroducing SPECTRE into the fold, placing it front and centre in Bond 24, called, unsurprisingly, Spectre.

After receiving a secret message from an old ally, James Bond (Daniel Craig) goes rogue on what starts out as an assassination mission in Mexico City and ends up in Rome with the discovery of a secret organisation that has been behind many of the villains he has faced in the recent past. Continue reading →