IN 1961, in “Thunderball”, Ian Fleming invented the Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion, the evil organisation controlled by Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Fifty-four years later, the Broccoli family, mega-wealthy from its choke-hold on the James Bond film brand, has raised Blofeld from the grave and re-birthed SPECTRE. World domination, that’s SPECTRE’s business aspíration. And sending James Bond to his grave continues to be Blofeld’s personal crusade.

For “SPECTRE”, producer-in-chief Barbara Broccoli engaged four scriptwriters to fashion a plot created by three writers using motifs and themes from past Bond films into a script for director Sam Mendes to follow in creating the travelogue-cum-action thriller bearing number 25 in the Bond collection, the twelfth to which Fleming contributed little more than the hero’s name.

How good is this collage of action, scenery from three continents, political intrigue, inter-agency rivalry, moles in Britain’s secret world, imaginative violence, spectacular derring-do defying several basic laws of physics and fewer beautiful women than we have come to expect from Bond-films?

Actually, better than most of its post-Fleming predecessors. Christoph Waltz brings the right combination of humour and evil to Blofeld. Lea Seydoux is strong, fragile and vulnerable as Madeleine whose blood lines make her a target for “SPECTRE’s” goons. Successor to behemoths like Oddjob and Jaws, Dave Bautista (never heard of him? Neither had I) roughs Bond up big time. Ralph Fiennes is M, Ben Wishaw is a fresh-faced Q.

“Casino Royale” birthed James Bond in 1953 fully fashioned and ready to kill for Mother England, making him now nearly a centenarian. In his 47th year, Daniel Craig continues to convince us of his credibility.

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