Getting your full Bond back

Everything about the next James Bond film, Spectre, points to retro-classic. The title alone connotes a spirit from the past, and indeed there are many old Bond ‘ghosts’ rearing their spooky heads in the new movie, due for release in November.

Spectre is actually the name of the fictional terrorist organisation featured in Dr. No and other early Bond movies, and it seems director Sam Mendes has taken the retro theme and run a mile with it.

There are classic Bond references throughout, from Daniel Craig’s wardrobe being a return to trusty black tie, to the Aston Martin DB10 he drives looking very much like the slick wheels Sean Connery drove in the ’60s Bond flicks.

Mendes, who directed the last Bond instalment, Skyfall, said the new movie would have “everything you would expect from a Bond film, with a little more variety… maybe a little more mischief”.

It will be Daniel Craig’s fourth time playing Bond, with other returning cast members including Ralph Fiennes as spy chief M (replacing Judi Dench), Ben Whishaw as gadget-master Q, and Naomi Harris as devoted secretary Miss Moneypenny.

Even the film’s premise goes back to a key plot from 007 history, with producers revealing that “a cryptic message from Bond’s past sends him on a trail to uncover a sinister organisation”.

Back to that band of bad boys, then, SPECTRE is actually an acronym for Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. And if they were to have gone with that title, there’d have been no room on the poster for Daniel Craig’s taut body, dressed head to toe in (classic) spy couture.  Antonino Tati

‘Spectre’ is set for release in Australia on November 12.

View the trailer above.