The Bond movies have had their share of outstanding action openings like the Thames Q Boat (“The World is Not Enough”) and the Istanbul Motorcycle-Train (“Skyfall”) chases, but only a handful have been able to provide as jaw-dropping an introduction as the one here with Bond and his nemesis doing battle while hanging from an out of control helicopter above a plaza filled with thousands of Day of the Dead celebrants. This may very well be the most astounding 007 launch since Roger Moore’s 007 skied off a mountain while wearing the infamous banana suit in “The Spy Who Loved Me” and it is just about the only pre-title sequence in the series that achieves an additional instance of comparable awe with its continuous "Touch of Evil"-type opening shot. This was obviously accomplished with the help of modern technology to hide the seams much like last year’s Oscar winner “Birdman," but unlike such it isn’t there just for show as it serves to jump start the action from the very first shot, something at which the Bond films have always been second to none anyway.

A 007 film that doesn’t stretch believability has yet to be made but I can’t recall another one that has been torn apart as minutely as “Spectre." Since the movie opened last November I’ve heard repeated complaints about how unlikely and unnecessary it was for Bond and Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) to get those fabulous clothes for their Morocco train journey. This dilemma brings to mind the scenes where Roger Moore wears a tuxedo in the middle of the Egyptian dessert (“The Spy Who Loved Me”) or in the Rio de Janeiro carnival (“Moonraker”). And more than it being a matter of practicality or realism, I’m convinced they were done that way on purpose in order to get a laugh at their own absurdity, something essential to every Bond movie. I’ve also heard more than a few skeptical comments on how Bond and Madeleine could ever find a perfectly positioned net at the bottom of the MI6 building to cushion their fall. But if you’ve ever been to any site that’s under construction or renovation you’ll surely have noticed similar arrangements to prevent workers from getting hit by debris (my first impression upon once seeing such on the Empire State Building facade years ago was that it was there to save potential suicide jumpers!). Some were also puzzled by the size of the explosion that destroys the villain’s hideaway, the result of Bond shooting a simple valve, but I assume that any facility housing an army of hundreds in the middle of the dessert would have to be self sufficient and as such require a great deal of fuel to run, besides, a crime organization that invested its human trafficking profits into going Green may not have made much sense. Perhaps next time around Blofeld will consider hiding what was basically his lair’s self destruct lever behind a fake wall and under key, as he once did in his old Japanese Volcano.

Of greater concern to me was Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography and his tendency to suck the reds and blues from the screen, applying instead a never ending supply of yellowish-browns. Hoytema’s golden tones in the L’Americain and train sequences were sensational, but overall the film looks much too flat. Case in point is the otherwise spectacular plane sequence in the Austrian Alps where the colors were toned down to a point where it’s hard to differentiate between the sky and the mountain peaks. Additionally, the nighttime London and the interior of the abandoned MI6 building were lit so dimly, they could barely be appreciated. The end result might be close to what they would look under such conditions, but just remember how spectacular Roger Deakins was able to make the similarly natured subway tunnels from “Skyfall” in what’s surely the best looking Bond movie ever. I also think that Daniel Kleinman’s nightmarish opening titles represent one of the his lesser efforts, especially the images of a shirtless Craig surrounded by several female arms meant to invoke the SPECTRE octopus, much like designer Maurice Binder once did with Roger Moore for “Octopussy” but not with quite as much class. In past title sequences we’ve had images of romance and horror (think of the burning skull from “Live and Let Die”) but never in the same frame and when the leading couple is shown wrapped around an octopus’ tentacles, this look more like the titles for “Alien” than for a Bond movie.