The 24th Bond film, and the penultimate one starring Daniel Craig as 007, Noshi and me sat down to watch this movie.
A posthumous message from the previous M leads MI6 agent James Bond to carry out an unauthorized mission in Mexico City on the Day of the Dead, where he stops a terrorist bombing plot. Bond kills Marco Sciarra, the terrorist leader, and takes his ring, which is emblazoned with a stylised octopus.
Upon his return to London, Bond is suspended from field duty by Gareth Mallory, the current M, who is engaged in a power struggle with Max Denbigh (whom Bond dubs "C"), the Director-General of the new, privately backed Joint Intelligence Service formed by the merger of MI5 and MI6. C campaigns for Britain to join the global surveillance and intelligence initiative "Nine Eyes", and uses his influence to close down the '00' field agent section, which he believes is outdated.
Bond disobeys M's orders and travels to Rome to attend Sciarra's funeral. He saves and seduces Sciarra's widow, Lucia, who tells him Sciarra belonged to an organisation of businessmen with criminal and terrorist connections. Bond uses Sciarra's ring to infiltrate a meeting to select Sciarra's replacement, where he identifies the leader, Franz Oberhauser. After hearing Oberhauser give the order for the "Pale King" to be assassinated, Bond is pursued across the city in his Aston Martin DB10 by the organisation's assassin, Mr. Hinx, driving a Jaguar C-X75. Eve Moneypenny informs Bond that the Pale King is Mr. White, a former member of the organisation's subsidiary Quantum who had fallen afoul of Oberhauser. Bond asks her to investigate Oberhauser, who was presumed dead 20 years earlier.
Bond locates White in Altaussee, Austria, where he is dying of thallium poisoning. He tells Bond to find and protect his daughter, psychiatrist Dr. Madeleine Swann, who will take him to L'Américain in order to locate Oberhauser; White then commits suicide. Bond confronts Swann and rescues her from Hinx and his forces. The pair meet Q, who links Oberhauser to Bond's previous missions, identifying Le Chiffre, Dominic Greene and Raoul Silva as agents of the same organisation, which Swann identifies as SPECTRE.
Swann takes Bond to L'Américain, a hotel in Tangier, and they discover that White left evidence directing them to Oberhauser's base at a crater in the Sahara. Taking a train to a remote station, Bond and Swann encounter Hinx, who gets ejected from the train in the ensuing fight, and are escorted to Oberhauser's base. Oberhauser reveals that SPECTRE has funded the Joint Intelligence Service while staging terrorist attacks around the world, creating a need for the Nine Eyes programme. In return, C will give SPECTRE unlimited access to intelligence gathered by Nine Eyes, allowing them to anticipate and counteract investigations into their operations. Bond is tortured as Oberhauser discusses their shared history: after Bond was orphaned, Oberhauser's father, Hannes, became his temporary guardian. Jealous of his father's affection for Bond, Oberhauser killed his father, staged his own death, adopted the name Ernst Stavro Blofeld and went on to form SPECTRE and target Bond; he reveals that he is ultimately responsible for several tragedies in Bond's life, such as the deaths of M and Vesper Lynd. Bond and Swann stun Blofeld by setting off an explosive wristwatch at his face, and the two escape to London to prevent Nine Eyes from going online.
In London, Bond and Swann meet M, Q, Bill Tanner and Moneypenny with the intention of arresting C. Swann and Bond are separately abducted by SPECTRE operatives, while the rest of the group proceed with the plan. After Q succeeds in preventing Nine Eyes from going online, a struggle between M and C ends with C falling to his death. Bond is taken to the ruins of the old MI6 building, scheduled for demolition after Silva's bombing. Blofeld - still alive, but now scarred over his right eye - tells Bond that he must escape before explosives are detonated in three minutes' time, or die trying to save Swann. Bond finds Swann and they escape by boat as the building collapses. Bond shoots down Blofeld's helicopter, which crashes onto Westminster Bridge. Blofeld survives and manages to crawl away from the wreckage, only for Bond to confront him at gunpoint. Blofeld dares Bond to kill him, but Bond refuses and instead leaves him to be arrested by M; he reunites with Swann and the two leave the bridge.
