Word: film
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...Bond films want to remain faithful, in their fashion, to the Ian Fleming fictions that spawned them. But Fleming wrote only 12 Bond novels and eight short stories before his death in 1964, back when only two of the films had been released and nobody dreamed that the series would reach, as it has now, 22 "official" features over 46 years. (There were two rogue Bonds: a comedy version of Casino Royale in 1967, not to be confused with the one released two years ago, and Never Say Never Again, a Sean Connery solo project, in 1983.) So this time...
...Bond, starring Daniel Craig in his second spin as 007, had its gala premiere in London Wednesday, with the Princes Harry and William in attendance. The film opens in Britain, France and Sweden today, in 61 Asian, European and South American countries next week, and in the U.S. Nov. 14. So this review is for TIME.com international readers' eyes only. The rest of you, no peeking for two weeks. For now, we'll just say you have some thrills and rough fun in store...
...overseas readers will recall - they'd better, if the plot and emotions of this film are to make any sense - that the 2006 Casino Royale was a conscious return to the young agent on his first big case as an operative of Her Majesty's Secret Service. While dispatching the usual number of foreign villains, he falls for the lustrous Vesper Lynd (as in West Berlin; Fleming was addicted to pun names for his Bond girls), an agent for the British Treasury Service. A misunderstanding about Vesper's motives leads to her death, for which Bond blames himself. Quantum...
...film had the longest running time in the series: 2hr.24. This one, the first true Bond sequel, is the shortest, at 1hr.46, and it wastes no time shifting into high gear. It begins in the middle of a car chase, with Bond's Aston Martin being pursued by a convoy of nasty cars on the hairpin turns of a mountain road outside Siena, Italy. Doesn't matter if the bad guys have enough artillery to stock a Third World uprising; Bond's superior driving skills, and the series' reluctance to kill off its hero in the first reel, make...
...trusted bodyguard to pull a gun on her and reveal himself as a Quantum hireling. More fighting and chasing and leaping, intercut with the running of Il Palio, the famous horse race held in a Siena's main piazza. Director Marc Forster - known for gimmicky art-house films like Finding Neverland, Stranger Than Fiction and The Kite Runner - turns out to be a natural as the helmer of a high-energy, high-gloss action film. He also holds the viewer's powers of concentration and retention in such high regard, he often has two action scenes going at once...