Istanbul: Somebody’s stolen a hard drive with info sensitive enough that … oh, who cares? Bond is giving chase, and that’s all that matters — cars careening through bazaars, motorcycles flying across rooftops until Daniel Craig’s 007 lands atop a speeding train.
“Atop” is a problem, though; how to get inside? Maybe by commandeering a derrick from a car in back, ripping a hole in the roof of a passenger car and leaping through the hole just as the back of the car tears off. Landing in the aisle, Bond straightens his jacket cuffs, squares his shoulders and heads off to get the bad guy.
Imagine Bourne doing that. Oh, sure, he could do the leaps and stunts — but the cuff-check? No way. Seals the deal. And we’re not even to the opening credits yet.
Viewers with long memories will be aware that 007 knows this territory. Both trains and Istanbul figure in From Russia With Love, the second — and to many of us the best — Bond film thus far. Skyfall‘s blistering Turkish opening is the first hint (of many; there’s an Aston Martin coming) that director Sam Mendes is deliberately calling up the good old days, back when Q (Ben Whishaw in this new incarnation) wasn’t handing out quite so many implausible gizmos, and when Sean Connery was the only imaginable Bond.