Quantum of Solace

The wife and I took some time to see Quantum of Solace this weekend and, for the most part, it was an enjoyable flick.

I say "for the most part" because the movie did try to do a bit too much, what with setting up a huge, evil organization for MI:6 to spar with in the future as well as a main bad guy for Bond to go after. Oh, and there was also another bad guy for Bond's female cohort to go after. See what I mean? The problem was that about half way through the movie I had to ask myself why Bond was going after the main bad guy in the first place. That's not a question that a filmmaker usually wants their audience asking of themselves. Luckily it wasn't too distracting what with all of the cool chase scenes and the continued excellence of Daniel Craig as 007. Upon further reflection, I was able to answer most of the questions for myself, but again, I would have preferred to have less of a story, provided it was more straightforward.

This movie retained the "realism" of Casino Royale but still made some small attempts to get back to the old Bond ways. For example, Bond meets a redhead in the movie who says that her name is Ms. Fields. When he presses her more on her name, she tells him that it's "just Fields". The credits show that her full name was Strawberry Fields. Oh the wit! Now, I liked the older Bond movies and I'm all for giving a nod to them, but let's remember that they decided to go into a new direction with Bond for a reason and cutesy names for the women in these movies is but one small step down a road that leads to Craig flying the helicopter that his phone turned into while he shoots missles out of his smoking jacket.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie, I just don't think it was as good as Casino Royale, but that's ok. They can't all be knocked out of the park. Sometimes you have to settle for a triple and be ok with that.

Finally, we were lucky enough to see the new Star Trek trailer before the movie, and holy crap. If any of the tv shows had been even a fraction as exciting as that trailer, I probably would have watched them.