The first Bond movie I ever saw — ever! — was GoldenEye. I was seventeen. Went with my Dad to some crappy theater in Columbia Town Center that was demolished, I’m sure, many years ago. For me, Pierce Brosnan has always been the only person capable of being James Bond, because he was my first Bond, the actor I associated with that role for eleven years. I sometimes thought Brosnan would always be the only person I ever, ever, identified as Jimmy Bond.

Right up until that very late Tuesday night, my first semester back in school after I went back, when after spending thirteen hours on campus, I did not drive home and go to sleep like I wanted to, rather, I drove to the Regal theater in Hunt Valley, plopped down some cash, and sat for two and a half hours watching Casino Royale (let me tell you, my ass was sore after all that sitting), I left with the feeling that I could never quite watch a Brosnan film quite the same way again: I mean, all the gadgets have always seemed a little ridiculous to me, something most of the Bond films have shared, but even when I watched a Moore film, or a Connery film, or whatever, I’d watch those actors and think, “That’s not Bond.” I know it’s sacrilege to suggest that anyone other than Connery could ever be anyone’s ideal of Bond, but that’s how I felt about Brosnan, so imagine my surprise when I now picture Craig Daniels as James Bond.

Maybe it’s because Casino Royale felt like an film for adults, whereas so many of the other Bond films seem ridiculous with their cartoonish violence, impractical gadgets, and, what was that other thing? General lack of a plot. Often — far too often — Bond films seem to go something like this: Opening violent scene + musical number + Something bad = Bond in some continent killing people, move to Bond in other country seducing girl, then killing people, move to Bond in other country killing people, then killing more people, then winning the day, then seducing one or possibly two girls. I’m getting off point here — okay, so Casino Royale actually had a plot, with Bond trying to turn a money launderer into providing intel to the British Secret Service. In other words, it was for grown ups! And I loved it.

So I started thinking, this week, that I’d work a little later on Thursday so I could leave early Friday and catch the matinee. That’s exactly what I did, running out of the office right at 11 (got to skip a demonstration!) with enough time to run past my apartment, have some lunch, drop some stuff off at the dry-cleaners, and getting to the Uptown in time to be the second person in line for the 1:50 showing. I’m glad I brought a book — I’ve been reading Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife — and I was quite a few extra pages into it by the time we were let into the theater, by the time I found a seat on the balcony, by the time the lights dimmed.

Okay — so, I don’t want to give away any plot points, but that might happen inadvertently, so if you haven’t seen the movie, or you don’t plan on it, or you don’t care, read on. Otherwise, proceed with caution, because I don’t believe in invisible text on my fucking blog.

So the film picks up, I don’t know, ten minutes after Casino Royale ends? Bond’s in a shootout with Mr. White’s bodyguards, all while driving in a manner that can only be described as incredibly reckless down narrow roads, through beautiful tunnels, and across a fairly scary quarry. Mr. White is locked in his trunk, but has an ace in the hole. Bond’s pursuit of White’s organization — which does, literally, have people everywhere — takes him to Haiti, then Austria, and finally to Bolivia, in pursuit of the apparent ringleader, Dominick Greene, a pretty nasty character. The “precious resource” his organization seeks to control is water, but he’s not above drowning people in oil to make a point.

It wasn’t bad. I won’t say it’s on the level of Casino Royale. While it was better than The Dark Knight, I’d say that Quantum of Solace relied too strongly on action sequences and less on story. If Casino Royale was about Bond outsmarting his opponent, Quantum of Solace is about Bond waging a one man war of attrition off that opponent, killing the organization’s — at the end of the film, people know it’s called Quantum, but where’d they learn that? Maybe in a scene cut from the movie! — henchfuckers at just about every turn: shooting them, killing them with glass, dropping them off buildings, yada-yada-etcetra. I think the film could’ve used a lot of fleshing out, so the short running time (less than two hours!), I think, may be the movie’s biggest handicap.

Mathis is back — about midway through the film. Once Bond has gone rogue, Agent Fields shows up. It’s pretty obvious she only serves one purpose: her costume is literally a tan raincoat and black boots, and, um, that’s about it. Small wonder she winds up in Bond’s bed — and she is, by the way, the only lovin’ James gets — and then winds up dead. By my count, Craig’s Bond has seduced two women and both wound up dead in a rather painful manner.

Long story short — I’ll most likely pick it up on DVD (but won’t shell out for BluRay), and I don’t regret spending the mullah to see it on the Big Silver Screen.