Quantum of Solace (2008)

You like 007? I think you'll like this movie (Judy, you will!). Daniel Craig in his second turn as James Bond is chased but not chaste in this Action-with-a-capital-A picture. Pursuit by car opens the movie (followed by the credit sequence over animation in the old '60s Bond style). Other chases are in airplanes, motorboats, trains, trucks. Many more are on foot, over roofs ancient and modern, through caves, tunnels, a burning building, and, my personal favorite, on scaffolding, including balletic swinging. Cartoonist Nicole Hollander has a definition for a chick flick: "Too much talking, not enough hitting." This is the opposite--with fights to the death and a high body count. 

Beautiful location shots around the world, gorgeous girls: Ukrainian lovely Olga Kurylenko with a tan is convincing as South American Camille (she says, "Get in!" and he does, and Bond keeps telling her to "Wait here," but she doesn't), British beauty Gemma Arterton plays the one-named Fields (in the credits her name is listed as Strawberry Fields), and Dame Judi Dench is stunning as always playing M. I particularly liked the scene in which M is removing her makeup while talking on the speaker phone. In The Devil Wears Prada (2006) Meryl Streep's bare-faced scene made her look old, dry, and brittle (as it was supposed to). In this, Dench's face cream gives her a glow that complements her natural twinkle. As in No Country for Old Men (2007), there is a bad guy with unfortunate bangs, though in this case, he is a sidekick to a badder guy, played by Mathieu Amalric, who was fabulous as the stroke victim (a good guy) in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007). Apparently the dead girlfriend and several characters are from the last installment, Casino Royale (2006), but I don''t remember the details. 

In this one, a bartender gives the exact recipe for the 007 martini (my parents liked white Lillet and so do I--get it at a specialty wine shop). According to the link, the recipe was in the last one, too. I really was not paying attention!