I fully expect to see this movie a few more times in the near future.  But, you'll have to wait a day or so for my full impression.

So, you are prolly wondering why I am posting today and what I plan to talk about.  Well, for starters I am going to give you a primer in Sweaty Bond's latest movie.

Bond Girls:

I've compared the Man from the old to the new but let's look at the evolution of some of the other elements of a Bond film.  First, the Girl…

Bond girls have always been beautiful and stunning.  Some are simply for looks and others are much more.  Let's peek at the newest two.

Camille Montes – played by Olga Kurylenko

Camille is a two part girl.  We meet her in Haiti and then she's not seen for a while.  At first blush she looks the part of female window dressing.  Someone Bond needs to save frequently which he does.  Then we meet her cagey other half and by the end of the movie we think she can hold her own.

Olga, a Ukrainian beauty, plays a Bolivian who simply wants revenge for the murder of her parents and sister.   Okay, driven female who wants revenge… believable … but is a Ukrainian beauty believable as a Bolivian beauty?  Truthfully, it works.  A quick tan and some vocal coaching and it all comes together.

Strawberry Fields – played by Gemma Arterton

I don't recall her first name coming up in the movie.  I do recall Bond questioning her on the name and her replying, "Just Fields."

Fields is a character I thought might be a solid recurring character for the movies.  She is an intelligent but easily persuaded MI-6 employee who could easily be the new Moneypenny.  However, considering where the movie took her I don't think the producers and I were on the same page.  Personally, I would have liked to see more of her in the movie.

Gemma, like Olga, is another fresh face to movies.  In fact, she's starring in another video game turned movie called The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.  Sadly, that's 2 years away and is a video game movie. [My thoughts on Video Game Movies]  Remarkably, Gemma held up against the brooding Daniel Craig.

Bond gets around ... Settings:

We start in Italy just a short time after the ending of Casino Royale.  They show us some remarkable scenery and remind me why I play some of those car racing video games from time to time.  Then we get a tour of Siena.  Albeit, it's a roof top tour with some architecture and local color thrown in, but it was cool looking.

Then after a short stop home (London) we travel to Haiti.  This is where I feel the director paying some small homage to the Bourne series.  He enters a hotel that reminds me of a fight scene from The Bourne Ultimatum.  I'll have more on that after I see the movie again.  We get a bit of boat action with Olga and the bad guys in chase scene number two of the movie.

 A brief interlude at a Modern Art Opera in Austria introduces us to the bad guys some more.  It was quite the stylish locale, a huge open air amphitheater with hundreds in attendance.

A brief visit with Mathis provides us with a nice villa view in a random setting.

Then it's time to fly to La Paz, Bolivia.  Upon arriving we see the sites briefly and enter a really nice hotel.  From the hotel it's off for a quick stop at a party hosted by the bad guys at another swank but old building where we hook up again with Olga.

We ride along to the Atacama desert of Bolivia where Bond acquires a plane to see what the bad guys are up to. Before you know it, we're in a sinkhole.  A short walk out of the desert leads us back to his hotel.

Things get hectic again as Bond escapes into the seedier section of La Paz, and again we're thrilled by some running and jumping through the city.

After another explosive trip to the desert we take an unexpected trip to Russia ala Bourne Supremacy but we don't get to see much.

So you can see that Bond still gets around and in style with charter planes and Aston Martins mixed with much more mundane modes of travel such as cargo planes, mountain bikes, rickety wood boats, and oddly a Ford SUV.

The Villains:

So among all of that, where's the huge villains' lair that none of the governments know anything about and only Bond can find? 

Truthfully, this was a hokey concept in the old Bond movies.  Now-a-days, the bad guys operate using the latest communications technology and don't need to sit around a goofy large boardroom like table.

Let's compare the old group, SPECTRE, and today's Quantum.

SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) was led by a single man, Ernst Stavro Blofeld.  The Austin Powers character, Dr. Evil, is based on Blofeld. Quantum is led by a multinational group of powerful individuals.

SPECTRE had an island base where they trained their minions.  Quantum seems to be loosely connected so far.  We'll see if they have the hidden base stashed someplace.  Perhaps in the Arctic or Antarctic where spy satellites would never look.

So far it would appear that anyone attached to Quantum of any power has an identity based on a color; first Mr. White and then Dominic Greene.  Of course, SPECTRE used the number hierarchy for their minions. 

Then there are the names of the organizations.  While Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion is just too much, the name still sounded much better then the new Quantum.  [see my rant]

Alright, stay tuned for the full review.  I head to see the movie for the second time in 30 minutes.