I enjoyed the most recent Bond film. Quantum of Solace was a thoroughly solid action flick, which is generally a genre I tend not to like because it comes second only to the romantic comedy in terms of its obsequiousness to the old formula. Still, QoS continued in the tradition of its immediate predecessor: it has retained its darker and grittier vision of James Bond, to its great credit, and it has constructed a second villain who is less a crazy strongman or world domineer, but rather a pathetically effete European jetsetter. During the Pierce Brosnan years, that description would have sufficed to describe Bond himself. How the times have turned...
I was a great admirer of Casino Royale, and I'll admit that that film was better than Solace in several ways. Royale was, in my humble opinion, pretty much damn near a perfect film. Solace is more flawed, but not as flawed as one would imagine from reading the reviews. I think that much of the vituperation from reviewers is more of a reaction to the realization that the old Bond is dead for good, and that the Bond people are going with the "newer" Daniel Craig model of James Bond. I put newer in quotes because it's actually the older version of James Bond from Ian Fleming's books, though with more of a leftward twist, of which I definitely approve. Brosnan as Bond was an upper-class, uber-suave spy who seemed to generally enjoy life and had no palpable toughness. Daniel Craig is the complete opposite: he looks good in a tux but there wasn't the practiced poise, no whiff of eveningwear and elegant soirees. Craig's Bond is working class, all the way, and as a man he's damaged goods--lethal, dangerous, dark, able to seduce women easily, but at heart he's a disappointed romantic who shrugs off all the emotional entanglements. Sean Connery is, of course, the gold standard for movie portrayals of James Bond, but Craig is the only other actor--with the possible exception of Timothy Dalton--who makes any effort to portray Bond as an actual dude instead of an icon (or a caricature). People who were fond of the Brosnan Bond and the intermittently fun escapism of his time on the clock who liked the old formula--and who probably figured that Casino Royale would lead to a revival of the old Bond, with a return of John Cleese and all the gadgets--are realizing that that is not going to happen, and they're upset. On its merits, though, Quantum of Solace announces, for all those who chose not to see, a new era of Bond. And I'm pretty enthusiastic about it.
I'm rather less enthusiastic about the upcoming Star Trek movie, partly for the reason Peter Suderman identifies here--that J. J. Abrams tends to concoct shallow melodramas that go through the motions aptly enough but are pretty soulless (like, say, Mission: Impossible III). I don't expect action movies to be especially soulful--soft bigotry of low expectations and all that--but I would like Trek movies to tell a Trek story every once in a while. The last one that tried was Star Trek: Insurrection, which was middling but not bad, although the ideas were hoary. I expect Star Trek to be a big slab of red-blooded action-adventure that doesn't really bother to try to communicate optimism for the future or any vision of society, and certainly not any sort of political message. (BTW, it really dismays me to see Spock engaging in hand-to-hand combat in the trailer--has he ever thrown a punch? What about the Vulcan nerve pinch?). We wouldn't want to get Trek in the middle of a red-vs.-blue conundrum, despite the fact that it was sort of an arch-left show back in the 60s.
Trek became irrelevant as a result of many factors. Surely, the subpar storytelling that plagued later seasons of Voyager and the two most recent movies is important to this discussion. The sheer amount of product that those folks put out might have led to some fatigue, and the now plentiful sci-fi offerings on TV and elsewhere have made Trek a victim of its own success. Then again, the fact that the Star Trek curators decided to turn Voyager's worn-out ass into the flagship Trek while ignoring the superior Deep Space Nine gives you some hint as to why the franchise has gotten so dire.
