There are some people out there who will leave the theater confused at the end of Quantum of Solace, and, quite frankly, I was one of them.  When Craig was chosen as Bond and the many detractors came out of the woodwork, I decided to give him a chance and see what he could do, and boy, did he deliver in Casino Royale.  I decided to do the same thing with Quantum, and at first I was a bit confused and even upset that the film was not memorable.  Sure, it had its car chases, beautiful women, and exotic locales, but it just didn't seem Bondian enough for me.

Then I got to thinking.

And that's when I realized that Quantum of Solace will go down in history as one of the most underrated Bond films in the franchise's history.  Think of it as Craig's On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Craig, once again, was superb as Bond, playing a man teetering on the fence between insanity (due to lack of sleep and the swirl of emotions inside him) and sense of duty and purpose.  He has become a coldly efficient killer after the death of Vesper at the hands of an organization he (and the rest of the intelligence community) is starting to wrap its head around, which angers M and other intelligence officers to no end.  The leading lady, whose name escapes me, was gorgeous but underused; however, we'll see more of her in Bond 23, I bet.  The plot has a bit of an identity crisis, but if you think about it, so does Bond, making it work, I feel.  Similar to the stealth boat in Tomorrow Never Dies, Bond has lit an explosion under the mysterious Quantum organization so that it now shows up on MI6 and CIA radar.

However, the overarching motives behind Quantum are unknown, and remain unknown at the end of the film.  I feel that this is intention, as it's heavily rumored that this film is the middle film of a trilogy story arc that is intended to tie up the loose ends and then let Bond continue on his way.  I remember people saying similar things about Quantum that they did about Matrix Reloaded and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and while I feel the Matrix 3 film bombed out, Pirates 3 was a great end to the arc.

And that's where the crux of my argument lies.  It's always difficult premiering the second story of a known trilogy.  I'm sure it was difficult for Lucas to write The Empire Strikes Back, but he managed to overcome with Darth Vader's classic "I am your father" line.  The same will be true of Quantum of Solace, if the third film is great.  And I mean GREAT.  If so, this entire trilogy of Bond films featuring Craig will be a treasure meant to be most enjoyed one after the other.  Loose ends will be tied up, evildoers will pay, women will be seduced, and Bond will still stand tall at the end of it all, perhaps more well-rounded than he was before becoming a 00.  But we'll have to wait until 2011 to find out.  I, for one, can't wait.