The past of Agent 007 has been revisited yet again in the explosive "Quantum of Solace", a direct sequel to the massive 2006 hit "Casino Royale", which for many revived the fading series. James Bond returns for his 22nd film portrayed by Daniel Craig, returning for his second dose of 007. "Quantum" has so far performed brilliantly in the box office, predicted to surpass even "Casino Royale", which blew away all past Bond figures by over a hundred million dollars. With the addition of "Quantum of Solace", the James Bond franchise once again reclaims its position as the highest earning series in film history, pulling ahead of the golden Harry Potter name.
The team behind "Casino Royale" and "Quantum of Solace" has worked hard to achieve these results. Writer Paul Haggis and a pile of anxious producers have rewritten the entire Bond formula for these past two films, hoping to accomplish a Bond more appealing to the youth of today. The action has become pounding rather than precise. The relationships are intriguing rather than enthralling. And the plot has taken the series for a darker, grim tone. Has this grittier, harder Bond achieved a successful evolution into the twenty-first century cinema spy, or has he lost the class he became known and adored for in an effort to simply emulate such box office record-holders as the "Bourne" series?
The movie begins with a bang, as we get glimpses- and only glimpses- at an adrenaline-pumping car chase in which Bond, still bruised and broken from "Casino Royale", is pursued by a number of armed henchman down a busy cliff-side road. As expected, our unstoppable agent of Her Majesty's Secret Service gets away with his prisoner still in the trunk and his aggressors crushed by oncoming trucks or flattened on jagged rocks hundreds of feet below.
Joining up with M, portrayed for the seventh time by Oscar-winner Judi Wench, Bond sets about interrogating his prisoner, the mysterious Mr. White of the allusive Quantum organization, for information on the group's members. Before you can blink, Bond and M are betrayed by a rogue agent, and the audience finds themselves whipped about as 007 races through crowds in Siena, Italy, gunshots being fired from all about in the middle of the city's festivities.
Chasing down leads, Bond finds himself surrounded by the rugged beauty of Haiti, hunting the rogue agent's contact. In the process he meets up with the inevitable Russian-Bolivian Bond girl beauty Camille Montes, who is bent upon murdering the tyrannical General Medrano and avenging her family. Montes has seduced crime lord Dominic Greene in an effort to get close to the general, a plot unknowingly foiled by Bond as he "rescues" her from Medrano's yacht.
Dominic Greene sets off to strike a deal with a corrupt CIA official, part of which involves eliminating Bond, for a stake in Greene's shady endeavors in the deserts of Bolivia. A meeting is arranged and a number of western powers decide to meet to bargain for what they believe is an unholy amount of oil.
Bond sets off at bullet speed to unravel the workings of Quantum, leaving a wake of bodies wherever he goes, which eventually forces M to deny him his service privileges. Bond is forced into the underground, now a renegade racing against some unidentified time bomb to discover just what is going on, something many viewers would like to know right about now.
From here out the audience is entertained by impressively vicious combat sequences and some very expensive explosions, though the plot is little revisited beyond this point. About now it seems as if the filmmakers decided to toss aside the script in favor of some cheap thrills. The climax is underwhelming, the villain turns out half-baked, and the conspiracy is sadly so... pointless.
Ultimately, the movie feels somewhat disappointing because of the immense potential that seems so hopelessly discarded. Craig pulls off his roll, but he doesn't have that enthralling air such Bond legends as Sean Connery so effortlessly displayed. Yeah, this is the rougher, unrefined Bond without the campy swank. We get it. But hey, it's not the classy, overly posh behavior the fans are longing for, but that impossible-to-miss presence of superiority that all the best Bonds have worn by trademark. That's what the Craig performance is lacking. It's there, but it's dull.
"Quantum" also suffers a very transitionary feel. Much alike "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest", this film's major financial success can be mostly credited to its vastly superior predecessor, and the movie itself feels entirely as if it's setting up for a third. The movie really accomplishes nothing aside from further developing characters and creating myriads of unresolved subplots.
All in all, though, "Quantum of Solace" is an entertaining action movie. Perhaps it disappoints in the shadow of its quality older brother "Casino Royale", particularly because it does not stand on its own foundation but builds off of the first film. Marc Forster, as visionary a director as he is, doesn't seem cut out for this genre. But he does build a sequence of clips that make for an enjoyable Friday evening viewing.