Quantum of Solace: B-

It goes like this: I can understand, get behind the idea of, and even triumph the execution of a darker tweak and/or reboot of a franchise. Over the last few years, I’ve fallen in love with (and heavily-argued for the cinematic merit of) films like Batman Begins (which, I’ll boldly say to any Joe or Jane Nobody, was a better movie than The Dark Knight), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (don’t think it’s dark? Wait until the puppets melt in a giant giggly-blaze about twenty minutes in), and Casino Royale. Now we get Royale’s sequel—and it’s something to behold, both as a film, and as an exercise in trying to get one’s school of internal criticism to reckon with a part-two to a reboot that had all the predatory glamour of a lone wolf, and with a main character made into flesh-and-blood, reduced, and revived again with just the barest glimmer of psychic enlightenment. Maybe it’s all intentional, but last time I checked, they were Bond films (all 22 of them) for a reason—but damn if director Marc Forster doesn’t forego many of the series’ trappings in favor of a more visceral, bone-crunching chase film. Just be thankful Jason Bourne doesn’t pop up for a cameo.

It’s important to appreciate what is being done with Quantum of Solace, even if it isn’t entirely too remarkable on its own. This is the first film in the franchise’s 40-year history that is not only a continuation of sorts, but a direct sequel—literally, it picks up minutes after the end of Royale, when Bond (Daniel Craig, cold as ever, and way more haunting by half) kidnapped the man—Mr. White (Jesper Christensen)—he thought responsible for the death of the woman he loved, Vesper (Eva Green, you will be missed). We open on his getaway, shot in the trademark fashion of most opening Bond action sequences: that is, with heightened, utterly thrilling, adrenaline. The chase is hypnotic, and would have stood out had it not ushered in another fifty minutes of chases. See, it turns out that Mr. White is but one of the many high-powered central members of QUANTUM, a worldwide network of villains who “have people everywhere.” (I guess that translates into Bond having to run everywhere?) From that conceit of opaque paranoia and conspiracy are many offshoots, some of which even find 007 fighting MI6. Looking back, it makes sense dramatically (after a fashion), but not really emotionally. I’d argue this is because the super-agent himself is allowed no exhibition for his pain. Not a single line is said of it in the film’s far-weaker first-half—instead, the man just goes around killing people. And killing people. And occasionally running from stuff. Oh, and once-in-awhile, M. (Judi Dench, wonderfully wry as ever, if with fewer good zingers this outing) will pop up, stern wagging-finger at the ready.

Ok, so no martinis are sipped, only one woman is womanized, and at one point Craig clutches a dear friend in a dirty alley, shedding a lone dramatic tear at his passing—clearly this is not the Bond of yesteryear. I get that, it’s no fault of the film, necessarily, merely a mark of evolution. But, overall, I’d argue the evolution is misplaced. Casino Royale was such a sizzling, bravura cocktail because it dared to strip the man of so many gadgets and daring escapes and lovely arm-candy down to just what he was: a hired gun with a fractured soul. And then the film went one step further and gave him a love interest more than his equal. It was something special, Royale, and it was an interesting mistake on the part of writers Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis & Robert Wade to continue in that vein of viewing Bond as damaged goods. The notion still has potency, as when it is finally discussed and explored in Quantum’s last 45-minutes, but the structure of its investigation gets tiresome. Forster, most famous for his boutique-dramas Monster’s Ball and Finding Neverland, clearly has an inventive streak, and the fight scenes (especially the final one between Bond and Mr. Greene—played with silken, creepy, megalomania by Mathieu Amalric) are hypnotic for their horrifying intimacy. Plus there’s even a decent Bond girl (Olga Kurylenko), who I haven’t even gotten, too. And I won’t. Because it all boils down to the man of the hour. I suspect this lesser-translation of an already two-year-old film’s spirit (spun about a plot stuffed with a 90s zeitgeist) has turned off many fans, and newcomers to the series. And so be it. But I’m sticking around. At some point Bond has got to smile, even through his scars, and when that happens, pray it will be the perfect counterpart to film #21: a witty, effortlessly bouncy thriller of bombs-and-Bond-and-boobs. (Not at all like this #22: an effort, a study, an idea worked over—a tragedy where almost no one cries.)