Few things tickle me more than hearing a great French actor ask in French-accented English, "Do yooo theenk I am stooopid?" After hearing Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) spit out that line like tainted meat, I wasn't sure Quantum of Solace could get back its gravitas. It does, thanks to Daniel Craig, the most Byronic of 007s, who, with scarcely any help from the filmmakers, manages the astonishing task of rooting an outlandish yet sober-sided movie in reality and bringing it an air of wicked amusement, too.
Craig's Bond is emotionally wounded and psychologically all shook up, but he knows exactly what his strengths are. They include his ruthless cunning and his determination to follow the straightest line to a destination, even if it means racing through an Italian street procession or the Austrian amphitheater that houses a mammoth production of Tosca. That gives Bond the edge over everyone else in Quantum of Solace, except Judi Dench's magisterial M. She and Craig get more rhythm going than anyone else in the movie. He's the rebel with a cause. She's the mother figure as dominatrix.
Quantum of Solace, an entertaining mess full of jarring editing and artsy touches, is not a new series entry in the old Bond-movie sense, but a sequel to Craig's debut in Casino Royale. In that movie, Craig's Bond earned his 007 license to kill, used it with alarming abandon, then fell for voluptuous accountant Vesper Lynd. She was operating secretly for the criminal empire Quantum but was in love with James, too. The new movie tells how Bond avenges Vesper's death and strikes back at Quantum while getting to the bottom of an unsavory international green-industry syndicate run by the aptly named Dominic Greene (Amalric), whose greatest weapon is his disarmingly casual touch.
Complete with the hero mourning his true love, Quantum of Solace bears the same relation to Casino Royale as The Bourne Supremacy did to The Bourne Identity, but it isn't as good as the other three films. Casino Royale, at 144 minutes, might have been a classic if it were a half-hour shorter; Quantum of Solace, at a mere 106 minutes, wouldn't make the grade if it were a half-hour longer. It's a bit ho-hum to see Bond go rogue and partner up with an exotic knockout named Camille (Olga Kurylenko), who has her own grudge match against a corrupt South American military dictator in cahoots with Greene. Kurylenko, with her full, round features and her tough, taut body, is a sensuous camera subject, but the supposedly explosive chemistry between her and Craig never reaches detonation.
