Quantum of Solace

I had completely lost interest in the James Bond series during the Pierce Brosnan run, when all of the titles had the form of the word "die" and some reference to a day. Then I was pleasantly surprised by Casino Royale, when those responsible seemed interested in making Bond a real person, with a history and a psyche, and not just a smirking superman. Gone were supervillains with lairs underneath volcanos, bent on destroying the world with sattelite-lasers. I welcomed the change.

The second film in this reboot, Quantum of Solace, picks up right where Casino Royale left off, and while it isn't as good as that film it has its pleasures and I left the theater entertained. I find Daniel Craig to be a terrific Bond, who doesn't make puns and is close to the brutish character that Ian Fleming created. I also enjoyed Judi Dench in her continuing role as M, who probably has more dialogue than Bond does.

The film is burdened with a title that will have the curious running to the dictionary. The "Quantum" part is explained as the name of some super-secret organization that MI6 and the CIA don't even know about (I wonder if they have cross-over members with S.P.E.C.T.R.E). The chief baddie in this outing is outwardly an environmentalist (Al Gore may bristle at this) who really wants to create coups in nations and then secure the utility rights. This is kind of dry stuff for a spy thriller, but I appreciate that the evil plots actually have a foot in reality.

The action starts in Italy, and then Bond is off to Haiti, Austria, and finally Bolivia (I'd love to have his frequent flier miles). Along the way he crosses paths with the mysterious and beautiful Camille (Olga Kurylenko), and I'm also happy to say that this reboot is two-for-two with luscious Bond girls (I'd like to do an exhaustive comparison between Kurylenko and Eva Green, just so I can decide who is more ravishing). There are chases in various modes of transportation--cars, boats, and airplanes, and lots of derring-do.

Directed by Marc Forster, who also directed the decidedly non-action films Monster's Ball and Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace does not work best during its action sequences. It's been edited within an inch of its life by Matt Chesse and Rick Pearson. The cold opener, a chase on a winding seaside road in Italy, is done with close-ups and a blurring series of shots that last less than a second. A person could get disoriented. Forster also favors intercutting his action scenes with other events, such a horse race and, in homage to Coppola, an opera.

If the action stuff is derivatively frenetic of the Bourne series, I thought the rest of the film made up for it. As I said, I thought Dench was terrific, and loved her byplay with Bond. Kurylenko was hard to understand, but its hard to take your eyes off her. Mathieu Amalric is the villain, and if he isn't quite the megalomaniac that Bond has faced in other films, he's intriguing enough. Oh, and the "secondary" Bond girl has a classic Bond-film name: Strawberry Fields, and the song by Jack White is one of the better in the series.

The bottom line is that Quantum of Solace doesn't suck, and provides enough of what a viewer would expect at a Bond film. I'm all for the seeing the next one.