Quantum of Solace

In the latest installment of the James Bond franchise, Quantum of Solace, Bond bounces around from London to Haiti to Bolivia, on the trail of this installment’s Euroevil baddie Monseur Greene (Mathieu Alaric). It seems Greene, an agent of the shadowy multinational organization QUANTUM, has hatched a plot to cause a drought in Bolivia and control the South American nation’s water supply.

I think there’s a few other plot points, but the script is a bit murky on what, exactly, they are. To be fair, most Bond films have always been pretty thin on storyline; audiences flock to the films to see explosions, mayhem, chases, and beautiful people, not comprehensible plots.

Quantum of Solace picks up where the previous film, Casino Royale, left off, and packs in not one but two revenge dramas. In addition to the revenge story that spurs the film (Bond seeks information about the man who in the last film killed the love of his life, Vesper Lynd), there’s a mysterious woman named Camille whose vengeful plans Bond interrupts.

While the various revenge stories were surely intended to add gravitas to the film, they play out in such utterly predictable ways that they don’t really add much to the story, and the villains’ comeuppance is pedestrian instead of cathartic. The audience doesn’t have that much invested in Camille (or, for that matter, Bond himself) to really give a care.

Daniel Craig has gotten a lot of attention over the past few years for his reinvented take on the James Bond character. “The best Bond yet?” asked “Entertainment Weekly” on a recent cover. If the buzz over the past few Bond films does indeed mean that the franchise has been rebooted, Craig is certainly a part of that, but hardly the driving force. The actor makes the role his own, but what actually happens in the film is up to screenwriters such as Neal Purvis, Paul Haggis, and Robert Wade: If the film’s 100-plus minutes are busily packed with nonstop chases, explosions, and fight sequences, there’s little time left for character development or complexity. And that’s a problem with Quantum of Solace.

Let’s face it: the earlier Bond movies began to parody themselves long before Mike Myers got around to it in his Austin Powers films. The outrageous gadgets, the faux-clever bon mots, and the silly villains who set up elaborate deaths and then exit the room just before Bond escapes were all ripe for send-ups.

Craig’s James Bond is much less reliant on high-tech laser wristwatches than his previous incarnations. He’s a darker, serious, and more troubled James Bond, but he’s also humorless and dour. He’s able to chase people across rooftops and crash-land disabled jets, but seems constitutionally unable to crack a smile. (No one is suggesting a return to the Roger Moore’s wisecracking 007, but seriously: does he have to be so serious and mission-minded?)

Of course, Bond is hardly the only recent franchise hero to adopt a darker, more serious tone. You could argue that Craig was simply taking a page from Christian Bale’s reinvention of Batman, for example, in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Apparently a few years ago a studio memo went out to screenwriters of action hero pics to make them darker, so you can expect more in at least the next two Bond films. Let's hope Daniel Craig is given more time to catch his breath, crack a smile, and develop the character he's inherited.