Quantum of Solace

While Daniel Craig's second outing as James Bond is every bit as action-packed as his first, 007 seems much changed, and not for the better. Not only is Bond totally humorless, but he also seems to have lost his fondness for fine clothes, sense of reckless sexual gamesmanship, and taste for shaken-not-stirred martinis. In fact, this new Bond is little more than a grim, scruffy assassin whose seeming disregard for duty has his boss M (Judi Dench) worried that he's gone off the Secret Service playbook for good. Quantum of Solace's story picks up where Casino Royale left off, with 007 still trying to avenge the death of his beloved Vesper, although circumstances soon pit him against a suave environmental activist named Greene (Mathieu Amalric), who's actually the front man for an evil organization. With the aid of Camille (Olga Kurylenko), a slinky seductress who's also out for revenge, Bond uncovers Greene's plot to gain control of a vast supply of water. While the notion of a natural resource being the villain's object of desire is unquestionably very trendy in our environmentally conscious era, it's not as sexy a prize as, say, all the gold in Fort Knox, or an atomic bomb, or space-based death-ray machines. Director Marc Forster, taking a page out of the Jason Bourne book, films the action sequences in a series of close, mostly handheld shots jaggedly edited in ultra-quick cuts that make it all but impossible to tell who's hitting whom. Quantum of Solace is not remotely close to being among the series' best, and Craig's Bond is drifting dangerously close to becoming just plain thuggish. Large popular collections will want to add, of course, but this is optional elsewhere. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include 47 minutes of “Crew Files” behind-the-scenes footage, the production/profile featurettes “Bond on Location” (25 min.), “Start of Shooting” (3 min.), “On Location” (3 min.), “Olga Kurylenko and the Boat Chase” (3 min.), “Director Marc Forster” (3 min.), and “The Music” (3 min.), the music video for “Another Way to Die” performed by Alicia Keys and Jack White, and trailers. Bottom line: a fine extras package for an uneven Bond flick.] (E. Hulse)