Quantum bonds with its predecessor

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Revenge doesn’t wait for one-liners and casual sex, and that’s what the haters don’t seem to understand about Quantum of Solace, the latest entry in the long-running James Bond series. As much as Casino Royale, Daniel Craig’s first outing as 007 two years ago, refashioned the franchise into something more thrilling and realistic (funny how those are related), Quantum—as directed by indie drama’s loveable German, Marc Forster—takes a flying leap from the Bonds of yore by making it a direct sequel to the 2006 hit. So, largely gone are the tuxedos, the ladies, the gadgets, and pretty much exposition all together. Quantum of Solace is James Bond footing the pedal of his Aston Martin to the floor, eyes fixed on the prize and little else.

It is most telling that after the sole instance of Bond indulging in his playboy ways, the results of his brief encounter are devastating in a twist that provides the opportunity for an overt, but brilliantly updated reference to 1964’s Goldfinger. The point being not just that oil is the new gold, but that untamed carnal lust and imprudent lust for natural resources lead in the same destructive direction. It’s an overarching theme for Quantum, and in this particular scene it is driven home with ease and hardly a word.

The film opens with Bond in the middle of a pulse-pounding car chase with the bad guy in his trunk and more bad guys on his tail. As at end of Casino Royale, which was only about 30 minutes before the start of Quantum, Bond is out for revenge on the organization that murdered Vespa, the sultry spy who turned Bond all syrupy before she turned on him for millions in poker winnings. 007’s investigation of this worldwide, secret organization is the backbone of the film. His taste for reckoning is the flesh and blood. Soon Bond is on the trail of Dominic Greene, a closet eco-terrorist, who besides being a general heel, leverages water and oil to extort money and property from unstable, second-world governments. As played by Mathieu Amalric, Greene’s plot isn’t as eye-popping as one of Blofeld’s old global domination plots, but where the Connery and Moore era aimed for raising eyebrows, the Craig Bond’s delight in furrowing them. From the tricks of Greene’s malevolent corporation to the concessions made by the United States, UK, and other governments, each entity’s foreign policy plays out in frustratingly familiar ways. So from Italy to Haiti to Bolivia, Bond tries to bring down the Greene machine. Along the way he reconnects with two of Casino’s supporting cast: Giancarlo Giannini as Mathis, and the excellent Jeffrey Wright as CIA agent Felix Leiter, while weighing the pros and cons of revenge. See, Bond never forgets his duty to his country; even if his superiors, like Dame Judi Dench’s honcho, M, have doubts, his faith holds strong.

The cinematography is splendid, with its lush, 1970s European palette, and the script by Paul Haggis & Co. combines what character development there is with action after action until the audience feels the weight and strain of Bond’s unusual occupation. Some have written that Quantum is too Bourn-esque in its jittery fights and chase sequences, and while I was disoriented from the details of who got shot and how once or twice, Quantum separates itself from Matt Damon’s trilogy with larger doses of scope, style, and wit, not to mention a more easily digestible plot. It’s no spoiler to report that the last clip of the film is the famous 007 gun barrel sequence that used to begin the movies. It’s as if Craig and Forster are telling us that within this reboot of the franchise their James Bond is finally planted and ready to grow into the secret agent we’ve known for more than 40 years. If that is their intent, then together Casino and Quantum are a pair of aces and an exemplary reintroduction of 007.