“Quantum” picks up right where the last installment in the franchise, “Casino Royale,” left off. Bond — once again played by the equally refined and ruthless Daniel Craig — follows the trail of Vesper’s death to Dominic Greene (Mathieu Almaric), a prominent environmental activist who is secretly a member of an international criminal organization. In his hunt, Bond will be assisted by his CIA friend Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright ’87) and Camille (Olga Kurylenko), a Bolivian operative with her own reasons for getting close to Greene. Meanwhile, Judi Dench once again reprises the role of M, Bond’s MI6 boss who desperately tries to keep the increasingly infuriated Bond under control.
Fans of the series may be frustrated by the alteration of several key elements, especially the agent’s failure to introduce himself in classic “Bond, James Bond” fashion, as well as noticeable curb of Bond’s sexual appetite. In addition, Greene’s diabolical plot leaves something to be desired; with apologies to Bolivia, I found myself wishing for the grand conquer-the-world schemes of Bond villains past. Casual filmgoers will likely wish that director Marc Forster had not borrowed so heavily from the style of the popular Bourne action franchise, as the film cuts between shots so quickly that a few action sequences are almost incomprehensible.
Still, “Quantum of Solace” is clearly meant as a transition film, linking the raw, emotionally vulnerable Bond that we saw in “Casino Royale” (which, by the way, I highly recommend watching before going to see “Quantum”) to the calculating, womanizing, manipulative agent of the previous films. It’s like no Bond film we’ve seen before, but it still offers its fair share of entertaining moments (watch for the scene at the opera), and the ending offers hope that the series is still right on track.