Absence of solace

The conventional wisdom — to which I wholly subscribe in this case — is that 2006's “Casino Royale” was a whole new take on the James Bond franchise. Its successor, “Quantum of Solace,” is the same and so the opposite: that is, it cleaves tightly to the same vision, which means it has none of the novelty.

This is not merely wordplay. Part of the thrill of the last film was the breath of fresh air it introduced to the tired concept of Bond, as created in the Connery films, sucked dry during the Moore years, and somewhat freshened in the four Brosnan episodes. There is plenty of room for more exploration of Daniel Craig's brutal, nearly humorless Bond, but “Quantum of Solace” doesn't really expand on Casino Royale so much as it resolves that film's dangling plot threads. So closely are the plots related that this might better have been called “Casino Royale 2: The Revenge.”

Indeed, “Quantum of Solace” picks up immediately after the end of “Casino Royale”; we may have lived through two years but, for Bond and M (Judi Dench) and the rest of the survivors, roughly an hour has passed. After a typically dazzling opening sequence — a car chase, this time around — it is revealed that British security has been compromised, along with M's personal security. In no time, Bond is chasing Mr. White (Jesper Christensen), “Casino Royale's” remaining villain, in an action bit that recalls both that film's early parkour-inflected foot chase and a great action setpiece in Tsui Hark’s “Time and Tide.” (Indulge me: It’s been weeks since I've had the excuse for a Hong Kong citation.)

Given that White and his associates were responsible for the death of Bond's one true love, Vesper Lynd, in the last film, his pursuit of the shadowy organization with which White was affiliated has a more personal motivation than the usual Queen and Country. Following a fairly incomprehensible chain of leads, Bond is soon in Port au Prince, Haiti. (This series of plot connections is shown us in M’s headquarters via what appears to be a 20-foot iPhone.)

Our hero zeroes in on Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric, who plays a very different sort of character in “A Christmas Tale,” also opening this week), a ruthless international corporate criminal who has managed to convince the world that he’s an ecological crusader. Bond also zeroes in on Camille (Olga Kurylenko), who sucks up to Greene in order to further her own personal quest for vengeance.

As Bond and the film both hop from one country to the next, more familiar faces show up --  CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) and oldtimer Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini). Bond and Camille keep getting separated, but always find each other again, often in ways that are unexplained ... though I suppose that, in this cell-phone-equipped world, no one is ever more than a speed dial away.

The Bond producers, interestingly enough, brought aboard a director with no real experience in this sort of film —  Marc Forster, best known for dramas like “Monster’s Ball” (2001), Finding Neverland (2004), and “The Kite Runner” (2007), as well as the offbeat comedy “Stranger than Fiction” (2006). The closest he has previously come to an action piece was the incoherent thriller “Stay” (2005).

One might expect an infusion of idiosyncrasy from a lauded indie director with such an oddball filmography, but — outside of one interesting sequence intercutting a shootout with a performance of “Tosca” — there’s no more stylistic individuality here than in “Live and Let Die.” If anything, Forster has trimmed away every non-action scene that isn't absolutely necessary to advancing the story ... and a few that probably are necessary, given that the mechanics of who’s going after whom, and why, and where are often confusing.

It’s as though Forster’s goal is to boil the movie down to the essence of action. So we get a car chase and a foot chase and another car chase and a hand-to-hand fight and a shootout and an airplane battle and on and on, with only the briefest respites. Where “Casino Royale,” at nearly two and a half hours, surpassed “On Her Majesty's Secret Service” by two minutes as the longest Bond film ever, “Quantum of Solace,” at an hour and 46 minutes, is the shortest by a sliver. In terms of pacing and style, it invokes the hyperkinetic “Bourne” films even more than “Casino Royale” did.

The emotional content of the first 20 Bond films was deliberately shallow, so as not to be a buzzkill. When Jill Masterson is goldplated to death in “Goldfinger,” Connery seems genuinely upset ... for about two minutes. The paint barely has time to dry before he resumes wisecracking mode. (The notable exception to this is “On Her Majesty's Secret Service,” where by the end it’s even possible to get a little weepy.) Forster races through a similar, clearly deliberately referential scene in “Casino Royale” so quickly that it barely has time to register as a plot development, let alone as an emotional grace note.

When Craig’s Bond fell in love and briefly lightened up in “Casino Royale,” it was part of the newer, grittier — dare we say it? — more realistic tone that defined the reboot. This time around, he’s supposedly driven by the dark result of that same passion; everybody keeps talking about Bond’s heartbreak, but 007 is so closed off that we never see it. The film may make gestures toward emotional content, but they feel strictly pro forma.

All of this has the effect of turning the hero into something between a machine and a coldhearted bastard, with none of the drollery or charm that sweetened the mix in the old days.

So, if the film is essentially all action, you may be wondering: How is the action? Well, it’s a mixed bag for sure. Forster and his stunt choreographers are way better working on a (relatively) small scale; all the hand-to-hand fights and foot chases really deliver. But the more spectacular scenes, involving speeding conveyances that can be blown up real good, are far less satisfying. The boat chase is particularly hard to follow, with confusing cutting and shtick that was tired decades ago.

There is no ineptitude here: The problems feel like the result of conscious aesthetic choices that simply don’t work all that well. If Bond is no longer going to be presented as a fantasy role model — The Coolest Guy in the World — then imbue him with some other virtues or quirks to keep us interested. First time around, Craig’s performance suggested psychological wrinkles that occasionally broke through the hardness. Here he seems made of stone, with no more inner life than a mechanical action figure.