Consumed with rage, Bond rejoins M to interrogate Mr White, who sheds light on the secret organisation that was responsible for blackmailing Vesper Lynd. The trail of evidence leads to Haiti, where 007 meets the alluring Camille, a woman pursuing her own secret vendetta. She, in turn, introduces Bond to the ruthless businessman Dominic Greene, a member of the organisation, who is planning to help exiled General Medrano regain power in exchange for seemingly worthless land. As Bond edges closer to discovering those responsible for Vesper’s death, he takes justice into his own bloody hands...

Now, I don’t know about you, but I was expecting Quantum of Solace to be a more traditional Bond film than Casino Royale. I’m not talking full-blown Roger Moore witticisms and rockets to the moon, but let’s at least have the iconic gun-barrel sequence at the start of the film, please. Fair enough, Casino Royale was all about the creation and moulding of the character we know and love, so there was a valid artistic reason for not hearing the full Bond theme or the immortal words, “Bond, James Bond” until the end of the picture, when his evolution is supposedly complete. However, it would appear that the character still has some way to go - either that, or the production team just want to court controversy by moving the hallmark of the official Bond films for more than forty years to the end credits.

I was also surprised to find that things don’t get any raunchier between Bond (Daniel Craig) and his supposed love interest Camille (Olga Kurylenko, Hitman) than a quick farewell kiss. Call me sexist if you like, but I consider Bond’s romantic antics to be an essential ingredient of the series. It’s not even as though 007 is too grief-stricken or enraged following the death of Vesper to think about sleeping with another woman, as he has a casual fling with the secondary Bond girl, Agent Fields (Gemma Arterton, St Trinian’s, Lost in Austen).

(And why does Fields appear to be naked underneath her trench coat? Her line, “I’ve nothing to wear,” suggests that I’m not just imagining it, but we never do find out.)

In another break with tradition, the main bad guy Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric, Munich) is not afflicted with any physical deformities (thus symbolising the hidden nature of today’s corporate villains), though this isn’t so radical a departure (think Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only, Kamal Khan in Octopussy, Koskov in The Living Daylights and Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies). More unusually, the character dies off-screen (but again, think Koskov). Unfortunately, Greene also breaks with the Bond tradition by being a very bland and unthreatening villain.

At least this time around we have a distinct villain’s base for 007 to blow up at the end of the story.

Indeed, many of the sets created by incoming production designer Dennis Gassner (Road to Perdition, The Golden Compass) are deliberately reminiscent of Ken Adam’s work on the ’60s and ’70s Bond films. Other winks to the past include the unfortunate fate of Agent Fields, which is clearly inspired by Goldfinger, and a neat allusion to the fact that Ian Fleming named M (still played to perfection by Judi Dench) after his mother.

There’s a decidedly arty look to director Marc Forster’s (Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland) choice of shots and angles, and the exquisite Tosca sequence (I bet Daniel Craig thought he was having a flashback to Our Friends in the North when he heard that name). It even extends to the caption slides, the style of which change according to which country the scene takes place in. However, I often found the rapid cutting of the action scenes very difficult to follow.

Such scenes include a spectacular opening car chase through the streets of Siena, Italy, and a subsequent pursuit on foot over rooftops, which recalls the Morocco sequence from The Bourne Ultimatum. The tone of Casino Royale has been likened to the Bourne franchise, and this film goes even further in that direction, by depicting Bond as a rogue agent (admittedly, not for the first time). Perhaps this development is not surprising, given the number of backstage personnel who have previously worked on the Bourne movies, including co-editor Richard Pearson, second unit director Dan Bradley and stunt co-ordinator Gary Powell.

Also in common with the Bourne series, the Daniel Craig Bond films seem to be shaping up into a trilogy at the very least. The action picks up right where the previous picture left off, with 007 taking in Mr White (Jesper Christensen - whose character, you may recall, was shot in the leg by Bond) for questioning. You definitely need to have seen Casino Royale in order to follow Quantum of Solace. The closing scenes leave plenty of unfinished business for the agent to follow up in the as-yet-untitled Bond 23.

Quantum of Solace is a decent enough action thriller. I’m just not convinced that it’s a Bond film.

6

Richard McGinlay