Daniel Craig returns as Bond in Quantum of Solace, the 22nd film of the long-running British film series, once again proving his ability to carry the weight of a role that’s already been played by nearly half a dozen other actors. Casino Royale (2006) successfully — and triumphantly — rebooted the tired Bond series with critics and audiences alike comparing Craig to Sean Connery, whom many consider to be the best of all of the Bonds. It’s a pity that Solace never fully emerges from Casino‘s very long shadow.

Clearly, Craig’s performance as the womanizing sexist bastard who happens to be the world’s ultimate assassin is turning heads, with some critics even daring to commit the ultimate blasphemy by suggesting that Craig’s bond even outshines Connery’s.

This is not to say that Solace is a great film. In fact, even though it’s nearly non-stop action from start to finish, there’s very little time for the audience to breathe. Solace begins mere minutes after the events of Casino Royale, so if you haven’t refreshed your memory by watching Royale lately, you’re likely to be both confused and bewildered by the opening sequence of the film, if not the film itself.

In this, Quantum of Solace’s primary glaring flaw is darn-near unforgivable: it assumes that the audience has seen its predecessor. I don’t ask a lot of good action films, but at least tell me what the hell is going on. Every good film should stand alone on its merits. The moment your audience is forced to scratch their collective heads, they’re too busy playing catch-up to truly enjoy the film.

This is a far different kind of confusion than is presented by great storytelling, by keeping the audience guessing as to what will happen next. Quite simply, this is shoddy storytelling that keeps them guessing as to what just happened! Solace has joined a myriad of other films in a fad that keeps the camera so tight into the action that much of what’s on screen is little more than a barely discernible blur, something that Transformers (2007) suffered from as well. It seems as though director Mark Forster has picked up a few of his action cues from Transformers‘ Michael Bay. Believe me, this is not a good thing.

In a nutshell, Solace begins with a rapidfire car chase in the streets of Siena, Italy, who’s busy trying to escape the very well-armed henchmen of Mr. White, who happens to be in the trunk of his Aston-Martin. Once he delivers his bounty to interrogation, Bond and M are caught in the middle of traitorous deception, which sends both Bond and the audience around the world to Bolivia, where he must infiltrate another organization with an environmentalist front, also as an assassin, all in the attempt to find out who killed his girlfriend from the first film. Along the way, he meets Camille (Olga Kurylenko), who has a grudge of her own to carry.

Together, they’re hot on the trail to shut down the seemingly ubiquitous Quantum, an organization that’s hell-bent on some kind of world domination thing (is there any other kind of evil organization in Bond films). Quantum is run by the rather unimpressive Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), who for the moment, has his eyes on a piece of desert property in Bolivia.

Dame Judi Dench returns as M, who always manages to be a bright spot in any film she appears in; even though she spends much of Solace scowling at Bond or her other MI6 underlings.

Of course, there’s plenty of technology and gadgets to keep our favorite MI6 double-0 agent happy, and yes, he manages to find time to bed a couple of babes.

Quantum of Solace disappoints on a number of levels, most notably that it retreads on the tired old vengeance story line, which almost never makes for a good film. The last time we saw vengeance as a key plot point in a bond film was back in 1989 in the Timothy Dalton-era Licence to Kill, which was arguably a low point in the series.

Thankfully, Solace doesn’t dip to that kind of lowbrow filmmaking, but it never manages to rise above mediocrity, and is riddled with almost as many wasted opportunities as with bullet holes. Neither good nor bad, Quantum of Solace presents the best Bond actor since Connery in a story that’s nowhere near the calibre of its star. Perhaps we could have stood to wait a year or two for a better script.

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