The Martlet

Daniel Craig returns as James Bond in the 22nd installment of the longest running franchise in film history. But the most expensive — and shortest — Bond film ever produced is also one of the quickest to fade from memory. Fond? Not fond.

The grand prologue, characteristic of Bond films, finds Bond in his weathered Aston Martin DBS, being pursued down the meandering Italian coast. The frenetic sequence is meant to toss us on the edge of our seat, but the way it’s shot and cut creates one incoherent mess where viewers are not sure what is happening until something blows up.

Bond is fueled by vengeance over his lost love, Vesper. His determination to find out who betrayed her leads him on a murderous rampage where he encounters Bond-babe Camille (Ukrainian model/actor Olga Kurylenko), also looking to settle a score of her own.

Quantum sorely lacks several ingredients necessary to a good Bond film. First, and perhaps most importantly, a good villain.

A scheming environmentalist with a hidden agenda (Mathieu Almaric) tries on the villain shoes, but he is about as menacing as he is memorable. What was his name, again? His evil plan remains unclear for most of the film.

Gone are the days when villains were after the world, space, nuclear warheads and other doomsday devices. Maybe they were setting their sights a little high. Now, the Bolivian desert and the water beneath it are of paramount importance.

Surely the British Secret Service has more pressing matters than a man in South America who wants water.

Zero attention is paid to character development throughout the film, and there is absolutely no chemistry between Bond and Camille. Yes, just Camille. Also gone are the Xenia Onatopps, Holly Goodheads, Plenty O’Tooles, and Pussy Galores.

The film’s only fireworks come with a female British agent. Her character surfaces later in the film during a clever nod to one of the best Bond films, Goldfinger, but the scene feels thrown in at the last minute, as if it was added because the filmmakers completely forgot that charm was one of Bond’s major attributes.

Craig can’t take the blame for Quantum’s shortcomings; he is still the ideal candidate for the job. Unfortunately he wasn’t presented with a screenplay worthy of his abilities. In fact, Craig receives relatively little dialogue, which is unfortunate because the sexual innuendo and smart one-liners are defining 007 traits the fans pay to see.

Director Marc Forster (who directed Finding Neverland, Monster’s Ball and The Kite Runner) is the wrong man for the job, however. We are put on the verge of chase-sequence fatigue as Forster refuses to take his foot off the accelerator.

Maybe they are there to cover up the lack of substance in the film, but the chases are executed by someone who clearly doesn’t have experience shooting action pictures. The dizzying camera work and excessive rapid cutting is a frustrating method to produce excitement and doesn’t work here.

Forster tries too hard to turn James Bond into Jason Bourne, employing some second unit staff from the latter two Bourne films to shoot some action scenes. A lengthy rooftop scramble in particular comes straight out of the Bourne Ultimatum, only filmed and edited here with far less skill or ingenuity.

Quantum has the feeling of a rushed production. It races furiously towards the finish line as if it can’t wait to be over. Sadly it is as dry as Bond’s martinis, but when it’s over, we are left neither shaken nor stirred.