Guttered hero

THE original James Bond (whose essential personality endured through five incarnations) may have been too distracted by wiles of women to notice the degradation of his planet, but Version 2.0 (Daniel Craig, still scowling from the strain of Casino Royale) will never be accused of placing nooky before natural resources. Echoing the challenges of a new millennium, the plot of Quantum of Solace borrows heavily from two recent documentaries -- The Corporation and Flow -- whose concern for the Bolivian water supply transfers handily to the thriller format. The irony of course is that granting the environment center stage is significantly less than a quantum of solace to those who notice the movie's carbon footprint was probably bigger than that of the entire state of New York.

The 22nd entry in the franchise stages sequential mayhem with every known form of transport. Cars, boats, airplanes, motorcycles -- all are crashed, detonated or otherwise transformed into scrap metal by movie's end, and the humans scarcely fare better. Picking up a mere 20 minutes after Royale's finale, we find Bond fleeing the killers of his beloved (albeit lying, two-timing) Vesper, his Aston Martin duking it out with an Alfa Romeo on a winding Italian road. Soon after he and some random villain are swinging from church scaffolding, bashing wildly at each other while executing a complicated rope ballet choreographed by Cirque du Soleil. What's going on? I have no bloody idea.

The narrative fog clears somewhat in Haiti, where Bond is coaxed into a silver sports car by the feisty Camille (Olga Kurylenko). Wearing the jacket and carrying the briefcase of his most recent kill, our hero has every reason to accept the ride; and when he meets Camille's sneering boss (Mathieu Amalric) -- thankfully blessed with normal tear ducts -- he also encounters a dastardly corporate plot to overthrow a selection of South American governments and install grateful dictators sympathetic to First World drilling rights. Only it won't be oil they're drilling for.

Less seductive than Casino Royale and infinitely less patient (this is the shortest movie in the franchise), Quantum of Solace suffers from a flaccid theme song (by Alicia Keys and Jack White) that never comes close to Chris Cornell's distinctively macho stamp on its predecessor. Also a problem is director Marc Forster's inexperience with action sequences: the opening chase, a throbbing blur of frantic movement and random cuts, mimics the Bourne aesthetic too closely for comfort (or reason). And after handling so much pablum (Finding Neverland, The Kite Runner), Forster struggles a bit to find his footing.

Luckily he's a quick study, eventually marshaling well-oiled performances, ingenious stunts and stunning, stand-alone set pieces, the most memorable of which is a clever nod to the Albert Hall scene in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. Sly references to previous 007 outings -- including a dead girl coated in motor oil and slicked across a white bed in a cheeky wink to Goldfinger -- jostle for space in a script heavy with homages. Even Judi Dench's M gets a cold-cream moment reminiscent of Glenn Close's unmasking at the end of Dangerous Liaisons.

Though some may miss the debonair Bond of old, with his witty bon mots and unmussable side part, I'm committed to Craig's craggy, curdled operative. More cruel than charming and more assassin than spy, he's bad-boy sexy in a way Timothy Dalton could only imagine. In fact, the only downside to Craig's modeling of the character may be to encourage more straight men to wear Speedos. And I'll admit there's precious little solace in that.