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Fields is easily the least credible approximation of a professional woman in a Bond film since then-28 Denise Richards tried to pass for a nuclear physicist in The World Is Not Enough. Not that Fields doesn't seem smart or self-aware, but Bond can't be bothered even to make a show of flirtation or romancing her, and she obligingly follows him into the bedroom to help him, um, look for stationery (what a line) … and then finds herself naked and smilingly self-remonstrating with her back to Bond as he kisses her from behind?

Gemma Arterton as Agent Fields

The scene is just as problematic on Bond's end. Consider: Fields is the first woman he's been with since Casino—and the first woman with whom we see this Bond get physical in whom he has neither ulterior nor emotional interest. (The direct chronological dovetailing of the two films leaves no room for hypothetical other women in the interim.)

In Casino Bond began ravishing one woman because (as she knew very well) he wanted something from her, but when circumstances changed he left her on the floor with a bottle of champagne. Then came his beloved/hated Vesper Lynd, for whom he fell body and soul, who saved him and betrayed him and left him a hollower shell of a man than he had been before.

Given that history, meaningless, perfunctory sex with Fields may not be implausible on Bond's part—but at least it represents some sort of turning point. It should mean something to the screenwriters, if not to Bond. But it doesn't. It's like a relic of the pre-Casino franchise, tossed in because you can't have a 007 movie with no sex.

Just as bad is a nasty postscript that echoes the discovery of the villain's wife in the hammock in Casino, among other such scenes in Bond history, except that here it's pointless and unconnected to Bond's callousness toward women. Quantum even has M making some disparaging remark to Bond (something like "See what your charm has done"), which is stupid, because this time Bond's charm had nothing to do with it.

Mathieu Amalric as Dominic Greene

M's role is bigger this time out, but her relationship with Bond is less prickly and more cartoony than in Casino. Quantum also brings back Casino's Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini), who, in a key scene that would have been even more important in a better film, urges Bond to "forgive" Vesper and himself.

Quantum also takes a turn toward the political: It turns out that the U.S. willingly colludes with military coups in foreign countries if they think there's oil in it for them, and the British will do whatever the U.S. wants them to. Curiously, Quantum's evil plot oddly resonates with a key plot point in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa: In both films a third-world community living in desert terrain is threatened by a hidden group with controlling access to the earth's most precious resource—a substance beside which even diamonds and gold or oil are seen to be of little worth.

Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland) directs his first action feature in a style clearly modeled on the Bourne and Batman films, all tight closeups and fast edits. For some reason he intercuts action scenes with other images: an underground chase sequence in Siena is punctuated by that city's Palio horse race; a melee at an opera house is counterpointed by scenes from the opera; and Bond's climactic duel in a burning desert fortress is intercut with the heroine's own battle to the death.

Quantum isn't a complete waste. Craig's charisma holds up even when the screenplay lets him down. And while there's nothing here to compare to Casino's opening parkour pursuit sequence, the chases and fight scenes are entertaining and sometimes strikingly well staged. Three years ago, Quantum of Solace would have been a pretty good Bond flick. Two pair isn't a bad hand. It's just anticlimactic after a royal flush.

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