For James Bond aficionados, "Quantum of Solace" is a quantum leap into mediocrity, a rip-off of pictures like "The Bourne Ultimatum."

It's lazy filmmaking that relies on familiar car (plane and boat) chases and things exploding at the expense of story and character.

Where did the great hero go, the one from Sean Connery in "Goldfinger" to Daniel Craig himself in "Casino Royale," the elegant killer spy who spews memorable lines, his world-traveling adventures engorged with intrigue and mysterious women?

"Quantum of Solace," all flash, little fun, is a deep, sterile error in judgment. After this, the Bond movie franchise needs to be shaken and stirred.

The most arresting aspect of this sequel to 2006's far superior "Casino Royale," an enormous and deserving international hit, is the prickly relationship between Bond, still-classy Craig, and his boss, the superb Judi Dench as M, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service.

Dench, how she treats and trains her agents, is the film's most interesting character, one who lingers in the end. The next film in the series should be hers. "You look like hell," she says to Bond. "When's the last time you slept?" Dench, on the other hand, looks great.

The movie opens with Craig buckled into a jet-black Aston Martin being chased around a winding mountain road in Italy. Trucks crash, automobiles tumble over the side. It's breathtaking, but so were the heated ones in "The Bourne Identity" and "Mission: Impossible 2." We've seen that wreck before.

James Bond movies are renowned for the tunes played over the opening credits. For "Quantum of Solace," The White Stripes' Jack White and Alicia Keys contributed "Another Way to Die." It simply dies. Like Chris Cornell's disappointing "You Know My Name" for "Casino Royale," the desire is for something in the class of Shirley Bassey's "Goldfinger" or Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die."

The story, such as it is, picks up where "Casino Royale" left off — Bond, brokenhearted (poor baby) over the death of Vesper, the woman he loved, is now on a worldwide search for her killer.

Along the way, he confronts Mathieu Amalric, the fine French actor who played the paralyzed stroke victim in last year's "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." As a dangerous guy, he's not convincing, one of the weakest villains in Bond films history.

Amalric plays a guy named Greene who heads an environmentally conscious organization (Greene, get it?) as a cover. His real, nasty goal is to stage a coup in Bolivia by paying off a dictator so he can get his hands on the country's water supply.

Meanwhile, Dench has the most memorable dialogue, delivering it in her offhanded, attitudinal way: "Mr. Bond, if you could avoid killing every possible lead, it would be appreciated."

Returning from "Casino Royale," too, is the eminent Giancarlo Giannini as Bond's ally and friend, Rene Mathis. The actor's hangdog, gray-bearded, doomed presence lends the proceedings a few moments of class. In a quiet spell, Giannini sighs, "As one gets older, the villains and the heroes get all mixed up."

The movie is directed by Marc Forster, who guided "Monster's Ball" and Halle Berry to an Oscar. Three screenwriters took a crack at the story with the usually reliable Paul Haggis (Oscar winner for "Crash") in charge. Somehow, at the call of "Action!" they lost James Bond.

"Quantum of Solace." Rated: PG-13. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes. 2 stars.

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