I don’t know if the latest James Bond movie is the worst of this remarkably hardy franchise; I’ve only ever watched four, maybe five, in my life, and to no memorable effect. I was taken to my first—I think it was From Russia With Love—by the father of one of my friends, along with much of their family, on New Year’s Eve. I do remember Kurt Weill’s widow Lotte Lenya as a Russian agent with a lethally dangerous kick thanks to some kind of weaponized footwear. I’ve never cottoned to the whole enterprise, from Ian Fleming’s smugly superior, consumerist Bond novels onward.

But I suspect that Quantum of Solace represents a new low level of achievement. It just has to. It certainly has the most awkwardly affected title of the whole series. I think it’s supposed to convey some dimension of recognizable human feeling, although to the extent it does, it’s blatantly false advertising.

Marc Forster’s movie is overwhelmingly technology- and big-effects-driven. Within the first half-hour alone there are three extended chase sequences that pound the audience with their shot-fractionating, sometimes incoherent kineticism. (The editing in both the big, explosive sequences and the quieter scenes is sometimes strangely inept.) Which matches the story, since it’s difficult to get a grip on it too.

The plot, which is only intermittently comprehensible, involves Agent 007 in a possibly unauthorized, rogue pursuit of revenge for the murder of a woman for whom he may or may not have deeply cared. (If you haven’t been to the previous entry, Casino Royale, you won’t have a prayer or a clue.) At the same time, he’s supposed to be acting to thwart the evil designs of a very obscure and dangerous combine on the water resources of Bolivia. The cursory green gesture notwithstanding, the movie mostly lurches from one violent but cartoonish sequence to another, up to a pointlessly and derivatively explosive final set piece.

Judy Dench, as Bond’s superior, M, turns up more than is usual, but it’s not much recompense. As Bond, Daniel Craig gives a flat robocall performance.

Quantum of Solace combines more than a quantum of narrative confusion with audience-assaulting action and effects.

—george sax