I have a confession to make. When news broke that Daniel Craig was going to be the next Bond I was one of the people that thought he couldn’t do it, that he would be another Lazenby or at best another Dalton. Anyway, Casino Royale didn’t just put those concerns at rest but left them choked, bleeding and dead in the first few minutes of the film. Last week saw the release of Craig’s second outing as Britain’s favourite spy and with real excitement I sloped off to see if lightening could strike twice with Quantum of Solace.

First, a brief recap on the last film: The idea behind the Craig version of Bond was to re-invent the franchise in a similar way to the Bale incarnation of Batman and to whit they did a very good job in the first film. Elements of the original Bond character were re-introduced and indeed explained by showing how Bond attained his double 00 status, the lost love he can’t save and a shady organisation against which to wage a personal score. Casino Royale ended with Bond’s love Vesper dead and the erstwhile spy stood over Vesper’s bleeding handler, a member of the same shadowy organisation that owned Le Chiffre.

Got all that?

Quantum of Solace, recognising the loose ends in its predecessor, begins one hour after the events in Casino Royale with a high-octane car chase in which yet another Aston Martin gets mangled*. It’s a bold opening that foreshadows the film’s sprint pace and bone-crunching fight scenes before slipping into the opening titles.

The plot follows Bond as he chases down the leads left by Vesper in an attempt to unearth the secret organisation that so unnerved MI6 by its emergence in Casino Royale. Of course they also inadvertently killed Vesper and, consumed by grief and a desire for revenge, Bond has only the loosest of grips on his actual orders as he racks up the body count in his pursuit of her killers. With his own people, the CIA and Vesper’s shadowy former employers chasing him down, and a love interest who’s as equally interested in revenge as he is, Bond must decide whose side he’s on and how far his rage can take him before he’s passed the point of no return.

On one level the whole film can be seen as a 131 minute scream of anguish from Bond in response to Vesper’s death but to do so is to sell the film short. The film is faster paced and more cohesive than Casino Royale that might lead some viewers to over look some of the deeper, shrewder punches. This is a film that asks questions about heroes and villains, about the black and white shades of morality we still talk about whilst governments cynically practice a greyer form of ethics. There are no good guys in this: Bond is scarred and emotional whilst lashing out at everything; the CIA are sponsoring dictators and throwing former allies to the enemy; MI6 and the British Government are lapdogs of the US and prepared to give up Bond; the list goes on. In the end it’s the villains who’re the most honest – telling the people they deal with straight that they are shits but powerful shits who can do whatever they want.

But it’s not all dark and violent, the film also has some lighter moments – mainly delivered with skill by Dame Judy Dench, making beautiful use of her versatility and masking the fact that Craig is not so good on the pithy one-liners. Indeed, rather like Dalton, a lack of humour is the main weakness of Craig’s Bond but unlike Dalton Craig gets away with it. There is a noticeable synergy between Dalton and Craig as Bond, both Dalton and Craig seem to have gone back to the source material and plumped for a colder, darker Bond that ties in more closely with Flemming’s original material. The difference is that Craig is a better actor and as a result is more able to communicate the underlying emotions of the character without falling into the trap of overacting (hello Roger) or being wooden (sorry Timothy). That both actor and director seem to know the strengths and weaknesses of this version of Bond – and are able to work around it – is to their credit.

If Quantum of Solace has flaws they are ones that were created by the previous film and the attempt to create a two-part story. Casino Royale suffers from having two endings, the natural break point comes after the rescue of Bond and his successful seduction of Vesper. We then have this strange little segment on the end with the two lovers in Vienna and Vesper’s eventual death that only makes sense in the set up for the next film. I feel this creates two problems for Quantum of Solace: the first being that the structure of Casino Royale made the film a little too long creating overt pressure for Quantum of Solace to be shorter. As a result the pace in Quantum of Solace is relentless – blink and you’ll miss something – and I feel this lets down some of the film’s deeper moments. The second is that whilst the structure of Quantum of Solace is better you could argue strongly that the end of Casino Royale should have been the opening pre-title sequence of Quantum of Solace.

But these are minor quibbles. Lightening can indeed strike twice and Craig’s latest outing is a triumphant second act, learning from recent action film master classes such as the Bourne trilogy and retaining the best bits of its own franchise history to make something new. I await Craig’s third outing with anticipation and would suggest the powers-that-be could do worse than rehire director Marc Forster. Definitely one to see in the cinema.

* Honestly: if they’re giving them away I’d rather they sent one my way, at least it would be kept in one piece.