rated PG-13

It can be a little head spinning how fast a franchise can skid off the cliff from restarted to retarded.

It may have seemed like a remarkably savvy plan to the keepers of James Bond’s flame to invite a renowned art film director like Marc Forster (“Monster’s Ball,” “Finding Neverland”) to helm this latest chapter. And had the script continued on the relatively nuanced, character-driven trajectory of “Casino Royale,” it may have worked out. However, though a proven master at delving into the mysteries that govern human souls, the script foisted on Forster gives Bond only one driving motivation—revenge for the death of his “one true love”—rendering our heretofore debonair Teflon hero into a smouldering one-note Easter Island monolith. It could be said that as an international man of mystery, perhaps we don’t want to see too much of Bond’s internal struggles. Fair enough. But Daniel Craig’s famously chiseled poker face, so perfect at “Casino’s” card table, devastates Forster’s talents here, affording not a whit of insight, emotion or empathy into a character we’re lead to believe is undergoing a major catharsis.

It bears notice, as well, that as whip smart investigative agents go, Forster’s Bond is something of a clod. Literally a loose canon, he always shoots first and neglects completely to ask any questions, haphazardly manslaughtering half the people he’s supposed to bring back alive, including one of his own MI6 compatriots. One would think that the organization might provide a modicum of training for its double-0s before licensing them to kill and setting them free in the wild. But no. Which makes it that much harder for either Bond or the audience to figure out just what the hell’s going on amidst all the hectic, incoherent pummeling.

In his single-minded quest to uncover those responsible for his lover’s death, Bond stumbles upon a global conspiracy by a nefarious secret organization of megalomaniacs to rule the planet’s most precious resource. On the one hand, to the story’s credit, there is a hint of forward ecological thinking here, where both the audience and the U.S. and British governments are led to assume that the evildoers are after oil (spoiler: they’re not). On the other hand … yawn. As the centrally positioned evildoer present, Mathieu Amalric (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”) is passably reptilian, but otherwise just a man doing business. In his inevitable showdown with Bond’s gristly fist amid the smoky ruins of his schmancy desert pumping station, he’s hopelessly outmatched, and one can’t help but feel a little bad for the guy.

On the good guys’ side, though, Judi Dench continues to rock the role of “M.” In her sixth outing, she provides just about the only direct connective tissue between Bond’s past and present. She seems to be slowly giving over to more maternal material, but she’s still tough like a railroad spike. As female foils go, and as a real toe-to-toe match for the rebellious bad boy Bond, should definitely be ranked as the greatest Bond girl of them all. Take that, Olga Poutylip Whatever-your-name-is.

“Quantum’s” precursor, “Casino Royale,” very effectively dismantled the Bond mythos, discarding the threadbare conventions of the “classic” in favor of actual class. Away went the tired “shaken not stirred” business, substituting the far more intriguing, “Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?” lifted directly from Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel. Gliding along in his spiffy new tailored tux, this stripped-down, beefed-up Bond was at once retro-chic and completely new again, replacing the reflexive clichés that had so bogged down the series with a little subtlety, some character and, dare it be said, true elegance.

With “Quantum of Solace,” Marc Forster and his team (who tellingly, were given only six weeks to edit the whole mess together - compare that to the 56 weeks given to this year’s other reboot sequel “Dark Knight”) drag our poor hero right back to the tedious, frenetic, car chasing, boat racing, plane crashing and face bashing that so laboriously came to define the Bond of the last 20 years as just another explosive Hollywood sugar cookie. Bond’s infamously dinky Walther PPK pistol is back, as is the gratuitous and expendable girl candy. A sad point of fact: If it weren’t for the re-introduction of these tired old contrivances, there would be very little to differentiate this experience from any other spy-off-the-tether flick we’ve been assaulted with in the last 10 years (we’re looking at you, Mr. Bourne). Bond does get to put on a tux in this round, naturally enough, but it really says a lot that this time he just steals it off a rack.