Daniel Craig brings fresh 'Solace' to super-spy Bond

James Bond is still in a foul mood over that whole dead girlfriend thing from "Casino Royale." But the man who plays him is as happy as can be. Even as Daniel Craig ticks off all the injuries he sustained shooting "Quantum of Solace," he gushes about what a great job he has, updating the world's most-famous spy for a new era. Starring in one of the most-acclaimed installments in the franchise's history has carried Craig a long way since the dark, early days, when fans scorned him as a bad casting choice and scoffed at the notion of a blond, blue-eyed Bond.

Craig's delivery as a raw, angry young 007 in "Casino Royale" has silenced the critics, though he suffered months of online slings and arrows leading up to the release of that 2006 hit.

Fans didn't think he looked like Bond. They carped that his predecessor, Pierce Brosnan, should have had the chance to do another Bond flick. And they definitely didn't think Craig, a stage-trained actor, could act like Bond.

"It is kind of name-calling at its very basic level," the 40-year-old British actor said. "I understood the passion. ... These movies mean a lot to people. I get it. But they mean a lot to me, as well. I don't feel out of place in this equation.

"To respond to the criticism would have been the wrong thing to do. I'm sure some of it's still out there, but you can't please all the people."

"Quantum of Solace," opening Friday, picks up where "Casino Royale" left off, with Bond in such a vengeful mode over the loss of his lover that he goes rogue in pursuit of a shadowy group linked to her death.

Craig's Bond shares great interplay with spymaster M (Judi Dench) and teams with a woman (Olga Kurylenko) on her own revenge mission as they track a phony environmentalist (Mathieu Amalric) trying to corner a South American water supply.

The new movie expands on the makeover begun with "Casino Royale," in which the randy, sexist Bond of old gave way to a physically meaner but emotionally vulnerable man capable of having his heart broken.

In "Quantum of Solace," Bond doesn't even drink his trademark martini, and he forgoes his cliched self-introduction, "Bond, James Bond."

"It needs to be refreshed," Craig said. "If it's just done where you tick off the boxes, OK, there, martini, 'Bond, James Bond,' and all that, it feels kind of a parody of itself."

"Quantum of Solace" runs well under two hours, the shortest in Bond history. But director Marc Forster, himself a target of fan gripes for his lack of action experience, packs "Quantum of Solace" with car chases, explosions, close escapes and a lot of hand-to-hand combat.

Craig's signed for two more Bond movies after "Quantum of Solace," whose continuation of the "Casino Royale" story line has some fans wondering if a trilogy is in the works.

"I don't think we can do a direct sequel. We've done that now," Craig said. "But certainly, there is as far as the bad guys are concerned and the organization that we've set up, there's definitely room for bringing that in. But whether they stand as a trilogy, I don't know."

— Associated Press