A hyper-kinetic mess.

Rating: Null/10 (17 November 2008)

This review will contain minor spoilers; it will not contain major spoilers, because that would require me to understand the plot far better than I did. That was one of the movie's problems, but certainly not the only one.
As others have described, Quantum of Solace begins immediately after the events of Casino Royale. Bond has captured "Mr. White," his only link to the secret organization first referenced in Casino. We find out that the organization is called "Quantum," that they appear to be some fusion of SPECTRE and the Illuminati, and that they've infiltrated (at least) MI-6 and the Prime Minister's inner circle. Beyond that, everything else is unclear, including whatever goal they were attempting to achieve in this movie.
Unlike SPECTRE from the older Bond films, Quantum has no memorable personalities. There is no Ernst Blofeld-type (who was smooth, ruthless and dangerous before he became the Dr. Evil prototype). There are no genius planners, no scary assassins, nothing. By the end of the movie, I actually would have welcomed sharks with laser beams on their frickin' heads.
Their scheme involves Bolivia, establishing a puppet government, and/or controlling the Bolivia's fresh water supply. Exactly why Quantum would want to do either of those is never made clear, nor is it clear if Bond actually foiled the scheme by the end of the movie.
The primary Bond girl has a vendetta against one of the villains, and her overall plan seems to be allowing herself to repeatedly get captured by the very people she wants to kill, with the hope that this will somehow lead to a chance to exact her revenge... or something. Beyond that, I lost track.
Beyond the vague nature of the plot, there are other stylistic problems. Bond, rather easily and quickly, identifies the members of Quantum's ruling council, and never follows up this lead - for the next movie perhaps? Other characters are introduced out of thin air, and then abruptly killed off. The lead villain, "Mr. Greene" (as opposed to "Mr. White"), is an uninteresting pseudo-environmentalist / industrialist, whose agenda is as vague as everything else in the plot.
Also, the director and editor seem to have an incurable fascination for jump cuts. Even in simple walking-through-building scenes, the jump cuts come at a rate of one every 1-4 seconds (no exaggeration, after awhile I started timing it), and during action scenes, the film begins to look like three or four barely-related movies, spliced together at random. The stunt work is very impressive, though the rapid-fire editing often makes it difficult to follow.
Daniel Craig remains a formidable screen presence, though, once again, the only emotion he's required to portray is "grim determination." For Casino Royale, this was part of the new Bond's charm, but it's becoming old.
All in all, Quantum is all style, with little substance.