London - The famous line "The name's Bond ...," the gizmos, gadgets and glib one-liners are missing from Quantum of Solace - in line with Daniel Craig's mission to reinvent James Bond for modern times. 

Following on directly from Casino Royale, the actor's first 007 incarnation, Quantum of Solace provides the viewer with a "leaner, tauter experience," half an hour shorter than the previous 21 Bond films. 

"There is a generation of people who don't know Bond movies and I want them to watch the movies and understand who those characters are," said Craig, 40, in a BBC interview about his mission. 

However, reinventing Bond did not mean that traditional ingredients, including the likes of Q and Moneypenny, were consigned to history, he insisted. 

"We certainly have to introduce them and earn the right to have them. You can't just drop them," said Craig. 

In Quantum of Solace, Craig's portrayal of Bond as a cruel, emotionally battered character, has been praised by reviewers for its close reflection of the enigmatic, scarred character of the superspy created in Ian Fleming's novels. 

Others have lamented that the relentless crusade for a grittier, darker Bond has gone too far in the new film, with humour, flirtation and romance lacking. 

"Comic relief is in short supply. We don't have any boffins introducing new gadgets," said the Independent, adding that Craig's "gimlet-eyed intensity" revealed "something desperate about Bond." 

The Daily Telegraph criticized the film's "distance from traditional Bond plots" while the Guardian's critic was thrilled by the frenetic pace of action, stunts, and machination. 

"The movie ladles out the adrenalin in a string of deafening episodes: car chases, plane wrecks, motorboat collisions," it wrote. 

Fleming's niece, Lucy Fleming, defended Bond's adaptation to modern times, and said the villain's enduring appeal would come out on top. 

"People have loved Bond for over 55 years, from the dreary post-war days to the high-speed, dangerous world of 2008," she told Britain's Press Association. 

"Each brilliant actor brings his own generation's spin on the character and it works. Bond can evolve with the times," she said. 

David Black, chairman of the James Bond International Fan Club, also said the basic Bond formula of fast cars and pretty girls was bound to remain a recipe for success. 

"Everyone leads such boring, humdrum lifestyles that when we see this man driving around in an Aston Martin with pretty girls ... we think: 'I wish it was me'." 

"It's a fantasy - it's an escape for people from their lives," he said. 

No cost has been spared by the makers of the new Bond which is filmed in a record number of exotic locations ranging from Panama to Chile's Atacama desert to Haiti, Italy, Austria and Mexico. 

Ukrainian-born Olga Kurylenko, 28, playing the troubled moll Camille, has been praised by critics for giving "far more depth" to her role than most previous Bond girls. 

She has famously confessed that she hates doing love scenes. 

Oscar-winning British actress Judi Dench's role as spy chief M is praised as "wonderful" by the Independent. 

"She is more in evidence here than in her previous Bond movies and has a relationship with 007 that is maternal and flirtatious," the paper said about the 73-year-old actress. (dpa)