Pierce Brosnan’s final Bond outing in 2002, Die Another Day with its video-game CGI and invisible Aston Martin was an empty, heartless spectacle by comparison. The newly arrived Bond films had at their centre a conflicted, tortured interesting hero whose actions had brutal, real world consequences. The sixth incarnation of 007 took his bow in November 2006, following months of ungenerous and spectacularly wide-of-the-mark criticism of this new ‘James Blonde.’ With their previous movie having reached an apex of silliness not seen since Moonraker, the Bond producers realised that they needed to reboot their franchise along earthier, grittier lines (much as they had done in 1981 after 007’s much-mocked journey into space, with the determinedly down-to-earth For Your Eyes Only).
