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Also tweaked is the Q scene which also takes place in the disused underground station. Now played by John Cleese, Q laces his verbal sparring with 007 with Pythonesque sarcasm. This possibly hints at a different dynamic between Bond and Q in future films. For his part though, Brosnan is wonderfully charming as he yanks the new Q’s chain by blithely destroying the instruction manual for his new Aston Martin Vanquish with the vehicles own machine-guns.

Paying homage to the previous 40 years of Bond films, Q’s lab is stocked with famous past gadgets such as the Bede Acrostar Jet from Octopussy and the jetpack from Thunderball. Brosnan calls these the “old relics.” Oddly enough though, this quip takes on an ironic subtext for those revisiting the film. Having subsequently lost the James Bond role after Die Another Day, Brosnan himself has become another ‘old relic’ to be displayed among the other museum pieces.

The duality theme fits the overall summation about Brosnan as James Bond. It might not have been a conscious decision but Pierce Brosnan did draw on the twin legacies of Sean Connery and Roger Moore as James Bond. Like Connery, Brosnan was sexy, masculine, kinetic and capable of conveying menace. Some critics mention the Celtic tradition as a good trait for Bond actors – Fleming’s Bond even calls himself “a Scottish peasant.” Like Roger Moore though, Brosnan/Bond could sashay through casinos and boudoirs in between explosions. Brosnan could then defuse a volatile situation with an arch quote in the best Moore tradition. And damn if that close-up of Brosnan’s eyes as he contemplates how to escape the British hospital ship in Die Another Day is not pure Roger Moore.

Another indicator of being a successful James Bond was Brosnan’s choices of projects between Bond films. Bond actors must walk the tightrope between roles that maintain or raise their visibility as James Bond while not straying too far from what makes them appealing as Bond. Brosnan illustrated this scenario by choosing roles that emphasized his sophisticated and urbane side which sometimes called for action heroics. In between roles included joining A-list ensembles such as The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) and Mars Attacks! (1996). Brosnan also top-lined the disaster flick Dante’s Peak (1997), a role he would probably wouldn’t have been offered if he hadn’t elevated his profile with James Bond.

Brosnan also triumphed in the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair in which he co-starred with model turned actress, Rene Russo. Playing a sophisticated playboy who dabbles in art theft was not a stretch for Brosnan, and the chemistry between him and Russo was palpable, and more than held its own in comparison with the original film’s pairing of Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. As a whole, the remake is actually better than the original, owing to a clever script and tight direction from Die Hard director John McTiernan. More than a few people commented that Brosnan was actually more Bondian in The Thomas Crown Affair than he was in The World Is Not Enough later that same year.

Another successful off-Bond year film for Brosnan was The Tailor Of Panama (2001), based on the novel by John le Carré. Again playing a British spy, Brosnan has loads of fun playing a sleazier version of Bond; a lying, cheating, porn-loving conman. Acting against the redoubtable Geoffrey Rush, Brosnan steals all his scenes in this John Boorman film. While not a financial success, The Tailor Of Panama has aged well and is pointed to as one of Brosnan’s artistic successes between Bond films.

Returning to his Bond legacy though, another of Brosnan’s contributions to the series was to elevate James Bond into a brand name associated with high end luxury goods. The Bond films have always been an ideal marketing vehicle and previous Bond actors have all logged in some sort of advertising duty. But Brosnan took his Bond to another level by making the character synonymous with the OMEGA Seamaster Professional watch, the model he wore in the films, and which sales of skyrocketed after its use in GoldenEye. Other brands that benefited from the Brosnan/Bond mystique included Brioni suits, Smirnoff Vodka, Calvin Klein sunglasses, Church’s Shoes and even BMW automobiles.

To sum it all up, Pierce Brosnan was a very successful James Bond who many people felt should have been given at least one more film to gracefully end his tenure. That will never be, but Brosnan proved that he could ably fill the big shoes left him by previous successes Sean Connery and Roger Moore. Brosnan can claim some of the credit for getting the series back on track in the Nineties and ultimately raising the stakes for the next actor. He left the Bond series in a much stronger position than it was when he inherited the role. Brosnan’s departure was definitely not like that of Timothy Dalton’s, whose film Licence To Kill was perceived in Hollywood terms as a relative failure. Daniel Craig must now live up to not only the shadows of Connery and Moore, but now Brosnan as well.

Those long shadows were cast by differing interpretations of James Bond. All five 007 actors have left their marks on the role for better or worse, but the actors that matter most to the general public are Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan. The very first Bond, Sean Connery accurately assessed that the essence of playing James Bond is to make it appear effortless. Pierce Brosnan had that essence and his tenure will go down as an important chapter in the ongoing series. James Bond does endure and the onus is now on Daniel Craig to ensure that James Bond will return...