Quantum of Solace provided him with the psychological driver for his behaviour that had previously been considered unnecessary. Even more startlingly, he declared himself unambiguously in love. In Casino Royale, he suffered the humiliation of being tortured in the nude. The asperity of that world is no novelty for Craig's 007. When this produces a raised eyebrow, he says: 'Were you expecting an exploding pen? We don't really go in for that any more.' Thus frugally equipped, our hero confronts a world pervaded by guilt, doubt, grief and foreboding rather than the joshing sadism of his previous outings. Ben Whishaw's Q, favouring practicality over hilarity, offers Bond only a gun and a radio tracker. Indeed, the film's lack of larkiness is the point of one of the cracks. In Skyfall, Daniel Craig's Bond delivers a scattering of old-style quips, but the chronic flippancy from which they used to spring has disappeared.
