{"id":505270,"date":"2026-05-27T14:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T14:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/505270\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T14:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T14:42:13","slug":"007-first-light-could-the-new-james-bond-from-greystones-be-exactly-what-the-franchise-needs-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/505270\/","title":{"rendered":"007 First Light: Could the new James Bond from Greystones be exactly what the franchise needs? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a new James Bond<\/a>, and he grew up in Greystones<\/a>, Co Wicklow<\/a>, and attended Gonzaga College in Dublin. He is Patrick Gibson, the 31-year-old former Trinity College student who stars in the new video game 007: First Light. It\u2019s Bond but with a twist: Gibson plays a fresh-faced, pre-007 version of the super-spy, newly recruited to MI6 and not quite sure if it\u2019s his calling in life to serve with his majesty\u2019s secret service.<\/p>\n

Gibson is not the first Irish Bond, and there are parallels between his arrival to the franchise and that of Co Meath-native Pierce Brosnan<\/a> 30 years ago. When Brosnan was unveiled as the inaugural Irish Bond \u2013 and the third Celt, after Sean Connery<\/a> and Timothy Dalton \u2013 cinema\u2019s favourite secret agent was shaken and stirred, in a bad way.<\/p>\n

The Dalton years had been judged a disaster \u2013 the world was not ready for a gritty Bond who was the spiritual opposite of the cheesy Roger Moore<\/a>. But if Dalton was an unhappy fit, by 1995, the camp overkill of Moore\u2019s 1970s prime was no longer going to cut it either. As Bond, Brosnan had to find a third way \u2013 bringing some of the darkness of the Dalton era (and of the original Ian Fleming novels) while also conjuring the fun and escapism that had been part of the character all the way back to Dr No in 1962.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Pierce Brosnan\u2019s 11 most memorable movie roles \u2013 in reverse orderOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Fast forward three decades, and 007: First Light arrives with Bond at a similar impasse. The most doleful 007 of them all, Daniel Craig<\/a> has slouched off into the sunset, having seemed fed up with Bond from the outset. But who can slip into the tuxedo in his place under the withering gaze of Amazon, the new custodian of 007? All sorts of names have been mentioned \u2013 from Jacob Elordi to Callum Turner<\/a> \u2013 without answering the fundamental question of what sort of Bond is fit for purpose in the 21st century.<\/p>\n

Now Gibson\u2019s take on the character offers one possible answer. In the game \u2013 out now on PS5, Xbox and PC \u2013 we meet Bond as he is just starting his career in international sleuthing. He has the posh tones of a younger Prince Harry, but is not quite yet a keen womaniser and master of the blackjack table. In fact, the game comes across as conspicuously ambivalent about how much of a moral blank space Bond should be.<\/p>\n

The game does bow to convention by giving us a classic Bond opening title sequence \u2013 spiffed up with a great theme song by Lana Del Rey<\/a>. Yet the credits also tell us a lot about the fine line Bond has to walk in 2026. It pays homage to the past with the occasional silhouette of a \u201cscantily clad\u201d woman \u2013 as they used to say in the 1970s \u2013 but in general tries not to overdo it with the Benny Hill stuff. It\u2019s Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s 007 \u2013 gaudy and vaguely sexist while trying not to be gaudy and vaguely sexist.<\/p>\n

What sort of Bond does Gibson make as the player accompanies him on adventures that take him from a freezing face-off in Iceland to a training camp in Malta and further afield? He isn\u2019t the second coming of Daniel Craig and hurrah for that \u2013 one curmudgeonly Bond is quite enough. He also doesn\u2019t go for Pierce Brosnan\u2019s knowing camp. This is a grounded Bond \u2013 in on the joke about the absurdity of his globe-trotting gig, yet willing to do what he must for king and country.<\/p>\n

\"007007 First Light. Photograph: IO Interactive \"007007 First Light. Photograph: IO Interactive \"007007 First Light. Photograph: IO Interactive <\/p>\n

Gibson says he wants to get to the \u201chuman core\u201d of the character. \u201cI think there\u2019s just a real humanity there in the books that later versions of Bond [films] definitely drew from as well,\u201d he told Men\u2019s Journal. \u201cIt was important from the start that it felt like a human story. Meeting him at this young age, there\u2019s scope for a vulnerability and a kind of rough-around-the-edges nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Daniel Craig: \u2018Maybe I\u2019ll be remembered as the grumpy Bond\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

As a game, First Light isn\u2019t going to receive any commendations for originality: there is nothing here you won\u2019t have encountered in the Hitman series (from the same developer, IO Interactive) or the later Uncharted titles. But it\u2019s frisky, frolicking fun \u2013 and, almost by accident, argues that, this far on from the first Irish Bond, perhaps it\u2019s time for another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a new James Bond, and he grew up in Greystones, Co Wicklow, and attended Gonzaga College in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[11663,1463,29203,18,117,35978,19,17,7391,327,7392,63],"class_list":["post-505270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-11663","tag-amazon","tag-daniel-craig","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-greystones","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-james-bond","tag-movies","tag-pierce-brosnan","tag-trinity-college-dublin-tcd"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116647070534424935","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}