‘GoldenEye’, is the 17th installment in the James Bond film series, a post-cold war action/spy-thriller that capitalizes on the real world tensions left over from the collapse of the USSR. ‘GoldenEye’ – the first film to dispense with reliance on Ian Fleming’s literary works for source material, and it had the near impossible job of revitalizing a franchise that many thought to have lost its mass appeal.
Martin Campbell directed this feature, it stars Pierce Brosnan in the lead role as the charismatic and dangerous secret agent – 007. Sean Bean stars as well: playing the part of Alec Trevelyan/006 – a turncoat MI6 agent, the main villain of the film. Judi Dench takes over for Robert Brown in the role of “M”, and we’re introduced to Isabella Scaruptco as Natalya Simonova — a hacker turned Russian defector — and eventually, Bond’s love interest and ally.
Famke Janssen is stunning as Xenia Onatopp: a salacious JANUS agent working against Bond, who is shown to be more than capable as an assassin. And finally, Desmond Llewelyn reprises his role as series stand-by “Q”, the man who provides Bond with his equipment and state-of-the-art gadgets.
This gimmick was actually expanded upon in the films, Bond’s gizmos and gadgets almost grew to overshadow the character’s more grounded and substantive traits. During the later Connery films (and into the Roger Moore era) we’re treated to a much more fantastical version of Bond than prior pictures. In contrast to the novels, the big screen version of the famous British spy, is wish fulfillment for anyone who’s ever dreamed of being equipped with implausible but also undeniably awesome things like; jet-packs, cars with extendable saws, laser watches, etc. GoldenEye’s reliance on gadgets is subtle, yet still delivers enough of them to please.
Afterall, what’s a Bond movie without spy-gear? See my ‘Casino Royale’ review to find out!
GoldenEye manages to successfully combine elements from the more iconic James Bond films of years past. It incorporates aspects of Sean Connery’s more serious and stoic approach to the character, Moore’s campy and over-the-top turn as the British secret agent, Timothy Dalton’s laconic take on the character, and George Lazenby’s brief yet memorable stint as Bond. This is the 17th film based on Ian Fleming’s secret agent, produced by ‘Eon Pictures’. It’s also the film that Albert Broccoli, head of Eon stepped away from as producer, letting his daughter (Barbara Broccoli) take over the position.
Pierce Brosnan is the definitive version of 007 for many 90s babies (myself included), he reinvigorated the appeal of the character for a younger generation causing a resurgence in rentals/sales of Bond media on all home release formats; VHS, Laserdisc, Beta — if it had James Bond on the cover with his obligatory gun, people were renting or buying it. The critical and box office response to ‘Goldeneye’ was universally uproarious, see below:
“Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “A−” on an A+ to F scale.” [1]
“James Berardinelli described Brosnan as ‘a decided improvement over his immediate predecessor’ with a ‘flair for wit to go along with his natural charm’ ” [2]
Daring action, classy romance, and brass one-liners are all agent 007’s trademarks; this film has those aplenty. The attention to detail that Martin Campbell applied is second-to-none, every location is unique, appearing authentic to the spy-thriller genre and with set dressing that really sells the post-cold war atmosphere. Brosnan’s acting isn’t simply a pastiche of Bond’s past, no, he conveys more sentimentality than we’ve seen in former iterations. There’s a desire to connect with others despite his ossified exterior. This is a nice touch, really draws you into the film.
And now, I’ll leave you with this quote from the final moments of the film, without context.
“For England James?”
(Trevelyan)
“No. For me.”
(007)
Rating
9/10
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Sources:
[1]
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/goldeneye-1995
[2]
https://preview.reelviews.net/movies/g/goldeneye.html
