Beginner’s Bond: Goldeneye
The “Beginner’s Bond” series of posts is a testament to my efforts to close the largest gap in my personal cinematic history: the James Bond franchise. I am watching all of the films in order for the very first time and recording my honest reactions here for your amusement. Today I’ll be talking about 1995’s GoldenEye, which debuts a new 007 played by Pierce Brosnan. Let’s see how he measures up against his predecessors.
The film opens with 007 running a co-op mission with his pal 006. They infiltrate a secret Soviet weapons lab and place some very familiar-looking mines all around it, but before Bond can hit the boom button, his buddy is captured by the enemy. Soviet Colonel Ourumov orders 007 to surrender, and when he does not comply, 006 is apparently executed. Bond blows up everything and makes a daring cliff-dive-into-a-falling airplane escape before we are treated to one of the more impressive title sequences of the whole series. The song “GoldenEye” performed by Tina Turner is one of the better themes, with thundering drums and bombastic horn stabs that make it sound almost like a cousin to the classic Bond theme.
Nine years later, James Bond fails to stop Xenia Onatopp, an operative of the Janus crime syndicate, from stealing a high-tech attack chopper during a demonstration. She and General Ourumov attack a radar station in Siberia, firing a Soviet orbital EMP weapon codenamed “GoldenEye.” Every electrical device for miles is wrecked, except for the chopper with its cutting-edge countermeasures, so Ourumov and Onatopp escape with all of the materials they need to fire GoldenEye again. 007 is sent to investigate, and that’s when things start going crazy. This movie has almost all the fun stuff you want from a James Bond experience—the corny puns, the classy outfits, the silly gadgets, the super strong henchman, over-the-top fights in difficult environments, and a chase scene with a ridiculous vehicle. Straightening his tie as he crashes through the streets of St. Petersburg in a tank is one of the most 007 images I can ever recall seeing—the wrecking ball in a three-piece suit. Natalya Simonova is an ideal Bond girl: beautiful and distressed, but not helpless. She’s actually integral to helping James figure out the plot. And Xenia Onatopp is a rarity among the pantheon Bond girls. She is the super strong henchman, as well as one of the few that never sleeps with James Bond.
Alec Trevelyan, the former 006, is one of the more fascinating villains of the franchise. He’s the first rogue agent we’ve seen from the 00 section, and his designation suggests he might be the equal of our favorite secret agent. Alec is ruthlessly clever, and quite skilled at solving problems by killing the right people…just like James. There’s also a petulant competitiveness in Alec's interactions with Bond, like an angry little brother desperate to prove he’s the best one. It’s not enough to just kill 007, he has to humiliate him first. Like many villains before him, 006 should have just pulled the trigger when he had his enemy at gunpoint.
Pierce Brosnan is the first actor to truly feel like he was succeeding Sean Connery. While Brosnan’s version of the character is obviously inspired by the original, he also borrows liberally from all the Bonds that came before him. Well, maybe not George Lazenby. Brosnan can hit the darker dramatic tones Timothy Dalton was striving for, but he is equally adept at the moments of broad comedy, delivering the humor without crossing over into the fully cartoonish like Roger Moore. Add in the weapons-grade charisma, and we have a James Bond for the post Cold War era. Pierce Brosnan’s performance successfully threaded the needle between the lighter and darker elements of 007. It’s no surprise that role made him a movie star and revitalized a franchise that many said had outlived its relevance. GoldenEye was also the first film to not use any plot elements from the original texts, proving that Agent 007 was not bound to his creator’s books, a character willing and able to face whatever adventure a writer can throw him into.
Full disclosure: GoldenEye is the film that introduced me to James Bond. I saw it in the theater when I was twelve years old. My mother took me to see it, and it’s the first time I ever recall her getting excited for a movie. It blew my tiny little pre-teen mind. At the time, I was pretty sure it was the best movie I had ever seen. Today it is still among my top three Bond films. And it would be impossible to overstate how influential the video game, 1997’s Goldeneye 007 for the N64, was on both me personally and games as a whole. I definitely wasted a lot of hours playing that game when I should have been doing homework. For a very long time, that was all I knew of James Bond: one movie, one video game, and a lifetime of secret agent jokes in cartoons and TV.
I was happy to discover that GoldenEye still held up pretty well. Even the rudimentary CG looks good despite being 30 years old. I’m genuinely excited to see the rest of the Pierce Brosnan era for the first time. Hopefully Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) will be an equally pleasant surprise.
