Goldeneye (1995) | The Best it Can Get for Now

After the longest hiatus in franchise history up to this point, James Bond returned. However, Timothy Dalton had already hung up the title and walked away. It was time for Pierce Brosnan to usher in the new era. Goldeneye is a special movie for a number of reasons. It was the last film that long-time producer Albert R. Broccoli would see before his death. It was the first Bond film that was not based on any material written by Ian Fleming. It was also the first Bond movie to be made into an extremely successful and well-regarded video game of the 1990s that would have a notoriously popular legacy.

I don’t know which Bond movie I saw first, but I know which one made me a fan in the first place. Goldeneye is a movie I haven’t seen as many times as other James Bond films, but I remember a lot of it. This is partly because it’s a good movie, but also because of how it came out during my youthful years in which things easily imprinted themselves on my mind. I played the game a lot with friends during that time, too. As a result, many of the scenes in the movie are further enforced in my head by memories of playing the game. That might bias my opinion towards Goldeneye over other Brosnan Bond films, but I doubt anyone would disagree this is the best of his era.

Pros

Some cool stunts and action scenes
Plot is easy to follow with some decent espionage action
Solid chase scenes, including the car chase in the beginning and the tank later in the film
Famke Janssen is entertainingly over-the-top
Fight choreography, while shot too close at times, looks better than previous Bond fist fights
Good opening title sequence and catchy song

Cons

How does one manage to fake his death when he’s supposed to be shot in the head directly in front of the witness?
1990s special effects have not aged gracefully
The special spy car with gadgets is hinted at but not used in action
Much of the score is quiet and dull when attempting to be tense

Plot & Thoughts

Some spoilers ahead

Goldeneye opens with one of many iconic sequences. James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is infiltrating a Soviet military base by base-jumping off the top of a dam. Bond stealthily makes his way through the base to rendezvous with the other agent, 006 (Sean Bean), and the two of them begin planting charges on the various fuel canisters with the intention of blowing the enemy base to pieces. It all goes to hell, however, when the Soviets rush the room, and capture and execute 006 directly in front of James Bond. Bond shortens the timers on the explosives and manages to escape the facility in the nick of time through a series of tense and dramatic moments, including falling off a cliff and flying away in a plane.

After the opening credit sequence with Tina Turner’s catchy song “Goldeneye” finishes, we flash forward nine years into the post-Cold War era. From here, the movie slows down a little (just kidding) by having an exciting car race sequence on some narrow mountain roads. Later, he encounters the driver he was competing with in this race and beats her at a game of cards. She happens to be Xenia Onatopp (Famke Jenson)—bringing back the euphemistic character names—and is very much his next lead for his mission. Onatopp kills someone of importance in the middle of intercourse with him and steals an experimental stealth helicopter during a public display before Bond finally meets with M (Judy Dench) to get his mission, which involves the former Soviet satellite project known as Goldeneye. Goldeneye is a weapon capable of shutting down electronic grids and networks using electromagnetic pulses on the scale of a nuclear explosion. It goes off somewhere in Russia due to circumstances that are mysterious to MI6—but not the audience—and it’s up to Bond to find out what happened as well as find whomever involved may be alive.

This movie manages to be consistently engaging just up until the climax. The pacing dips a little before they infiltrate the enemy base at the end, but it picks right back up with the action when guns start going off and things start exploding. From the opening at the dam to the exploding Russian satellite base, to the tank chase, to the train sequence, Goldeneye balances its action with its espionage and intrigue really well due to some good direction and editing.

Pierce Brosnan is also a great fit for the character of Bond. Even though he ends up being on the low end when it comes to my list of favorite Bonds, and even though his Bond also eventually becomes the most indestructible and unbelievable of all of them, I still think he’s a great casting choice. He manages to evoke some of the Roger Moore charm and the physicality of Timothy Dalton and Sean Connery. He makes some funny faces when he runs and fires guns as though he’s posing with his besties for Instagram, but he still manages to look the part and fits right into the role immediately.

I’m also a fan of the villains. Though they may not make the most intelligent of decisions all the time, they’re certainly memorable. Famke Janssen eats up each scene she’s in as the overly aroused Onatopp. Her beauty already draws you in, and her over-the-top orgasmic performance only makes her more entertaining. I’m also always a fan of Sean Bean, regardless of the quality of the movie he’s in. His character of Janus is a fun villain who, despite having somewhat petty motives, manages to be one of the most memorable for Bond to face. The fact that he was a double-o agent makes him seem like a physical and mental match for Bond, which makes their final confrontation more gripping and exciting. It’s one of the most physical encounters between Bond and a villain up to this point in the franchise. It’s shot a little too close, but it’s still a good fight to build up the action.

Goldeneye may be my favorite of the Brosnan era, but it still stumbles in some spots. It’s guilty of the Bond trope of leaving Bond alive to escape when a bullet would do the job just fine, multiple times—this is something that will happen a lot in the other Brosnan movies as well. It also has a rather weak musical score in comparison to other movies, despite having a strong opening song by Tina Turner. Most of the Bond movies would incorporate the opening credits song into their score, and that’s done here, but they took the quietest parts of Turner’s song for their inspiration. There are several times where I would have just preferred the classic James Bond theme played to really amp up the movie as it does during the tank chase sequence.

Lastly, how does someone fake their death with a gunshot to the head? It’s a moment at the beginning when 006 is “captured” by the Soviet soldiers and he’s supposedly shot by Colonel Ourumov (Gottfried John) directly in Bond’s view. Had he been shot when Bond wasn’t looking, or somewhere in the torso where a squib could have gone off, then I would be more willing to believe that his death was deliberately staged. Instead, it’s a stupid moment that is done to surprise the audience when he comes back later. If Bond was looking at him when he got shot in the head, he would have seen the hole, the blood, and everything else, but since this is a PG-13 movie, I guess Bond couldn’t see gunshot wounds.

TL;DR

Goldeneye is easily the best Bond film of the Brosnan era. It’s got solid pacing and action to keep you engaged from start to finish. It’s got memorable villains and memorable scenes that stick in your mind well after watching it. It’s got a great opening song. It has some minor issues like the score being a little flat and the villains making dumb decisions, but it’s still undeniably a fun Bond film that would, unfortunately, also be the best movie Brosnan would do as the character, setting expectations high for the next four Brosnan films only for them never to be met again.

Hair of the Dog Drinking Game Rule

Perhaps the most memorable character from Goldeneye is Xenia Onatopp, the most sadistically aroused woman on the planet. Famke Janssen made a lot of young boys (myself included) discover things about themselves with her over-the-top performance of the character and certainly made watching the movie with your parents a little awkward. Nonetheless, she manages to be one of the most entertaining aspects of Goldeneye with her frequent mini-orgasms she gets from hurting and killing people. Why not celebrate the sexually liberated woman’s sadistic pleasure with her?