GoldenEye

Cast & Credits

Actor                                                     Character

Pierce Brosnan                                  James Bond

Sean Bean                                          Alec Trevelyan

Izabella Scorupco                            Natalya Simonyova

Famke Janssen                                 Xenia Onatopp

Original running time:  2 hours and 10 minutes

Directed by Martin Campbell

Shortly after Licence To Kill was released in 1989, MGM/UA was sold.  This resulted in several legal disputes concerning the ownership and distribution of the James Bond series.  It was a situation similar to what happened recently with the series but it went on much longer.  As a matter of fact, the series took a six year hiatus which is by far the longest in it's existence.  Several factors came into play when the go ahead was given for a new film in the series to finally be made.  During the lengthy court battles, Timothy Dalton decided to step down as 007 since he was approaching 50 years of age.  A replacement had to be found.  Also, the Berlin Wall came down and the entire global political climate had changed.  This made many say the Bond was now irrelevant.  Furthermore, longtime producer Albert R. Broccoli had become ill and handed over the production reins to his step-son Michael G. Wilson and daughter Barbara Broccoli.  How would they fare?  It was decided that an actor that was at one time announced as Bond, but later was unable to take the role was announced as Bond again.  This time it was a sure thing and Remington Steele didn't own him anymore.  That's right, Pierce Brosnan was now officially James Bond.

After the gun barrel sequence we see a man dress in black running across the top of a dam.  Before you know it he does an immaculate looking dive and plummets hundreds of feet.  Thankfully he is attached to a bungee chord.  At the bottom of his jump he shoots a gun into the ground that spits out a wire that he can use to bring himself closer to the ground.  It turns out that the scene takes place in Arkangelsk, USSR outside of a weapons facility.  The man in black then makes his way into the facility through a vent into a bathroom and then punches out a soldier enjoying his newspaper.  The man that doe the punching is James Bond.  I knew it!  After leaving the bathroom, 007 meets up with 006.  That's right, this mission must be very important since two Double Ohs are involved.  006's name is Alec Trevelyan (played by Sean Bean).  Bond starts to put explosives on some tanks as an alarm goes off.  Nasty Colonel Ourumov captures 006 and shoots him in front of Bond who now has taken refuge behind some fuel tanks.  Bond uses a conveyor belt, a motorcycle, skydiving, and piloting abilites to escape.  This into may have been highly implausible, but it really doesn't matter since it was fast moving, well executed, and a whole lot of fun.  Roll the credits...

The credit sequence is definitely different but it's pretty imaginative.  It shows images of beautiful women with sledge hammers destroying images of the hammer and sickle and taking down stone statues of ex-Soviet leaders like Stalin.  This along with many other things in the film show that the Cold War is over and that it is a new time.  At times it comes across as being a bit heavy handed, but I do understand why it was done and give the film a fresh and modern (for those times) feel.  Also, it shows the close up of a golden eye.  How (not) clever.   While all of this is going on we are hearing the theme song being sung by Tina Turner.  I like it quite a bit and consider it to be the last "real" Bond song.  The soundtrack this time is done by Eric Serra.  Sometimes it's really good and other times it's horrible.  The action sequence stuff is solid, but he I can't say the same about the romantic sounding stuff with violins.  It sounds completely out of place in a Bond film.  Also, he does a song during the final credits that I, as a Bond fan, pretend doesn't exist in order to avoid embarassment.  So yeah, the soundtrack is very hit and miss.

After the credits we see that nine years has passed and Bond hasn't aged a day.  I wish that I was like that.  He is riding around in his Aston Martin DB5 with a pretty psychiatrist that's been sent to evalute him.  This turns into a scene where he races around Monaco with an attractive brunette in a red Ferrari and Bond of seducing the shrink in order to pass his exam with flying colors.  Later Bond follows and meets up with the owner of the Ferrari at a casino.  Her name is Xenia Onatopp.  We find out she smokes cigars, that Bond is luckier than her at Baccarat, and that she's a bad loser.  A little later we find out that she likes killing men by choking them to death with her thighs.  She's a bad girl. 

Meanwhile, 007 gets a message from Moneypenny to  investigate the possible Russian subversive involvement  in the French chopper known as the Eurocopter Tiger.  It is unaffected by electomagnetic pulses that can be set off by a nuclear explosion.  As James gets close up to the helicopter, it is hijacked by guess who?  That's right!  Little Miss Hottie that you would never want to have sex with.  This leads into a scene where we meet two Russian computer programmers in Severnaya named Boris and Natalya.  Boris is the main programmer that's so dorky that he's cool and Natalya is the "sexy" mid-level programmer.  I put the word sexy in quotes because I don't find her all that attractive for whatever reason, but I'm sure that many guys would disagree with me.  Anyways, Xenia and General Ourumov show up to give a test on the weapons satellite Goldeneye.  No wait, after activating it they kill everyone except for the inside man (who happens to be Boris).  Also, Natalya happens to survive the massacre by hiding.  During this onslaught, we see that Xenia really enjoys killing people.  So much that she appears to orgasm while doing it.  She's a bad girl.  Also, after Xenia and Ourumov get away in the chopper the GoldenEye named Petya destroys the computer lab which Natalya miraculously lives through.

Next we meet the new M played by Judi Dench.  She's grown on me, but I did not care for her at first.  I hope that I don't offend all two of the females that have posted in my reviews, but I feel that Dench's M was created because Barbara Broccoli was now producing the Bond films and wanted to make the films appeal more to women.  Take pretty boy Pierce and have him put in his place by a woman.  Frankly I think that it sucks.  Certain women will never like the Bond character so don't water him down in order to make women dig him more.  This sort of thing turns hardcore Bond fans off.  He is a sexist, misogynist dinosaur like she says and those kind of guys wouldn't bite their lip when told that sort of thing.  "Point taken."  That's all you say???  While he is a hero in certain ways, he is supposed to be a jerk in others as he is a complex character.  Food for thought.  Also, it doesn't help that I feel that Dench would probably beat Brosnan in a fist fight.  Sorry, end of rant.  M assigns Bond to track down the surviving programmer (Natalya) and to go to St. Petersburg, Russia.  First he meets up with Q as always.  This time Bond is equipped with a watch that shoots lasers and can set off remote mines, a belt that has a wire built into it's buckle, a pen that acts is actually a grenade, and a  BMW that is equipped with several goodies.  I have a question.  Why would the British Secret Service give one of their agents a German car?  Oh yeah... that's right.  They wouldn't.  People argue with me about how classy a car the BMW was for Bond but I'm sorry, it's not British and he shouldn't be drving it.  Give me the Aston Martin or Lotus instead.  

After arriving in St. Petersburg, Bond meets up with CIA agent, Jack Wade.  Bond is suspicious about his identity and orders him to drop his pants in order to show him a flower tattoo.  I can't say that I blame Bond since Wade looks exactly like arms dealer Brad Whitaker from The Living Daylights.  Wade tells 007 that a former KGB agent named Valetin Zukovsky (played wonderfully by Robbie Coltrane) has some inside information about the leader of a group named Janus that Ourumov is in league with.  After James appeals to  former enemy  Zukovsky's pocketbook, he give James background on the leader of Janus.  He is a Lienz Cossack.  His parents were Russians that fought with the Russians during WWII.  The group was given refuge by the British after the war, but eventually sent back to Russia and promptly executed by Stalin.  After getting attacked by Xenia and surviving, James forces her at gunpoint to drive him to meet the leader of Janus.  As he meets the leader of Janus in a graveyard, Bond uncovers the unthinkable...  Not only is Alec Trevelyan alive, but he is the leader of Janus!  After having a few harsh words for each other Bond get's shot with a tranquilizer dart.

Bond wakes up in the Eurocopter Tiger tied to his seat with Natalya (who was sold out by Boris) in the back.  It has just shot two missiles that are coming directly back at the chopper.  How does Bond get out of this predicament?  He uses his head.  He and Natalya are brought in to be interrogated by defense minister Mishkin.  Soon, Ourumov shoots Mishkin and abducts Natalya who is chased by 007 in a tank!  I love this scene in which Bond destroys half of St. Petersburg while pursuing Ourumov who is slamming whiskey from a flask.  This leads into the Train vs. Tank Scene.  Train wins, but Bond's not in it.  Bond boards the train and Ourumov gets his.  The former 006 and Xenia get away while trapping Bond and Natalya on the train that's soon to explode.  Before escaping with a little help of James' watch, Natalya finds out that the other GoldenEye satellite (yes, there's another) is stationed in Cuba.  After lousy scene with Jack Wade and a horrible "romantic" scene we get to the good stuff.

That last section of the movie has a lot of good stuff.  Bond meets up with Xenia (she's a bad girl) Onatopp again, next Bond and Natalya see the massive satellite dish rise from out of the water, and then they get captured.  Also, we find out that 007's gadgets won't work against Trevelyan because he's already seen them all.  All of them except for one.  We also find out that Alec is planning on stealing all of London's money and sending their economy back to the stone age via computer and the GoldenEye satellite.  After the use of the gadget that 006 doesn't recognize as a gadget things are thrown into disarray.  Without giving away everything, Alec and Bond get into an epic fight that ends up on top of the massive dish and we also find out if Boris is invincible.

I give this movie...

4 out of 5 - Above average for a Bond movie.  I have mentioned several minor issues in this review, but overall I really liked it.  This was the right Bond movie at the right time.  People were starved for Bond and many were even more starved since they didn't care for the Dalton movies.  After a six year hiatus and the ending of the Cold War, director Martin Campbell brought the series into the 90's seamlessly.  While I do think that there were a bit too many one liners, the batting average for them is higher than the three movies that followed it so it didn't bother me much.  The story is solid and all of the minor characters (besides for Jack Wade) are great.  The villains are really good, especially Trevelyan and Xenia.  While I am not much of a Pierce Brosnan fan as Bond (don't care for him as an actor), it just goes to show you that a good story goes a long, long way.

Cool thing to know:  Most of the basis for this story was taken from the Ian Fleming novel Moonraker.  This movie has more in common with Ian Fleming's book than that Roger Moore in space thing.

Another cool thing to know:  GoldenEye was the name of Ian Fleming's Jamaican estate where he wrote his Bond novels.

Yet another cool thing to know:  There is a brief cameo by a very young Minnie Driver.  She plays Zukovsky's mistress.

One more cool thing to know:  This movie was the inspiration for the greatest FPS ever.

James Bond will return next Monday in Tomorrow Never Dies.

I love your posts in my threads, even if I don't alway agree with them.

I meant Minnie Driver.  Time to edit that...

great movie, to bad the box art of the n64 game got to me so every time I read/hear/think about the movie I see this

This was my very first Bond movie, so I guess I may have a biased opinion when it comes to this movie but it's one of my favorite of the series. Xenia is part of my favorite Bond girls ever, she's beautiful, dangerous and so crazy! The Golden Eye satellites sound like they could be real weapons (especially compared to Icarus in Die Another Day and Diamons are Forever).

The vilain being a former double-0 agent is also a nice twist and Boris is really entertaining in his dorkiness. The opening scene is sooooo over the top but it's starts things with bang (pun intended)

Loved goldeneye. I think one of the things that really ignited the love for many people in regards to this movie is that the opening act was superb...it got us interested, involved & excited for the rest of the film. And like you said this was the "right" Bond movie for the time!

I grew up with Brosnan as Bond so he's one of my favs....I think we need another Bond movie with the "feel" goldeneye for the next reboot (so after Craig leaves as Bond).

4.5/5.0

Oh and since it was my very first Bond, I never had a problem with Judy Dench as M. She fits the role of the no non-sense boss that recognizes James' talents but has problems with his methods.

One more minor complaint: Every time Bond meets up with a CIA agent that isn't Felix Leiter, I get pissed.

I also am a really big Xenia fan, Truck. She's actually probably my favorite character in the movie.

Yeah when I think of M I think of Judi.

I can't say that I blame Bond since Wade looks exactly like arms dealer Brad Whitaker from The Living Daylights.

Made the whole damn thing!