GoldenEye (1995) Director: Martin Campbell
“Half of everything is luck, James.”
★★★☆☆
The Bond series was nearly gone for good when it got bogged down in legal concerns in the 1980s, and Timothy Dalton resigned as Bond after starring in The Living Daylights (1987) and License To Kill (1989). But after a six-year hiatus, the Bond series rebooted with Pierce Brosnan as the lead. The title for the film is taken from an operation Ian Fleming drafted during his time in the British Naval Intelligence related to the possibility of Franco’s Spain joining the Axis powers, and Fleming later named his coastal Jamaican estate in honor of “GoldenEye.” The film GoldenEye marks a new beginning of sorts for the James Bond series. It was the first to be released in the post-Cold War era, the first Bond film not to be produced by Cubby Broccoli, the first of four Bond films to star Pierce Brosnan, the first film in the series to use computer generated imagery (CGI). and it was also the first film not to feature story elements incorporated from Ian Fleming’s original novels and short stories. The film was the first to feature Dame Judi Dench as the character “M” –which was undoubtedly a risk to change the character of M in such a fundamental way– but it was a spectacular success and she stands out as one of the brighter spots in the film. The goal of this film was to re-introduce James Bond for a post-Cold War audience –to reinvigorate the series and portray a new era of the character.
The story opens with a familiar flashback: an MI6 infiltration operation in which James Bond and Alec Trevelyan, or 006 (played by Sean Bean), infiltrate a chemical weapons facility in Russia. Cue the famous scene of Bond bungie jumping off a dam –a classic movie opening. During the covert operation, the two agents are cornered; Trevelyan is captured and then shockingly killed (or so we are led to believe). Bond plants a bomb and detonates it as he narrowly and absurdly escapes riding a motorcycle off a cliff, falling through the sky until he catches a falling plane, climbs aboard, and takes the controls before it can crash to the ground (but… didn’t Bond bungie jump downward to enter this facility? How would he be geo-spatially high enough to leap off a mountaintop airport?)
Nine years later, Bond attempts to retrieve a helicopter in the hands of the sexually sadistic, Xenia Onatopp, but he fails as Russian authorities stop him, and MI6 tracks an explosion at a Siberian secret site via a Soviet era satellite, a “GoldenEye” weapon which disrupts all working machinery, computers, satellites and so on within a certain region. The Siberian facility, run by data hackers, is attacked by Xenia Onatopp and Colonel Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov acting under the Janus crime syndicate as they steal something from the site. However, two of the hackers escape: Boris (who then joins the Janus group) and Natalya (who goes rogue). Bond visits his gangster friend who facilitates an introduction between Bond and Janus, but Bond soon discovers that Trevelyan was actually not killed all those years ago in Russia. He had secretly betrayed Bond, and is now taking out his vengeance on the west for its part in betraying the Cossacks years ago (Trevelyan explains his family’s backstory as Cossacks). He tries to kill Bond (in a conveient easily escapable situation) by placing Bond and Natalya in a helicopter with a heat-seeking explosive, but Bond and Natalya eject moments later. Bond then chases General Ourumov through the streets of St. Petersburg in a tank, and then aboard a heavily armed train where Bond kills Ourumov. Bond and Natalya then narrowly escape the train which is also rigged with explosives, and they travel to Cuba to hunt down Trevelyan and the GoldenEye satellite. Their helicopter is shot down in the jungle and they are attacked by the sadistic Onatopp, but Bond kills her in a ridiculously absurd scene where he miraculously attaches her to an airplane as it flies away and she dies as her body is crushed in a tree. Bond and Natalya then discover the satellite facility run by Trevelyan and Bond climbs up into the facility to prevent the GoldenEye from activating while Trevelyan plans to target London and stage a massive robbery. Eventually, Bond succeeds in damaging the facility while fighting Trevelyan –they battle while dangling over a huge drop over the satellite and Bond surprisingly allows Trevelyan to fall hundreds of feet to the ground while Natalya rescues Bond and the facility comes crashing down on Trevelyan, killing him. Meanwhile Bond’s allies, the bumbling and goofy Americans, arrive all too late on the scene as Bond and Natalya run away together.
Part of the whole mythology surrounding the James Bond series is the backdrop of the Cold War, and the international espionage between the United States and the Soviet Union, but I enjoyed the expansion of the James Bond ethos into a new post-Cold War world, which is littered with decaying Lenin and Stalin era statues strewn about. But no commentary on GoldenEye would be complete without mentioning the release of the classic video game that spawned a million gamers overnight. Goldeneye is a wild ride about a former agent returning to exact vengeance on his former employer (the recalcitrant secret agent who has defected to the enemy is a classic Bond trope). It was also used rather more convincingly in a later Bond film: Skyfall. While many of the effects and spectacles in GoldenEye utterly strain credulity, this film offers a classic Bond adventure, even if it is not among my personal favorites in the series.
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- James Bond actor: Pierce Brosnan
- Director: Martin Campbell
- Producers: Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli
- Screenplay: Jeffrey Caine and Bruce Fierstein
- Cinematography: Alec Mills
- Editor: Terry Rawlings (who famously edited Blade Runner)
- Gun Barrel Sequence: performed by Pierce Brosnan
- Villain(s): Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), General Arkady Ourumov (Gottfried John), Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming)
- Bond Girl(s): Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco), Caroline (Serena Gordon)
- MI6: M (Judi Dench), Miss Moneypenny (Samantha Bond), Q (Desmond Llewelyn), Bill Tanner (Michael Kitchen)
- Bond Gadgets: Grappling/Laser Gun, Keypad Decoder, Timer Explosive, Transmitting Camera, Car Transmitter, Grappling Belt, Omega Seamaster watch with on/off switch for explosives, Explosive Pen
- Allies: Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker), Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane), Dmitri Mishkin (Tchéky Karyo)
- Score: Éric Serra
- Theme Song: “GoldenEye” by Bono and the Edge, performed by Tina Turner
- Locales: England, Switzerland, Monte Carlo, Russia, Puerto Rico