On the cusp of GoldenEye 007 making its grand return to the world of gaming, it’s worth giving Pierce Brosnan’s debut as James Bond a proper rewatch. It's worth it in order to understand how such a legendary game got a little push from the great movie it was based on, and why that was the case.
From the get-go, both GoldenEye 007 the game and its namesake film send the spy into a classic mission. It cements in players and viewers the feeling that they’re about to embark on a special journey, while also making for one of the best pre-title sequences in Bond's history. Surely, what makes GoldenEye great is the sum of its parts and how MGM brought back the world’s most famous spy into a new decade. And the new version now sported a mixture of the best traits of all Brosnan’s predecessors had to offer.
Pierce Brosnan's Best Bond Film
While there are valid reasons to prefer Tomorrow Never Dies or The World is Not Enough over GoldenEye, it’s hard to argue that Brosnan’s first movie is not the best out of his four Bond films. Even if it wasn't the actor’s best performance, as he perhaps hadn’t yet decided what type of Bond he wanted to be, the film is excellent. Funnily enough, Brosnan had nearly a decade to ponder that as he was originally set to become Bond in 1986, before NBC renewed his Remington Steele contract and Timothy Dalton had to step in.
Like so many men, Brosnan grew up idolizing Sean Connery’s Bond. However, the franchise’s decline before his tenure meant that 007 was in for an extreme makeover, one that embraced Connery’s legacy, a bit of Roger Moore's campy humor, and Dalton’s darker stories. The result is a protagonist that lacks Brosnan’s DNA in a movie that aims to please the entire fandom, with surprisingly good results.
In his first outing, Brosnan’s Bond takes after Connery’s more than any other. Yet, he still finds room in his dialogue to toss a few smirks here and there, reminding viewers this 007 can be a bit of everything. The same goes for the action, which came at a time when the high-octane action sequences from the 80s and 90s were at its peak. This meant that MI6 spies had to pull off the same stunts the Terminator and Die Hard brought to theaters.
James Bond fans owe a lot to director Martin Campbell, who revived 007 twice with this film and with Casino Royale. These two movies are the perfect presentation cards for Brosnan and Daniel Craig, as both are deeply grounded in the spy genre and use its tropes with great taste. Nevertheless, GoldenEye is so much more than Brosnan. The entire plot flows smoothly across its locations thanks to MI6 dealing with screenwriters' favorite foe back then, Russia.
GoldenEye Ticks All the Boxes
The end of the Cold War changed a classic narrative theme Hollywood had relied upon for action and spy films. Still, GoldenEye uses its Russian villains to great effect with a supporting cast that’s fairly underrated. Take Xenia Onatopp, an absolute powerhouse and fantastic henchwoman, who wears her femme fatale badge proudly. She moves the plot even more than the main villain, with the added flair of killing people with her thighs. She's the perfect mix of espionage and sexualized campiness. It's pure James Bond.
If Bond movies still get accused of objectifying women, GoldenEye is proof of the contrary. Xenia’s counterpart is the beautiful but capable Natalya Simonova, who’s a far cry from Connery’s female co-stars gushing over 007. Rounding off the list of Bond women is GoldenEye's longest-lasting contribution to the franchise, Dame Judy Dench, whose presence was commanding enough to last nearly two decades. The Bond women are not overpowering. They’re pieces of a larger puzzle.
Additionally, Alec Trevelyan rise to the occasion as a formidable villain capable of exploiting Bond’s weak points, because he’s also a 00 agent, just like Raoul Silva in Skyfall. Bond villains of the past were caricaturesque figures like Goldfinger and Oddball, whereas Trevelyan was James’ equal in every sense of the word. His character that wouldn’t be out of place in a non-007 action film.
Very few, if any, Bond fans would name GoldenEye as their favorite movie. However, that shouldn’t detract from its merits as the perfect film to make the spy relevant again. None of its individual elements are best of its class for any James Bond list (except the game). Instead, they’re just good enough to entice audiences to want more of Brosnan.
Is it perfect? Far from it. GoldenEye has several weak points, among them being the music that adorns Bond missions, which oddly enough fits the game rather well. For all her genius, Natalya is more of a bystander; Boris is the kind of comic relief that's absent in modern movies; etc. The more one picks part GoldenEye, the easier it is to see its flaws. Rather than it being the go-to Bond film, it gave the franchise and character exactly what they needed at the right time. The same could be said of Rare's masterpiece. Though the GoldenEye video game hasn't aged particularly well for FPS games, it helped usher in better versions later on, such as Perfect Dark. Without GoldenEye, James Bond wouldn't have made it alive in one piece all the way to the Craig era.