GoldenEye (1995)

Really solid entry into the series with Brosnan, who is personally my favorite Bond, is great. The plot is on the thin side but is helped having Sean Bean as the sinister villain and of course Famke Janssen makes for an amazingly sexy psychopath with, ahem, incredible thighs. **4.0/5**

_**The Russia installment, plus Pierce Brosnan’s debut**_ Agent 007 (Pierce Brosnan) returns to Russia to investigate the theft of a space-based electromagnetic pulse weapon, which destroyed a radar facility in Siberia with only one survivor (Izabella Scorupco). Sean Bean plays an MI6 agent, Famke Janssen a ruthless assassin, Gottfried John a Russian commander, Joe Don Baker a CIA contact in St. Petersburg and Judi Dench the new ‘M.’ "Goldeneye" (1995) introduces Brosnan for his four-film stint in the series and he does a fine job as James Bond. Some people write him off as a “pretty boy” but, while he’s a handsome man, he’s also masculine and kick-axx. He’s perfect for the role. While the plot is overly convoluted, the flick delivers the goods. The action highlights include the opening Russian dam sequence, a car chase in Monaco, the theft of an attack helicopter in Monte Carlo, a wild tank chase in St. Petersburg and the action-packed close in the jungles of Cuba with the secret lair thereof. Izabella Scorupco is gorgeous in a winsome way and more shoulda been done with her. Meanwhile sharp Famke is perhaps the most sadistic biyatch in the series. The film runs 2 hours, 9 minutes, and was shot in Switzerland (chemical weapons facility); Monte Carlo (casino) & nearby Alpes-Maritimes, France (car chase); England; St. Petersburg, Russia; and Puerto Rico (Goldeneye Satellite Dish & beach scene). GRADE: B

**Goldeneye is the gold standard of spy movies and Bond films.** Goldeneye edges out Casino Royale and Skyfall as my favorite Bond film of all time. After decades of campy James Bond movies like Octopussy and A View to a Kill, Bond felt more like a punchline than a suave master spy. The franchise seemed to have lost its way, but Goldeneye brought gritty action, mind-blowing stunts, beautiful and capable Bind girls, and an outstanding cast back to Bond, returning the spy to his iconic and sterling reputation. Pierce Brosnan's Bond convincingly outwitted criminal masterminds and decisively overcame enemy opposition with precision and brutality while also believably charming and romancing beautiful villains and allies. Goldeneye nails every classic Bond element with more tenacity and realism. 006 betraying his country and becoming the evil mirror to 007 provides a deeper antagonist than Bond typically faces. The Bond girls are not helpless damsels but capable enemies or skilled partners that help him save the day. The action set pieces are astonishing, from driving a tank through the busy city streets of St Petersburg to dangling hundreds of feet above the ground in Costa Rice to the incredible base jump in the opening sequence. Even after all these years, Goldneye's effects and action still hold up. It is also the first movie with Judi Dench as M. Goldeneye is quintessential Bond at its absolute best!

Well, it was nice to see Bond back on the screen, and just in time for me to get my Drivers License, so this isn't the 1st 007 film I ever saw on the big screen, but it's the first that I got to drive myself to. And I remember that the media kept asking "who will be 007's villain now that the USSR has fallen?" By then I had seen all the Bond films to date, by then I was a 007 fanatic, and that is when I first realized that the media really has the memory of a Goldfish... a lesson that would serve me well later in life and still does to this day. Anyway, it was pretty classy fun how you only got glimpses of Brosnan for the first few moments of the introduction... it WOULD have been better if, you know, the entire world didn't know he was 007 already, but I guess it was a happy surprise for the few people that were living under a rock for the year or so leading up to the film's release. The few people that missed all of the nonstop hype. Tina Turner did one of the better 007 songs, Brosnan had a heck of a showing as 007... Onatop was probably the last of the 007 suggestive name tropes to make an appearance in film (unless you count Christmas who was only named so for a closing joke), and for the most part it was a great showing. I mean, the tank chase alone should sell you on it. As should 006. But, at the end, it was just a competent and decent showing that is beloved primarily because of relief. Relief that Brosnan was 007, relief that they were making 007 movies again, relief that some fun was brought back to the world.

This 007 movie begins with Bond and a fellow agent performing heroics, and the other agent is killed. However, even when this movie was made, it is quite obvious that the other agent wasn't killed, and that he is actually the villain. That isn't even a spoiler. Bond deals with Russians mostly here. Not surprisingly, any good Russian becomes a dead Russian with the immortal godlike villain at work. One saving grace is a bit of dark humor with a computer nerd at the end. That's about it. Otherwise, it's just another depressing Hollywood formula movie, the usual "darkest before the Dawn" that just goes overboard and gets too self indulgent and too contrived every step of the way.

This actually starts out quite promisingly with a double-hander between Pierce Brosnan's "007" and his colleague "006/Alec" (Sean Bean) having a battle royal then a rogue general pinching the controls for a deadly satellites system - and that's pretty much all before Tina Turner gets her lungs around the theme song. Then, sadly it sinks into a really procedural action drama with some really mediocre writing and as B-level a cast as I've seen for ages. You could see the obvious twist in the plot from the satellite in orbit above, Joe Don Baker's megalomaniac arms dealing "Wade" is almost as comical as Robbie Coltrane's Russian gangster "Zukovsky" who is in turn almost as bad as Alan Cumming's even more thickly accented geek "Grishenko". Dame Judi had the sense to say in London for most of this and so out of harm's way as the denouement lurched into view. There's a nod to the Ian Fleming humour, I suppose, with this one's "Bond" girl being "Xenia Onatopp" (the entirely unconvincing Famke Janssen) but I'm afraid I just lost interest. It's hard to keep reinventing the franchise and to be original - but if it's going to be this hard, then maybe just stop?

GoldenEye is another favourite of mine that is so close to being top 5 Bond.