GoldenEye

The 18th James Bond adventure was a runaway box-office success when released in 1995, thanks to the arrival of Pierce Brosnan as the fifth actor (following the departure of Timothy Dalton) to play the suave, danger-loving Agent 007. This James Bond is a bit more vulnerable and psychologically complex--and just a shade more politically correct--but he's still a formally attired playboy at heart, with a lovely Russian beauty (Izabella Scorupco) as his sexy ally against a cadre of renegade Russians bent on--what else?--global domination. There's also a seductive villainous with the suggestive name of Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), and the great actress Judi Dench makes her first appearance as Bond's superior, M, who wisecracks about 007's "dinosaur" status as a globetrotting sexist. All in all, this action-packed Bond adventure provided a much-needed boost the long-running movie series, revitalizing the 007 franchise for the turn of the millennium. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com

90s Pierce Brosnan Bond

So Bond may be a "dinosaur" but he took a slight evolutionary step forward with Pierce Brosnan who at the time seemed born to play Bond. So it was the 90s, the coldwar had thawed out, so-called political correctness was in the air and so what's a "sexist", coldwar warrior, relic of the 1960s to do? Well, pretty much what he's always done. Because really the world hadn't changed so much that women don't no longer go for cocky, smooth talking alpha-males (no matter how p.c. things get) and governments don't use remorseless assassins to spy and kill for them. Heh, Bond's new boss, a woman (it's the 90s see) by the name of "M", calls Bond a dinosaur but she sure does need him and he's still popular with movie goers. Somethings don't change I guess and sometimes that's a good thing... A James Bond that doesn't know how to have a good time would be Bond in name only and having dumb lighthearted escapist fun is what the Bond franchise is/was all about. (In fairness to the newest Bond, getting serious and tougher is fine, but not caring about your drink and smooth talkin' the ladies is going too far! Bond ain't, and never can be, Jason Bourne) GOLDENEYE surely ranks amoung the top 5 best Bond flicks.
November 25, 2008

A Very Good Bond Picture

This is the first Brosnan Bond picture I've seen. I actually tried watching it, and was bored by the point he reached the hotel casino, but decided to try it again. I'm glad I did.

This was an above average Bond movie. It will not replace my favorites ("Diamonds Are Forever", "You Only Live Twice", "Man With A Golden Gun", and "For Your Eyes Only"), but it belongs in the group picture.

Being a "Remington Steele" fan, I'm not surprised to see Brosnan succeed in this role. My favorite of the bad guys was Bruno; he was a riot.

The back of the DVD commented on the eye-popping opening sequence. My hunch is it was talking about a stunt that was as spectacular as the necessary suspension of disbelief -- could that have happened in real life? I doubt it. November 25, 2008

The Best Bond---Pierce

This 1995 movie is the first of 4 Bond films that starred Pierce Brosnan, and by far, I believe his best. This is also the 18th Bond (if you include Never Say Never Again).

I tend to favor Pierce as my favorite 007 because he has the wit and sex appeal that I feel Bond should have.

This movie begins with a stunt that only Bond could do---bungy cording down a dam. It makes it special because they used Hoover Dam (near where I reside) as the location. They had to insert trees and vegetation, because we all know that you can't find that in the Mojave desert. I just moved here when they filmed this scene and I remember it being on our news.

Bond does everything right again and saves the world from Russian nuclear weapons. With this you get a very action packed adventure, complete with gadgets, car chases, beautiful scenery and the whole wonderful Bond package.

While Daniel Craig has taken over as the new agent 007, nothing can replace Pierce, but Craig (I know) will continue to do an excellent job.

This version plays so good on a 5.1 surround sound system, it makes you feel like you were there in the midst of the action.

Watch this movie. Sit back and relax as it is Pierce's best Bond film and one of my top favorites. November 24, 2008

Reflections on GOLDENEYE

A post-Cold War James Bond might have seemed unthinkable to some. "Bondmania" was a by-product of the tense political and military stalemate that endured between the Soviet Bloc and the West for nearly four decades. Against all predictions, the Cold War ended (thankfully) with more of a whimper than a bang. As a country, we found ourselves shout cries of joy and heave a few sighs of relief, but if it seemed to some to be "the end of history," it also must have seemed like the end of a perfectly good storyline for filmmakers and pulp fiction writers throughout the Western World.

It took a few years, but by the mid-90s, there were new cultural anxieties to be addressed and a new James Bond to meet the challenge. GOLDENEYE's relatively complex plot reflects those emerging anxieties, ones that we should have seen coming in '89 and '90, but were too euphoric to see. A new Russia, in social and economic turmoil, and still in possession of thousands of WMD was never exactly a comforting thought. GOLDENEYE capitalizes on the great uncertainties of the post-Soviet reality and comes up with a complex, murky plot alluding to warring Russian factions, its Eastern Bloc version of a "Wild West" mentality, and the political and moral chaos in which the nation found itself. Throw in a British traitor (who, we learn, has his own axe to grind against Britain and the West) and you've got as nightmarish a political and military backdrop as the 60s era Bond flicks ever played against.

Pierce Brosnan waited almost a decade to play Bond. The famous REMINGTON STEELE imbroglio that kept him from accepting the role in the 80s may well have been the proverbial blessing in disguise. He himself has stated that, at age 33, he would likely have been still too boyish and callow for the role. He may have been being overly modest, since he pulled off his TV role pretty well. But he is correct that a good James Bond probably needs to be a bit older, wiser, more worldly and sophisticated--although still fit enough to not seem ridiculous in the stunt shots (whether he does his own or not).

In a post-Cold War World where political realities were both shaken and stirred, the new James Bond needed to possess a new kind of sophistication. He had to at least be aware of the changing status of women, and his scenes with the new "M" (Dame Judi Dench) play on this changing reality. Yes, by some standards, James Bond, once the coolest guy in ANY room, could be viewed as a dinosaur, and a SEXIST one at that. That he really comes to genuinely care for his "Bond girl"--no, make that Bond WOMAN, the beautiful Russian computer whiz Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco)--helps with the obligatory make-over. Does he transcend chauvinism? Hard to say, but with as savvy and capable a female counterpart (to say nothing of the savvy, capable and exceptionally vicious female VILLAIN played by Famke Janssen) on hand to counter his every sexist instinct, it almost doesn't matter if Bond is fully converted or not. He's headed in the right direction, at least.

And at least, he doesn't make any "Auntie M" jokes in Dame Judi's presence.

I've read that, despite their box office success, the Pierce Brosnan Bond films were the least profitable of the series. That probably gets into the kind of beancounting that M mocks herself for in the film. However, it does suggest that, worldwide in the '90s, not as many people were interested in a "new James Bond" or ANY James Bond. It's scarcely Brosnan's fault that the franchise was losing steam. In the new Millennium, well, there's hope that the Daniel Craig version will re-invigorate the enterprise.

But timing is everything. We were sorting out post-Cold War realities in the '90s, and it was difficult to see just what kind of hero we really wanted. Now, things are getting plenty scary again, and the time is once more ripe for a steely, urbane and invincible James Bond figure to emerge. If it can't be Sean Connery, well, Daniel Craig will certainly do. But, in his day, Pierce Brosnan was no slouch. September 1, 2008

The Best Of The Brosnan Bonds

Goldeneye returned James Bond to film theaters after a six-year hiatus, and Pierce Brosnan takes over the role of the world's most famous secret agent. Brosnan successfully combines the suaveness of Sean Connery with the hard-nosed cynicism of Timothy Dalton. Officially this is the first post-Cold War Bond film (and the first to be shot in Russia itself), but in reality it is the second, with Dalton's License To Kill being the true first such. Though the Cold War is over, the risks from it are still in existence, as the Russian mafia jockeys for position to control as much as it can. Bond must tail an ex-Red Air Force jet jockey, Xenia Onatopp, who is having a torrid affair with the test pilot of a new high-technology gunship - an affair that proves deadly and which leads to an even bigger threat to the West. The new head of Her Majesty's Secret Service is an obtuse bean-counter, and neither she nor the ticked-off HMSS bureaucrats she commands get along well, but at least she is willing to send Bond to correct a mistake she has made, the mistake in underestimating the importance of the chopper theft. It leads to James' encounter with an old friend, and one of the few instances in the entire Bond series of a truly gripping encounter with what turns out to be an adversary. That it is so effective can be put to the strength of Sean Bean's performance as well as that of Brosnan. The inevitable fireworks erupt, beginning with the destruction of the gunship and a terrific firefight in a Red Army base, before James tracks down his power-mad adversary and learns the full extent of his plan for vengeance. August 30, 2008

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