Goldeneye (1995)

Budget 80.0 million. Opening dates: UK November 24, 1995; US November 17, 1995

World Box Office $350.7 million 

Originally Written

Friday, March 16, 2007

Goldeneye... possibly the most overrated James Bond of the franchise? Or was it the six year absence of 007, combined with an 80 million dollar budget, that made people pine for anything James Bond? Those are the only possible explanations that I can arrive at to try and explain why this film seems to recieve all the praise that it does, because frankly I thought it was one of the worst Bond adventures in the franchise... read on.

Goldeneye sparks the return of James Bond after over a half a decade hiatus. The dark exterior of Timothy Dalton has now been replaced by the actor who was originally offered the role of Bond many years ago when Dalton had turned down the first few offers. Pierce Brosnan takes the reigns and harkens the franchise back to a Roger Moore era, where Bond shows a little more interest in the ladies and reacquires his sarcastic wit. Sadly Brosnan's first attempt as Bond seems to only be that, a sad attempt to imitate past predecessors.  

With the Cold War now over Bond appears to be a relic of the past, but even Bond is never completely outdated. When renegade Russians, lead by Alec Trevelyan ex-MI6 agent and former friend of Bond, gain control of a weapon known as Goldeneye the state of the European financial structure could be in serious trouble. Goldeneye is a device which neutralizes electronic currents, and with it Trevelyan can gain access to all the funds in London, erasing all computerized records from existence sending the London economy back into the Dark Ages.

Goldeneye seemed to be incredibly sub par on all levels to me. The story was quite boring, and after 45 minutes I realized nothing much had occurred in this film! Compared to past Bond's, Goldeneye spends entirely too much time sitting around chatting rather than letting Bond do what he does best. Of course Bond was the largest reason this film didn't fly with me. My problem with Pierce Brosnan is he doesn't add anything new to the character, he's not different. Say what you want about Moore, Dalton and even Lazenby but one thing they should all be given credit for is they were unique, they all added a little flair to the character. Meanwhile Brosnan looks like a younger Roger Moore pretending to be James Bond and doing a bad job of it. His whole performance feels too forced and makes him appear like he's only playing Bond instead of actually being Bond.

 

Adding to an already dismal combination of acting and storyline is the unbelievable action sequences, which stretch the comprehension of belief far beyond that of any previous Bond film. When someone plummets from the top of a gigantic satellite dish, that hovers easily a couple hundred feet above the ground, onto the concrete below they should die! Well not in this film, it takes the satellite dish crumbling down atop them to finally finish them off! But with that said I will say I did rather enjoy the ridiculous tank sequence, by far the best part of the film.
  

Overall, I found myself quite anxious throughout the film waiting for something good to happen, and it's quite sad when I'm missing the corny adventures of Roger Moore while watching a Bond that's made twenty years later and should be ten times more entertaining. In the end, I don't understand the hype and fan fare for this one, it seemed totally out of place in the franchise and had an overall quality of a made for TV spy thriller; but I guess what should I expect with a rather bland storyline and a lead actor who used to play a knockoff version of James Bond on TV! At least now I have an even greater respect for the old films, even the corny ones.   

5/10