GoldenEye
U.K. / 1995
Directed by Martin Campbell
Starring
Pierce Brosnan
Sean Bean
Isabella Scorupco
Color / 130 Minutes / PG-13
Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC)
MGM Home Entertainment
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"Bond 50" Blu-ray Collection (2012)

Review by
Brian Lindsey
 
7
     9   10 = Highest Rating  
GoldenEye was a make-or-break film in the long running James Bond franchise. It had been six years since Timothy Dalton's swan song in Licence to Kill, the longest period between 007 flicks in the series' then-33 year history. The rights to certain Bond characters were tied up in a legal dispute during this time; Dalton, who had not proven universally popular in the role, stepped away from the character and moved on. Licence to Kill, produced for $40 Million and generating over $156 Million in worldwide box-office, bombed in the United States, the planet's biggest movie market. American audiences never accepted Dalton's serious, Flemingesque interpretation of 007. Pierce Brosnan, well-known to U.S. television audiences from the popular Remington Steele series (particularly with women viewers), was counted on to remedy the situation. This time a much more lavish budget was allocated. If the movie flopped or merely proved a disappointment, James Bond could very well be hanging up his shoulder holster for good.
    They needn't have worried.
    GoldenEye opens with one of the coolest pre-titles sequences of the franchise (until, that is, it arrogantly violates the laws of physics). Teamed with Agent 006, Alec Trevelyan (Fellowship of the Ring's Sean Bean), James Bond penetrates a top secret chemical weapons complex in the Soviet Union. Their mission to sabotage the facility goes terribly wrong when Trevelyan is captured and seemingly executed on the spot. Bond blows up the place and escapes (unbelievably so), but the death of his comrade haunts him. Nine years later — after the excellent main title sequence set to a power ballad sung by Tina Turner — Bond is put on the case of a missing high-tech NATO helicopter believed hijacked by a Russian crime syndicate. The stakes are raised considerably when the stolen chopper is used in the theft of GoldenEye, the firing key to a pair of military satellites put in orbit by the Soviets before the fall of the communism. Producing a focused pulse of electromagnetic radiation upon detonation, each use-it-and-lose-it satellite is capable of knocking out a city, destroying every electronic circuit within a 30-mile radius.
    Bond travels to St. Petersburg where he hopes to ferret out the identity of the mysterious Janus, head of the criminal gang responsible. With the aid of a plucky and beautiful civil servant, computer programmer Natalya Simonova (Isabella Scorupco), 007 learns that a high-ranking Russian officer, the sinister General Ouramov (German actor Gottfried John), has teamed up with Janus to gain control of GoldenEye and use its power for their own nefarious ends. And Janus is none other than Alec Trevelyan himself — 006, thought dead for almost a decade. By targeting London for destruction the turncoat secret agent plans to become "richer than God" while at the same time exacting a very personal revenge...
    Surprisingly, GoldenEye emerges as one the better Bond films, certainly the best of Brosnan's tenure to date. Its chief asset is the excellent direction of Martin Campbell (The Mask of Zorro). Compared to the workmanlike, somewhat stodgy directing style of John Glen, who'd helmed the five previous Bonds, Campbell's more fluid camera modernizes the look and feel of 007 without going overboard on MTV-inspired quickcuts. (For example, I don't think Glen could've handled the 'fight' with Xenia in the hotel steam room half as well as Campbell does.) The tightly-paced action set-pieces are staged with vim and vigor in the best Bond tradition. The tank 'tour' through the streets of St. Petersburg is one of my favorite vehicle chases of the entire series; the final fight atop the satellite dish may well be the best ever mano a mano combat between Bond and a Major Villain — 006 is just as deadly as 007 is, with exactly the same training and fighting skills. There's also that great bungee jump in the pre-titles sequence. All this is staged in boffo, thrilling fashion.
    Also working to GoldenEye's benefit is the best supporting cast in a long time. This is even more important given that, with his first time at bat, Brosnan is still feeling around himself as 007. Sean Bean is great as the 'evil version' of Bond, for many reasons perhaps our hero's toughest opponent in 40 years of films. He would, I think, make a terrific James Bond himself. The auspicious debut of Dame Judy Densch as the new M is a highlight. Robbie Coltrane has fun with his role as Zirinovsky, Bond's ex-KGB ally; Joe Don Baker fares better here as a friend of Bond (slovenly, eccentric CIA agent Jack Wade) than as an enemy (illegal arms dealer Brad Whitaker in 1987's The Living Daylights). Alan Cumming runs away with the part of Russian computer nerd Boris Grishenko, stealing most of the scenes he's in. The coup-plotting general, Ouramov, is played by an actor who simply looks like he'd be a natural as a James Bond villain, which he handily is.
    As Bond's love interest, Scorupco — whatever happened to her? — is gorgeous and can actually act. Sexy Famke Janssen (Lord of Illusions, X-Men) attacks the role of Xenia, Janus' lethal enforcer, with scenery-chewing abandon. She wonderfully essays the Bond universe's most over-the-top female character without letting her performance degenerate into camp. (My favorite villainess of the whole series, in fact.) And as 007, Pierce Brosnan easily holds his own. He might be a "stiff-assed Brit" some of the time, perhaps still not fully comfortable in the part, but he's able to play humor better than Dalton could and is certainly more believable in the action scenes than Roger Moore. Works for me.
    While Brosnan brought Bond back with a bang in 1995, of late the filmmakers seem to be running the venerable franchise into the ground. The latest 007 adventure, playing in theaters as of this writing, is really only half a James Bond film — the movie's second hour is a cartoonish, CGI-rendered mess of loud, pointless action sequences. I hope that, for Brosnan's next and last turn as the British superspy, the writers and producers try and bring Bond back more in the spirit of GoldenEye than Die Another Day. Hiring Campbell again would be a good start.

In terms of A/V quality GoldenEye, being of recent vintage, looks and sounds absolutely superb on MGM's anamorphic widescreen disc. Where the DVD falters in comparison to other titles in the James Bond Special Edition collection is in the extras department.
    As with all the Brosnan Bonds from MGM, this one doesn't come with one of the terrific Inside... documentaries that are a highlight of discs covering the Connery through Dalton films. Instead we get a 14-minute "video journal" with some not particularly interesting behind-the-scenes footage and a 43-minute promotional puffpiece, The World of 007, hosted by Elizabeth Hurley and originally broadcast on the ABC network. Aside from a brief discussion of stunt sequence mishaps (covered much more extensively over the course of the various docs on the 007 DVDs Dr. No through Licence to Kill), it'd be totally skipable... were it not for the opportunity to see Ms. Hurley in a succession of sexy outfits. (Use your fast forward button.)
    A full-length audio commentary by director Campbell and producer Michael G. Wilson somewhat compensates for the Entertainment Tonight flavor of the featurettes. The package is topped off with two theatrical trailers, 12 U.S. TV spots, the GoldenEye music video starring Tina Turner, and the customary cool-looking animated menus. 12/01/02

UPDATE OOP for a couple of years, GoldenEye was reissued in 2006 by MGM. This completely remastered 2-disc edition — meticulously restored and featuring additional bonus features — is part of The James Bond Ultimate Collection Vol. 3, which also contains four other 007 films. A Blu-ray edition is inevitable.
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