GoldenEye

(Here be spoilers if you are yet to see the James Bond movies...)

The Mission
007 (Pierce Brosnan) fails to prevent the theft of a state-of-the-art stealth helicopter while keeping tabs on former Soviet agent Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen). This allows a bitter Russian General (Gottfried John) to commandeer a Russian tracking station in order to take control of a legendary weapons satellite known as GoldenEye. Bond sees the heat signal of a possible survivor at the tracking station and goes to find her in order to prevent GoldenEye from being used again.

Jimmy Bond Yo!
A new Bond for a new era! Brosnan is perfect casting and gives the role a new lease of life... he's more Moore than Connery, and is a lot more expressive and charismatic than Dalton. As Bond he's cheeky, self-assured and reckless - taking great enjoyment in dangerously dragracing a female driver around winding mountain roads. To paraphrase M (Judi Dench), he's best summed up as a 'misogynistic dinosaur' with 'boyish charms'.

Now that it's the 1990s we get a bit more context to Bond's characterisation - he says that violence and action is what keeps him alive, though Natalya (Izabella Scorupco) perceptively respondes that it's also what keeps hm alone. We also hear about his chidlhood for the first time from another character; he was oprhaned after his parents died in a climbing accident. Despite all these dark allusions though he remains unquestioningly loyal to MI6 during a period of shifting allegiences for England. He also seems endlessly amused by the concept of female equality and is completely resistant to modern ideologies like psychology and female empowerment. There's also a suggestion that he compensates for his failures by taking solace in women and an excessive lifestyle. Surprisingly, he has no qualms about knocking out a female enemy.

He plays baccarat and can pick regional Russian accents, and is brave and quick-thinking enough to freefall after a nosediving plane in order to use it to get to safety. Tellingly, he looks lost when Natalya talks computers - suggesting that he's starting to fall behind the times (despite previous films always depicting his computer know-how as being up to date).

Villainy
The mastervillain behind the scenes in GoldenEye is Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), formerly known as 006 and the bitter flipside to James Bond's loyalty to the crown. He's like the henchman and villain rolled into one - as action-orientated as Bond but also smart enough to orchestrate a grand plan. His base of operation is a radar complex hidden under a lake (echoes of You Only Live Twice) and his plan is to electronically steal the contents of the Bank of England then wipe all traces of it by using GoldenEye. The nature of GoldenEye's impact also means that England will be plunged into chaos by deactivating all electronically-based technology. Bean is more than effective in the role, essentially playing James Bond's evil twin, and it's a cool twist on the nature of Bond villains that fits in with GoldenEye's updating of the franchise.

In cahoots with 006 is General Ourumov, a renegade Russian officer apparently disatisfied with the outcome fof the Cold War. He's pretty much a retread of General Orlov from Octopussy, and is mainly present in the first half of the film to throw the viewer off the scent of 006 being the main bad guy. Ourumov is flanked by the Georgian femme fatale Xenia Onatopp, played with a sexualised sadistic relish by Famke Janssen in her breakout role. The character is more than a little remniscent of Fatima Blush from Never Say Never Again but probably better-executed. She gets off on violence and memorably tortures and crushes her victims with her thighs, and as if that allusion to sex predation isn't convincing enough she also smokes cigars, gambles and likes fast cars.

Alan Cumming also appears in a breakout performance, playing the Russian traitor Boris - a sleazy and geeky computer hacker with tickets on himself. He helps set up the theft of GoldenEye, and even has his own catchphrase, "I am invincible!" (also his last words).

Buddies and Babes
The most notable difference in this category with GoldenEye is that M and Moneypenny have been (thankfully) recast and given some stronger characterisation. Moneypenny (Samantha Bond) only has one scene but she makes more of an impression than any Moneypenny scenes from the last two decades... it's a surprise to 007 (and us) that she has a love life outside of MI6, and this development is used to give the writers cause to explore the 'new' concept (well, new to the world of James Bond) of sexual equality.

A further extension of this is the brilliant casting of Judi Dench as M. Unlike the previous M (Robert Brown) it's made clear that this is a new characte. She's new to her job, having come from an accountant-like background, and she and Bond are only just starting to get to know each other. She's icy and hard, referred to by her underlings as "the evil queen of numbers" due to her reputation as a budget-conscious bean-counter, but prefers to see herself as careful and methodical. She drinks bourbon (whereas her predecessor drank cognac) and warns Bond against pursuing any personal vendettas.

Q (Desmond Llewelyn) is as gleeful and tetchy as ever, providing some glowing comic relief. Bond is also helped by CIA agent Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker), a Hawaiian shirt-wearing Felix substitute, and Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane), a dodgy Russian gangster who's willing to put aside his differences with Bond if the price is right.

The main Bond girl here is Natalya, a Russian IT specialist who gets trapped inside the GoldenEye tracking station after it's destroyed. She's cute but unglamourous, a brainy/girl-next-door type who provides a more homely contrast to Janssen's over-the-top villainess. The production team resist making her an outdated 'women's lib' type, she's unsuited to an action-0rientated lifestyle but also capable enough to not come across as a wet blanket.

Locations
The three main locales for GoldenEye are the former USSR, Monaco and Cuba. The Cuba scenes are just jungle scenes and were actually filmed in Puerto Rico, and Monaco's scenes (in Monte Carlo) aren't really focused on that much. The film is most notable for the use of real Russian locations for the first time in the franchise's history - made possible by the end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union's dissolution. Most of the on-location filming for Russia takes place in St. Petersburg.

Gadgets and Tricks of the Trade
The main gadget in terms of plot-use is an exploding pen activated by a pre-determined amount of clicks. Bond also uses a laser cutter and a belt with a suspension wire in it that allows him to swing from the ceiling. Q gives him a car with stinger missiles behind the headlights but GoldenEye bucks the trend by having this gadget go unused.

Always handy in a tight jam, Bond uses a trolley full of dangerous explosives as a shield in a room full of Russian soldiers out to shoot him. He also escapes an exploding helicopter whilst tied up by headbutting the eject button!

Licence to Kill
Bond's weapon of choice for much of this film is a machine gun (I guess the handgun didn't classify as 'tough' enough in 1995). He shoots at least three or four Ruskies in the prologue, and does it again in order to escape a Russian prison - mowing down a further nine soldiers like it's a first person shooter. He shoots General Ourumov in order to save Natalya, and shoots down a helicopter in Cuba that also inadvertantly causes Onatopp's death-by-tree-branch. He kills dozens by blowing up the radar complex and also drops 006 to his death (though 006 survives long enough to get crushed by exploding debris).

Shag-Rate
It's pretty clear (but unseen) that 007 shags his psychological evaluator in the Aston Martin while parked in the middle of the road on a bend that overlooks Monte Carlo. It's also implied that Bond 'cements' his relationship with Natalya whilst travelling from Russia, and that they go at it again after arriving in Cuba.

Quotes
PSYCHOLOGIST: James, is it really neccessary to drive this fast?
JAMES BOND: More often than you think.

JAMES BOND: I love a woman who enjoys pulling rank.

BORIS: I am invincible!

JAMES BOND: Governments change, the lies stay the same.

JAMES BOND: What would I ever do without you?
MONEYPENNY: As far as I can remember James, you've never had me.
JAMES BOND: Hope springs eternal.
MONEYPENNY: You know, this sort of behaviour could qualify as sexual harrassment.
JAMES BOND: Really, what's the penalty for that?
MONEYPENNY: Someday you have to make good on your innuendos.

Q: Need I remind you 007, you have a licence to kill - not to break the traffic laws.

M: If I want sarcasm I'll talk to my children, thank you very much.

M: Unlike the American government, we prefer not to get our bad news from CNNN.

Q (as Bond picks up a long sandwich) Don't touch that! (Takes sandwich off him) It's my lunch.

How Does It Rate?
Outstanding. After seeming to die a slow and protracted death throughout the 1980s, Bond comes back with a vengeance and a renewed vigour thanks to a conscious attempt to update the series properly. It's pretty much a soft reboot of the series with new actors as Bond, Moneypenny and M. Not only does the series also acknowledge the changing political nature of the real world, it als incorporates this directly into the plot. The film's prologue takes place in 1989, at the end of the Cold War, and then skips forward to the present day (which seems to be 1998, despite the film's release in 1995). The Soviet Union has fallen and Cold War politics have become obsolete... also, shock and horror, women are now equal to men! It really is the future!

Other welcome 1990s (modern) elements include the attention paid to characterisation of secondary characters like M. There are also references to the Gulf War and the nature of the GoldenEye weapon is firmly rooted in modern EMP technology. Other touches that, for better or worse, reflect the concerns and trends of 1990s thriller-fiction includes allusions to conspiracies (Oliver Stone has a lot to answer for), a predominance of hackers and computers (fears of computer misuse that rose with the popularising of the internet) and overt political correctness. This last part comes via mentions of sexual harrassment, ego compensation and jokes about 'safe' sex and pacifism. As annoying as the politically correct stuff might be, it's nice to see the Bond films addressing concepts like the changing world in a manner that doesn't dilute the central character.

For too long Bond had existed in a 60s vaccuum that seemed to only acknowledge the outside world with tokenistic mentions of computer technology or presenting strong female characters as a novelty. So while it's easy for me to laugh at the way GoldenEye presents female equality as a new thing despite being made in the mid-1990s, it's nice to see the subject broached in such a direct and non-tokenistic manner in the series after such a long silence. To be honest, James Bond was never going to become modernised unless things like that were addressed properly, so it's something that had to be done. It's just a happy byproduct that it happens to make the film that extra bit entertaining. Allowing the character of James Bond to remain essentially the same as he was in 1962 is what ensures the film doesn't sell itself out... the world has changed but Bond hasn't, and he still knows how to kick arse and make an impression.

The use of the Cold War prologue also segues into a great titles sequence that depicts the collapse of the USSR, and the purpose of a character like 006 also allows the production team to explore how the end of the Cold War could affect someone like Bond whilst simultaneously using it show Bond's strength as an action hero outside of the Cold War paradigm. Another thing that shouldn't be underestimated here is the slickness of the cinematography and production values... after Dalton's drab 80s films it's a welcome glossifying of the series that echoes the confidence of The Spy Who Loved Me . Particular attention has also been paid to intelligent scripting, I could be wrong here but there seems to be a higher amount of scenes without Bond - allowing for more setting up of characters and plot beats. There's also a lot of great, witty dialogue and some awesome action set pieces (I have to mention the amazing bungee-jump at the film's beginning here, as well as the wonderfully destructive tank chase through St. Petersburg).

My only real criticism would be that the bulk of Bond's shooting is done with a machine-gun. I know that Bond has used machine-guns before, but this was usually only in full-scale battle scenes. It seems here to be a slight Americanisation of the character, influenced no doubt by the rise of American action heroes in the late 1980s and their reliance on 'bigger-is-better' weaponry. I don't think Bond should really be about the scaling up of action, it should be more about style. On the whole, GoldenEye doesn't forget that (though it does have an increased scope and sense of scale, evidenced by the opening shot on the dam at the Russian chemical weapons factory).

Anyway, I'd put this in my Top Five Bond films. You couldn't ask for a better introduction of a new Bond for a new era, and Brosnan deserves some credit for bringing back the charm of the character so effortlessly.

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DIRECTOR: Martin Campbell
WRITER/SOURCE: Michael France, Jeffrey Caine, Kevin Wade and Bruce Feirstein. Based on the characters created by Ian Fleming.
KEY ACTORS: Pierce Brosnan, Sean Benn, Famke Janssen, Izabella Scorupco, Judi Dench, Joe Don Baker, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Cumming, Desmond Llewelyn, Gottfried John, Samantha Bond, Minnie Driver.

RELATED TEXTS:
- Joe Don Baker previously played a Bond villain in The Living Daylights.
- GoldenEye was adapted as the Nintendo game GoldenEye 007, to great acclaim.
- The Bond franchise would be rebooted and 'updated' another ten years later as Casino Royale. It is also the only other Bond film directed by Martin Campbell.