Review of GoldenEye (1995) by Gabi B — 08 Apr 2011

"I enjoy a spirited ride as much as the next girl!!!".

This movie is thoroughly engaging and totally captivating, right from the very first scene. The action sequences are mind-blowing and the opening scene is spectacular with a mind boggling bungee jump from a top of a dam to an exciting racing over a cliff in a motorcycle and skydiving into a crushing private plane.

Pierce Brosnan portrays Bond amazingly well in my opinion, and ties all the classic 007 elements together flawlessly. Bond meets an appealing young lady Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) while driving...make that playfully racing, near Monte Carlo. Suspicious, he follows her to a nearby casino where he finds out that her name is Xenia Onatopp and she carries ties to the Janus crime syndicate in St. Petersburg. Onatopp 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. This leads him to investigate the theft of the Goldeneye satellite, which simulates a nuclear blast in outer space, from which an electromagnetic pulse emanates, destroying all computers.

The dominatrix assassin, Onatopp specializes in 'intimate' kills (she kills men by crushing them with her legs) and has a psychotic delight in physical confrontations makes for a classic Bond femme fatale. The good Bond girl is the irresistible Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco) who 'tastes like strawberries.' She is a programmer who had worked on Goldeneye and witnesses the mass murder of all her co-workers in a blaze of mayhem. She knows the computer systems that can stop the weapon.

~Spoiler~ Sean Bean is cold and ruthless as a former 00 agent turned traitor, Alec Trevelyan and the perfect adversary for Bond; someone who knows all of 007's tricks and has had most of the same experiences.

Dame Judi Dench makes her debut as the new, hard-nosed M, a female authority figure to temper Bond's 'boys will be boys' mentality. She's gruff, she's decisive, and she's got attitude to spare. There is also Miss. Moneypenny now played by Samantha Bond, trading innuendos with Bond and the cameos by Robbie Coltrane and Joe Don Baker is worth watching out for. And who could forget the computer nerd played by Alan Cumming?

The film also has an excellent sense of humour. There are some real corkers: "How do you take it?" "Straight up...with a twist", "I like a woman who enjoys pulling rank" and "She always did enjoy a good squeeze.".