Review of GoldenEye (1995) by Vidyabum — 21 Oct 2021

I watched all 25 from Dr.No to Spectre, I place Goldeneye at 19/25.

This is the first Bond I saw as a child, and seeing it again as an adult, I had middling expectations. They were not met. Goldeneye is just poor. A few good points: DecentI watched all 25 from Dr.No to Spectre, I place Goldeneye at 19/25.

This is the first Bond I saw as a child, and seeing it again as an adult, I had middling expectations. They were not met.

Goldeneye is just poor.

A few good points:

Decent action, sometimes even impressive (great use of the Arecibo Observatory).

A well-played villain with an original backstory.

Memorable sound and special effects (Goldeneye exploding over Severnaya).

The rest is good for the trash can, I'm afraid.

Brosnan was the most deadpan, charmless, expressionless Bond. In his first outing, they tried to make Bond "new". So how does the deadpan actor meet his "novelty"?

Well for example, with Moneypenny.

Moneypenny tells him that she's going out with someone. He tries the old-style charm on her. Says "what am I gonna do without you".

She responds with the "you've never had me", in an all too obvious "free woman that don't need no man" moment.

So here's a thought, when you want to renew your franchise.

If you want to replace a very dated trope, that happens to be a witty, harmless, complicit, and charming banter between two characters that were portrayed more or less as equals in their appreciation of one another.

Don't replace it with a "now you don't matter no more because I'm a free woman.".

Because that isn't replacing it, that's just destroying it and replacing it with nothing.

M being now a woman is kind of in the same vein. The will to renew a very dated franchise is noted, but falls flat: M supposedly is a paper pusher that isn't respected by Bond's old-style, instinctive methods. Except the entire argument they have falls flat, and it does so twice, too: once when Bond's gut feeling never was going to tell him whether Goldeneye existed or not, and it's just shoved in the dialogue, and the other when M makes a long-winded speech about how Bond doesn't respect her, and how she's a strong woman boss who thinks he's a dinosaur, only to end her speech by looking at him all motherly and saying "come back alive".

The conversations are just generally fake, the emotion absent, the wit too.

Goldeneye is saved by a solid string of good action moments, sound work and special effects.

Actors, 0. Script, decent at best. Dialogues, 0. Charm, 0.

Not worth rewatching, even drunk.