Review of GoldenEye (1995) by Andrew D — 14 Aug 2013

Pierce Brosnan takes over as Agent 007 in this next installment in the James Bond series, GoldenEye. In this story, Bond feels responsible for the death of fellow agent and friend 006. However, when a weapon called GoldenEye has been stolen by Soviet activists, it's up to Bond and a survivor of a massive attack to find out who's behind this plan to take over the world.

This is now officially the first Pierce Brosnan 007 film I've seen and overall, I thought that it was good but not great. The highlight of the film is the action. From minute one, the action scenes are well choreographed and edge of your seat fun.

The best scene in the entire film in fact involves James Bond driving a tank. I won't go further in order to avoid spoilers, but it really is an action scene to behold. As for the story in this film, it's interesting enough to follow, but it suffers from a weak first act.

Everything between the end of the opening credits to Bond's talk with M was just stale and uninteresting. Xenia Onatopp has to be one of the worst villains I have ever seen. She's a nuisance throughout the entire thing and I couldn't stand it.

This could have been forgiven if she was the only case, but she wasn't. Boris the computer hacker was just unbearable to watch. The other actors did a pretty good job, even Brosnan. It takes some getting used to, but his performance began to grow on me and by the end of the film, I bought him as the character.

The only other real issue I had with this film was the score. I know that the writers wanted this to be a hip new take of the character, but the score was extremely distracting and took away any real thrills when it started blaring through the speakers.

Overall, GoldenEye is a good Bond film, but it has problems. Still, it's a good start for Brosnan and an interesting addition to the franchise.