Review of GoldenEye (1995) by Joshua B — 30 Dec 2011

Pierce Brosnan's entry into the Bond franchise somehow managed simultaneously to feel like a franchise revival, marking Brosnan as a better Bond than Timothy Dalton, while also being the only really good Bond film of the Brosnan era.

The welcome six year break between this and the previous film means that everything here feels fresh. Aside from the new Bond, there is a marked difference in stylistic tone; Martin Campbell does a great job at pulling the series into the 90s, capturing both the classic tone of Bond and the modern sensibilities of action movies of the time.

The magnificent Dame Judi Dench is also a nice addition as the new M, a female head of MI6 who is willing to call out Bond as a "mysoginist dinosaur." Rounding out a strong cast are Sean Bean as 006 Agent Alec Trevelyn, Famke Janssen as the femme fatale, Xenia Onatopp (see what they did there?), Isabella Scorupco as this iteration of the "Bond girl", and Alan Cumming hamming it up as a Russian computer hacker.

The film moves at a nice pace and contains some of the more memorable set pieces in the more recent Bond movies (so much so that it was one of the only Bond films to get a proper video game adaptation).

If nothing else, this is the last great Bond movie until the rebooted, Daniel Craig era, Casino Royale film.