Review of GoldenEye (1995) by Andy L — 08 Nov 2010
Eh. Starting with this, the 17th film in the Bond franchise, things were never quite the same.
The series was here ending a six-year hiatus while the lawyers and the studio execs fumbled around, trying to figure out what to do without Timothy Dalton as Bond, Albert Broccoli as Producer & Robert Brown as M.
And, even worse, without Ian Fleming novel-sourced plotlines ... that were at least semi-authentic in drawing upon the internal legends and characters of MI6. Aside from bringing characters forward, the closest this film comes to sourcing Ian Fleming is in the title: Goldeneye was the name Fleming gave to his home in Jamaica.
And to top all that, Bond starts driving - gasp - a German car !! What WERE they thinking?
The climax is Bond-worthy but most of the rest is pretty ho-hum going. The other supposedly interesting climax is the female villain who's climaxes by killing (Famke Janssen); she's interesting for, well, about two killings, after which her phony-sounding sighing and moaning becomes quite uninteresting. Further on the topic of climaxing, by tradition, it's not a Bond flick if Bond isn't bedding the babe (Izabella Scorupco) when the curtain drops. And he isn't.
Janssen and Scorupco are certainly not unattractive, but neither will get anywhere near the top of the "luscious Bond girl" list. And luscious Bond girls is obviously part of what made the Bond franchise work so well early on.
RECOMMENDATION: Push the rewind button on the way-back machine and soak in another showing of classic Bond cinema instead.
This review of GoldenEye (1995) was written by Andy L on 08 Nov 2010.
GoldenEye has generally received positive reviews.
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