Review of GoldenEye (1995) by Hoops2448 — 08 Oct 2011

I'm going to try not to sound like a fan boy despite the fact I am a huge Bond fan and Goldeneye is my favourite of the Bonds. So without further ado, here it is.

Goldeneye isn't flawless but it comes pretty close with it being a great restart of a franchise that had been unfortunately damaged by some truly terrible movies (The Living Daylights and License to Kill). The film chooses to introduce Bond to the modern world complete with post Cold War ideals and some great action sequences. If anything the main draw of Goldeneye is that following a rather dull revenge story (License to Kill) it manages to bring the fun back to the series with a new Bond (Pierce Brosnan) who clearly understands the character more than Moore, Lazenby and Dalton ever did. Goldeneye while reverting Bond back to his fun loving self also allows Brosnan room to breath with him showing a vulnerable if not scarred character that was conveyed in the books despite the fact Goldeneye is the first film not adapted from a Ian Fleming story although the title does allude to Fleming.

The main flaw with Goldeneye is that it shoehorns the characters of Jack Wade and Valentin Zukovsky in for some light comic relief that really does fall flat which is a shame as Robbie Coltrane is a great actor.

However despite this Goldeneye has some entertaining characters such as Alec 'Janus' Travelyan (Sean Bean) and Boris Grishenko (Alan Cummings) who are not only fun but well acted. If anything this film feels fantastically tense with the finale being especially good thanks to some skillful direction by Martin Campbell and a ball point pen.