Movie Review—
GoldenEye (1995): Bond Film #17

Pierce Brosnan makes his first walk before the gun barrel here as James Bond, 007, and grows the character exactly where needed.

The basic plot involves stolen control of a Russian satellite code-named "GoldenEye," the second of two. It's threat is an electromagnetic pulse ("EMP"), an energy burst capable of immobilizing anything that relies upon an electronic circuit. Computer-based banking records to quartz wristwatches.

James Bond has some experience with both satellites and EMP, as we saw in Diamonds Are Forever and A View to A Kill. Further, the GoldenEye theft is an inside job, not unlike Octopussy, albeit with less ostensibly altruistic motives. I'm okay with all that; there are only so many things out there for a bad guy to steel, and limits on how big they can go with it.

What distinguishes GoldenEye is the intimate twist involving a former MI6 operative, Alec Trevelyan (Agent 006) as mastermind behind this caper.

The GoldenEye pre-title sequence is set some nine years before the main action of this film. Agents 006 and 007 are teamed to infiltrate and presumably destroy a Russian chemical weapons facility in Siberia. Hooking up onsite, the two engage in the sort of classic cliché dialogue we take as a given from James Bond in particular.

Bond: "I'm alone," answering a shadowed Trevelyan's inquiry, spoken in Russian.

Trevelyan: "Aren't we all?"

Then, as the two head out to set their explosive charges, there is one final inquiry (for the record), to clarify meaning and purpose.

Trevelyan: "For England, James?"

Bond: "For England, Alec."

I've never been convinced that 007 is doing much more than parroting 006 here. In fact, I feel it's almost an insincerity within an insincerity. Later scenes, such as Bond's Manticore incursion, show a cold, almost machine-like character. He wipes the sweat from his face with a towel after throwing an attacking deckhand down a stairwell, sans quip, sans snack (remember Bond pausing to grab a bite of caviar after one particular fight in On Her Majesty's Secret Service?).

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