GoldenEye (1995)
Dir: Martin Campbell
Rebirth of Bond
by
Jay Maronde
First
and foremost, I should mention that this was the first Bond film I ever saw. I distinctly
remember when my father took myself and my brothers to the movies opening week
because he wanted to see the new Bond. The people at the theater tried to give
him shit that he was taking three children to a PG-13 movie, but if you’ve ever
met my Dad clearly you can understand why this wasn’t going to stop him at all.
Now, a big part of the reason that he was so insistent upon us seeing this film
is that it had been six years since the last film and there had been a lot of talk at the time that there
would be no more Bond films. Fortunately, GoldenEye
easily became the most profitable Bond since Moonraker, and effectively rendered Licence to Kill’s poor box office performance a nullity.
The
reasons for the many years between Bonds are always convoluted, but GoldenEye ‘s longest-ever-delay also had
some of the craziest reasons ever. First, MGM had sold the broadcast rights to
the entire Bond Canon to a company that wanted to broadcast them on TV. At the
time this was a huge copyright issue and lawsuits ensued fast and furiously.
For some time the Eon Productions team was intent on never making another Bond
film unless they had control of these lucrative re-broadcasting rights (yes,
I’m fully aware that the SPIKE network generally shows the entire Canon during
these recent few Thanksgiving holidays, and I have no explanations for you as
to why other than money—but in the early 1990s this was not going to happen
without a fight). Second, there were no more Fleming novels to make films from,
and as such GoldenEye is the first
film ever that draws nothing from the works of Fleming (other than the Bond
character himself). Further, after the script was finally delivered it required
substantial rewriting as apparently it bore numerous similarities to True Lies, which was also being made and released around the same time. And
even further, while all of these legal and creative issues were delaying the
project, the U.S.S.R. was dismantled, and the Berlin Wall fell; as such the
standard James Bond enemy of Russia wasn’t the best enemy anymore. Finally,
while all of this bickering was going on, Timmy Dalton and numerous other Bond
standards quit their roles making this the first James Bond to replace Bond, M,
and Moneypenny all in the same movie.
So
again the producers were searching for a new Bond. Luckily for them they had
already decided two films previous that they had wanted to give the role to Pierce
Brosnan, who at the time was unfortunately unavailable due to contractual
obligations to the Remington Steele television series. So while numerous actors
were again auditioned (including again Mel Gibson) the producers eventually
went with Brosnan, and personally I think it was a wonderful choice. Brosnan is
a great Bond. He’s got the Roger Moore suave, Lazenby’s youthful looks,
Dalton’s willingness to do his own stunts, and Connery’s grittiness. For me he
just looks the role maybe the most of all the Bonds. Also new to this film was
the casting of Dame Judi Dench as M, and she is fantastic (many early reviews
of the new film Skyfall have critics
clamoring that she deserves an Oscar for her performance). Dench is the first
female to portray the MI6 chief and while initially there was much talk about
how Bond would look taking orders from a lady, Dench’s outstanding performance
quickly removed all doubts as she’s far more imposing and leader-like than
Hilary Clinton (who is the only person I can even think to compare her
character with).
The
film also featured two fantastic Bond girls: not only the lovely and very-much-come-hither
Izabella Scorupco as James Bond’s Russian computer programmer Ally Natalya, but
also the fantastically gorgeous and very sexually aggressive Famke Janssen as Xenia
Onatopp—the extremely memorable henchwoman who literally copulates men to
death. Now the name On-a-Topp is a fantastic Bond girl name, like tops up there
with Plenty O’Toole and Holly Goodhead, but Janssen (who later becomes Jean MF
Grey in the X-Men movies) is easily
at the peak of her youthful beauty. She’s stunningly gorgeous and easily one of
the best looking Bond girls to ever grace the screen with any Bond. Her
performance in this role is stunning, moaning orgasmic as she murders people
all over the world—she is so convincing as a henchwoman that it is remarkable.
The
casting in this film isn’t the only thing that makes it awesome, as this particular
Bond has some record-breaking stunts (many of which Brosnan preformed himself)
including the tallest bungee jump ever performed, and the most scale models
ever used in a Bond film. There is also
a fantastic tank chase through the streets of St. Petersburg. I should mention
first that the producers were so pleased with the stuntman who performed the record-breaking
bungee jump that they gave him a cameo later in the film as one of the
helicopter pilots whom Xenia kills. The other helicopter pilot is actually the
other stuntman who performed the stunt in the beginning where Bond defies the
law of physics and jumps into a falling plane (the stunt was actually performed
in real life, and no laws of physics were actually broken—as while all objects
fall at the same rate, a human will fall faster than a plane whose propeller is
running in reverse, which is how the footage was actually achieved). These two
amazing stunts right at the beginning of this film definitely let the viewer
know that this new Bond film is going to be action-packed and utterly
fantastic. The other stunt I would like to mention is the wonderful tank chase
through the city as Bond is pursuing the kidnapped Natalya in a stolen Russian
tank. Brosnan is actually in the tank for all these scenes, which adds
tremendously to the realism of the film even though the tank was modified so
that a professional was covertly driving from a hidden location. My favorite
part of the chase (which is almost always cut from the TV version) involves
Bond driving said tank directly through a Perrier tractor trailer truck and
smashing millions of cans of Perrier everywhere (in real life the company paid
to have every single can recovered from the streets of St Petersburg so as to
avoid any chance of crafty Russians being able to bootleg their product).
Also of
note about this film is the Car—not necessarily for the car itself, because it
has a very small role in the film and never uses any of the cool gadgets that Q
branch has installed—but instead because the deal struck between EON and BMW is
always recognized and the world’s most successful product placement deal ever. The James Bond edition of the Z3
in this film sold out in less than 24 hours. Several Z3’s were used to ferry
journalists from the Premiere at NYC’s Radio City Music Hall to the after party
at the MOMA (also of note: this is one of two Bond films to not have its world premiere in London,
and the only one to premiere in NYC (San Francisco hosted the premiere of A View To a Kill)). While this car may
not be the most “James Bond” of all of Bond’s cars it is clearly a very
recognizable symbol of this movie.
Before
I close I feel I should mention that I really like the title song GoldenEye, sung by Tina Turner and
written by Bono and The Edge. Personally I hate U2, and loath Bono (I could go
either way on The Edge) but the song is great it really recalls to mind the
great Shirley Bassey Bond anthems of earlier films. And while it is only a small part of the
film, I feel like the song really envelops the viewer into this new world of
Bond. This entire film is wonderful. It’s gritty at points, sweet at points,
extremely interesting, and beautifully filmed with wonderful locations.
Brosnan’s transition into the role of new Bond was more than successful and the
continuing viability of the Bond franchise may be attributable in part to his performance.
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