Over a decade before Martin Campbell would be hired to reboot the Bond franchise and introduce a new actor as 007 in Casino Royale, he was hired to reboot the Bond franchise and introduce a new actor as 007 in GoldenEye. Pierce Brosnan’s stint as Bond is generally considered to be one of the franchise’s weakest stretches — although Roger Moore’s too-old-to-play-Bond years give Brosnan a run for his money — because they relied heavily on primitive CGI and poor storytelling.
However, Brosnan himself is regarded as one of the most perfect casting choices for Bond, and he got a stellar debut in GoldenEye.
It Deconstructed Bond Long Before Casino Royale
Martin Campbell was praised for his deconstruction of the Bond mythos in Casino Royale, but he’d already done it in GoldenEye. Judi Dench’s M calls Brosnan’s Bond “a sexist, misogynist dinosaur” and “a relic of the Cold War.” Oof.
A lot of GoldenEye is dedicated to updating Bond for the modern day and exploring some of the series’ more problematic elements. Aside from the darker tone of Timothy Dalton’s Bond films, GoldenEye marked the first signs of deconstruction — a rabbit hole that would eventually consume the whole franchise.
The Opening Contra Dam Bungee Jump Sets The Stage Perfectly
In the opening scene of GoldenEye, Bond jumps off the top of the Contra Dam. It’s a breathtaking moment, performed by stuntman Wayne Michaels, that establishes the level of high-octane action the movie has to offer.
As with all the best Bond openings, like the Union Jack parachute jump in The Spy Who Loved Me, GoldenEye’s opening scene sets the stage perfectly with a daring stunt that will get the audience in the right mood for the ride without overshadowing the action that’s still to come.
007 Has A Personal Connection To The Villain
There’s a veil of grief over Bond throughout the first half of GoldenEye as he mourns the loss of 006, played by Sean Bean, who supposedly died in the opening scene, because he blames himself for his death. Then, in one doozy of a midpoint twist, 006 is revealed to be alive and well.
He faked his death and he’s been running the Janus crime syndicate for years. Bond doesn’t usually have a personal connection to the villains he faces, but this dynamic is quite compelling in GoldenEye.
Xenia Onatopp Is An Unforgettable Bond Girl
The Bond girl played by Famke Janssen in GoldenEye is one of the most memorable in the franchise’s history. Janssen's chemistry with Brosnan is off the charts, and Xenia Onatopp is a femme fatale in every sense of the term; she even kills her victims by crushing them to death with her thighs during sex.
Bad CGI Is Kept To A Minimum
The Pierce Brosnan era of the Bond franchise coincided with the dawn of CGI, so his Bond movies are filled with the kind of bland, primitive effects that can be found in early 2000s blockbusters like The Matrix Reloaded.
But this wasn’t as prevalent in his debut. There is some bad CGI in GoldenEye — shots of the satellite in space look like they were taken from a PS1 game — but it’s kept to a minimum.
It Successfully Modernized Bond For Its Own Time
Ian Fleming first started publishing James Bond novels in the ‘50s and the movies have been going since the ‘60s. As a result, the character is very much of that era. This wasn’t too noticeable in the ‘70s, but the old-fashioned nature of the franchise reared its ugly head throughout the ‘80s.
In the ‘90s, Martin Campbell successfully modernized Bond. He ended up doing it again for a post-Austin Powers world with the gritty realism of Casino Royale.
Tina Turner’s Theme Song Recalls Shirley Bassey’s Classics
A Bond movie is only as good as its theme song. Ever since Shirley Bassey’s iconic theme for Goldfinger, the 007 producers have tapped a contemporary pop artist to sing a theme song for almost every subsequent movie.
The theme song for GoldenEye was written by U2’s Bono and The Edge, but it was performed by Tina Turner, whose glorious vocal inflections recall Bassey’s classics.
The Introduction Of Judi Dench’s M Marked A Refreshing Change Of Pace
After Bond’s superior M had been played by a man for three decades — by Bernard Lee from 1962 to 1979 and by Robert Brown from 1983 to 1989 — Martin Campbell cast Judi Dench as a new incarnation of the character for GoldenEye.
Dench couldn’t have been more perfectly suited to the role of M, convincingly commanding Bond’s unwavering loyalty and sharing terrific on-screen chemistry with Pierce Brosnan.
The Tank Chase Is Stunning
The main criticism levied at Brosnan’s later Bond movies is that they got bogged down in CGI. They were developed around the same time as the Star Wars prequels, when CGI was the hot new thing and studios were putting as much of it in their movies as possible, and Bond’s action sequences suffered massively.
After all the CG dreck that followed (like Bond surfing a tidal wave), it’s refreshing to return to the eye-popping practical action of GoldenEye’s tank chase. The shoot involved three real Russian tanks: two T-54s and one T-55.
GoldenEye Has A Little Bit Of Every Previous Bond
For his first outing as James Bond, Pierce Brosnan borrowed a little bit of every previous Bond actor’s performance: the suaveness of Sean Connery, the tongue-in-cheek humor of Roger Moore, and the dark overtones of Timothy Dalton.
The producers had wanted Brosnan for the role for a long time and when he finally landed the part, he clearly understood the gravitas of the undertaking.