The Brosnan Years
Pierce Brosnan’s Bond films are a bit like the Star Wars prequels in that they served as my entry point to a long-running franchise that Gen Xers had big, mean opinions about. To have spent one’s entire childhood thinking Brosnan was peak Bond, only to find that he’s closer to Jar Jar Binks (if Jar Jar Binks were hot and boring), is one of the more sobering things about growing up.
In fact, I think people were so taken by Pierce Brosnan’s hotness that they completely overlooked his boringness. This is their fault, not Brosnan’s; I’ve heard he’s a lovely man.
He’d played Stu “more of a thick soup than a name” Dunmeyer in 1993’s Mrs. Doubtfire, the handsome, responsible, adult counterpart to Robin Williams’ Daniel Hillard. And he’d played a mysterious con man who drinks martinis, uses gadgets and is successful with the ladies in Remington Steele, which sparked his initial Bond offer prior to The Living Daylights and then cockblocked him when the show was renewed and the offer, rescinded.
In 1994, when Timothy Dalton said “yeah, nah” to Barbara Broccoli’s ultimatum that he return for multiple Bond films or not at all, the frequently considered Brosnan finally got the role he’d been ‘meant’ for. But unlike Connery, who’d shown grit in his audition, and his predecessor Dalton, who was hired to take the franchise in a totally different direction, Brosnan was essentially hired because people could already imagine him as Bond.
I’m getting ahead of myself but if we learned anything from the backlash to Daniel Craig’s casting before Casino Royale, and the sudden sheepish silence that swept across the complainers when the film came out, it’s that looking the part is kinda the least important aspect to playing Bond.
That I remember so little about Brosnan’s Bond beyond how good he looks is perhaps a telling omen of his impact on the franchise. We shall see how I feel after getting reacquainted.
GoldenEye (1995)
Synopsis
Bond’s inability to get to know his workmates comes back to bite him when one of them goes rogue and attempts to use a satellite EMP weapon to fry the Bank of England’s records, but not before stealing a few billion first.
Particulars
Director: Martin Campbell
Writer/s: Jeffrey Caine and Bruce Feirstein, story by Michael France
Producers: Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli
Stars: Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, Sean Bean as Alec Trevelyan, Izabella Scorupco as Natalya Simonova, Judi Dench as M, Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp, Robbie Coltrane as Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky, Alan Cumming as Boris, Tchéky Karyo as Dimitri Mishkin, Joe Don Baker as Jack Wade, Gottfried John as General Ourumov, Samantha Bond as Moneypenny and Desmond Llewelyn as Q
Budget: $60 million
Shot: Switzerland, France, Monaco, Russia, Puerto Rico, the UK and Leavesden Studios
Based on: the name of Fleming’s home in Jamaica
Is that all there is?
GoldenEye is a slick 90s blockbuster that received positive reviews from critics and audiences alike and made a buttload of money. You can really feel the six years that passed between it and its predecessor; it was the first Bond film to use CGI, it addresses the post-Cold War world in which it exists and I’m sure that at the time, it felt very cool and innovative.
With Martin Campbell (who would also usher in the Daniel Craig era with Casino Royale) at the helm, it looks and sounds quite unlike any other Bond film that came before. There are many reasons to like it and many people do. After this revisit, I’ve realised I’m not one of them.
Still, leading with the positives, here’s what I do like about GoldenEye.
That opening stunt
Campbell takes a leaf out of The Spy Who Loved Me’s book and features an awe inspiring stunt in the film’s pre-credits sequence set to complete silence. Bond (or rather, stuntman Wayne Michaels) performed the 220 metre bungee jump at Switzerland’s Contra Dam and it set a Guinness World Record. Very cool, very good.
The allies to enemies plot
As previously mentioned, in the time between Licence to Kill and GoldenEye the Cold War ended, which led to many, many rewrites of the script. Michael France created the post-Cold War framework based on interviews with former KGB agents and visits to nuclear research labs and his early drafts introduced the idea of Bond being betrayed by a former MI6 agent.
Alec Trevelyan as a personal villain to Bond is a great idea. Other than Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun, the Bond villains of the past were pre-existing and Bond only crossed paths with them out of duty. Introducing a personal layer between Bond and the villain is juicy stuff. Or it would be, if Brosnan could match Sean Bean’s performance.
The Bean
There’s something about Sean Bean as a screen presence that can make even the shittest movie watchable. See Troy, or Black Death, or The Hitcher remake for evidence. Unfortunately, he’s so delectable as Trevelyan that it highlights how lacking in personality Brosnan’s Bond is. I found this to also be the case with many other cast members, of which there are some very strong players.
The supporting cast (well, most of them)
Judi Dench is unbeatable as M and it’s not just because the M/Bond dynamic works better when M is a woman. Martin Campbell films her in a way that’s never been afforded to M before; there’s a violet hue and a glossiness to her eyes (you can almost see the camera in them) and her scenes with Bond feel like we’re watching a guy who thinks he’s the shit being deconstructed by a psychiatrist/mother figure who sees right through him.
The less camp Russian characters – Mishkin, Ourumov, even Robbie Coltrane’s Valentin Zukovsky – are all pretty decent too and add to the intrigue of the plot. As far as Bond girls go, Natalya Simonova is one of the better ones. She’s given an actual skill, a decent amount to do and Izabella Scorupco has a talent for running away and diving out of frame from explosions.
And while I’m not a huge fan of recasting previous Bond actors in new roles, Joe Don Baker (who played Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights) is actually pretty fun and endearing as Jack Wade, Bond’s very American CIA ally.
The song and credits
It’s not quite ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero’ but Tina Turner’s ‘GoldenEye’ (written by Bono and The Edge, lol) is catchy as hell. I don’t necessarily feel the same about Eric Serra’s score (he works better with intentionally camp Luc Besson fare) but at least he’s injecting some much needed personality.
While I’m not a fan of how much CGI the film uses I do admit that Daniel Kleinman’s credits, and the references to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, are visually very interesting and offer more substance than we often get. Farewell, Maurice Binder. Whenever I see images projected onto women’s bodies and just straight up naked women holding guns I shall think of you.
Bond in a tank
I enjoyed this because it reminded me of cheating in GTA III and using a tank for all my missions. It’s also much more tactile and real than a lot of the other effects in the film, taking six weeks to film across Leavesden Studios and parts of St, Petersburg.
Now, that’s a fair chunk of praise for singular parts of the film. Here’s what doesn’t work for me.
Brosnan as Bond
I don’t know if it’s how he’s written, how Brosnan is performing the character or some combination of both but to me, he’s Bond in image alone. He feels like a carefully, mathematically constructed 3D printing of Connery’s aloofness and Moore’s suaveness and maybe Dalton’s hair.
He doesn’t say the quips with much oomph, he’s not brutal but nor is he particularly smooth. There’s a lack of confidence, I think, that might be due to the heavy expectations from the studio and from audiences that makes it feel like this Bond is trying to please everyone. I can’t remember if Brosnan develops a bit more of an identity as the films go on but I’m hopeful.
The camp Russians
Famke Janssen is absolutely stunning as Xenia Onatopp and I mean this as both a compliment about her appearance and a criticism about her performance. I’m not sure what she’d done before this (X-men came out later) but her Georgian accent is atrocious and her cries of supposed ecstasy while squeezing men to death with her thighs make me uncomfortable and thoroughly confused.
It kills me to say this but I feel the same about Alan Cumming in this role. He plays arch characters and villains very well (see Josie and the Pussycats for evidence) but he’s grating as Boris Grishenko and his accent is cartoonish.
The dated effects
The 90s gave us early stage CGI and GoldenEye gave us effects that now look incredibly dated and cheesy. I don’t blame them for jumping at the opportunity but GoldenEye looks really fake and I find myself yearning for the little miniatures in Moonraker. Considering the almost $30 million jump in budget from Licence to Kill, this is a lot of money to have spent on something that ultimately looks worse.
New crew, new tech, old formula
I understand that GoldenEye had a big job to do and that cleaning the slate with a brand new writing and next-gen producing team (especially because Cubby Broccoli died soon after) was necessary. I just wish they’d strayed a bit further from the classic Bond territory of Russia, especially since Russian villains had dominated much of the Bond franchise up to and including The Living Daylights, which was only two films prior, and Licence to Kill had the guts to take it somewhere completely different.
I’m conflicted about GoldenEye because it seems like everyone loves it and perhaps there’s something I’m not getting. Perhaps people weren’t as enamoured with Licence to Kill at the time as I am and perhaps the six years that passed primed them to be excited about a return to the classic Bond formula. Given I watched Brosnan’s beginning only a night after Dalton’s end, though, the contrast felt quite stark.
I will try my best to score GoldenEye objectively. But just know that I found it pretty mediocre.
RANKING CATEGORIES (70%)
Bond execution = 6
Villain = 8
Bond girl(s) = 7
Song = 7
Opening titles = 7
Plot/action/gadgets = 7
Franchise identity = 9
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT (30%)
5/10