Synopsis in 3 sentences or less:
Bond investigates the disappearance of a top-secret Russian satellite weapon and in the process discovers that his old friend is alive and is now his enemy.
Memorable Quote:
Half of everything is luck, James. ~Trevelyan
Half of everything is luck, James. ~Trevelyan
And the other half? ~Bond
Fate. ~Trevelyan
Highlight:
The entire opening is electric and sets the tone perfectly for the movie. In particular, I love the moment where Bond is slowly walking behind the cannisters with about 50 Russian guns drawn on him.
Lowlight:
I do have one quibble about the opening, and that is the part where Bond launches himself off the cliff on a motorcycle, works his way into the nosediving plane, and pulls the plane up before it crashes. I'm all for suspending disbelief, but this act is not only the most unbelievable event in any Bond movie but possibly any movie. Someone could hypothetically try to do that one billion times and it would probably never work even once. It would have been better if he just stayed in the plane and took off from the mountainside.
Most interesting piece of IMDB trivia:
"Goldeneye" is the nickname of James Bond creator Ian Fleming's beachfront house in Jamaica where, between 1952 and 1964, he wrote the Bond novels and short stories. It was named for the contingency plan that the S.I.S., whose members included Fleming, devised in the event of a Nazi invasion of Spain.
Other thoughts, observations, and questions I didn’t ask when I was in fourth grade:
- OK, we've now officially entered into my wheelhouse -- I've seen each of the Brosnan movies at least 10 times each.
- This movie is directed by Martin Campbell, who also directed The Mask of Zorro and would go on to direct Casino Royale.
- The dam bungee jump is a breathtaking stunt, and it was completed in one take.
- Love the Tina Turner song, and it's going to number one on my song rankings thus far. I did just learn that the song was written by Bono and The Edge.
- So far I've been waiting for the actor's final movie to talk about him, but I want to get into Brosnan right now. Brosnan is clearly the best Bond and way better than any of the previous ones, and it's not even close. Daniel Craig (who we'll get to later) is also very good, but Brosnan is just at another level. He quite simply was born to play the character -- his look, his voice, his charm, his ability to be ruthless, his likability, his acting skills, his physicality, his ability to deliver one-liners. He's perfect.
- Great scene with M and Bond in the office where she calls him a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur." Judy Dench is a great M.
- That light blue BMW is beautiful -- too bad it doesn't get more screen time.
- Not sure why they felt like they needed to bring Joe Don Baker back -- he's not as bad here (as CIA man Jack Wade) as he was as Whitaker in The Living Daylights, but still a bit too silly for my tastes.
- Zukovsky on the other hand I kind of like even though he's a goof. And great line by Bond about giving him the limp.
- Fantastic villain performances by Famke Janssen (Onatopp) and Sean Bean (Trevelyan).
- I forgot how good the tank scene is: the music, the energy, and I love the way Natalya looks at him longingly from the car.
- I don't know why Trevelyan is so upset with Bond for setting the timer for 3 minutes, like he told Bond at the time to "Finish the job James, blow them all to hell," so what's his problem?
- I love how Bond guesses Boris's password in like a quarter of a second.
- Wade says "Give me a call if you need backup and I'll send in the marines," well why not just do that right away? I know, because it would ruin the movie.
- After Bond drops Trevelyan to his death, he makes it look easy when he jumps from the satellite tower to the helicopter and grabs the rudder while the helicopter flies away. That is not an easy thing to do, especially considering the pilot is a bad guy (being held at gunpoint by Natalya) and could easily tilt the plane so that Bond falls.
- The end credits -- ewwww. That song they picked was so out of place.
- Let's talk for a minute about the Goldeneye video game for Nintendo 64. I played this game a bit in college, as did many of my peers, and I still have the game. Quite simply, it's one of the best video games ever made, and I'm not alone in that opinion. The 4-person multiplayer was incredibly fun, and the music was unbelievable. Here's a sample.
This movie is so good and easily slides into the number one spot on the rankings. I love it -- not much more to say!
I watched this one in the mid-90s and enjoyed it, although perhaps not to the extent you did. Famke Janssen was one of the memorable Bond villains and I remember most about her scenes. Incredible as it was, I liked the motorcycle stunt in the opening sequence even though it was pretty clear Bond had a death wish to try to pull it off. I had no idea there was even a "Goldeneye" video game let alone that it was such a celebrated game. My gaming days only lasted from about 1989-1992.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on Brosnan being the best Bond. I'm assuming you know the story of how he almost got the job nine years earlier in 1986 but couldn't get out of his "Remington Steele" contract. Probably for the best that he waited a few years since he was pretty young to play Bond in the mid-80s. Interesting that this was the first Bond movie in six years. Not sure if it was because of a poor reception with Tim Dalton or what, but I believe that was the longest gap between Bond movies in the entire franchise.
Yeah I do know the Remington Steele history. The gap was due to legal issues between the Bond owners and MGM -- before the issues, they had planned Dalton to come back for a third one. Even after the issues, they still would have taken him back but he was ready to move on.
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