Bond Films: Goldeneye

Goldeneye is the first Bond film with Pierce Brosnan in the role, coming out six years since License to Kill. It's also the first Bond filme following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it references that fact and the chaos in Russia that followed considerably.

The basic plot of Goldeneye is: years after a mission gone awry in which a fellow 00 agent was killed, Bond is put on the trail of a stolen high-tech helicopter, stolen by General Oramov and his henchwoman, Onatopp. They escape and use the helicopter to attack a secret Soviet base that uses Goldeneye, an orbital EMP bomb. They steal the device and turn its attack on the base. Bond is then reassigned o track down one of the survivors (the girl), and learns that the real mastermind behind these attacks is Trevaleyan, now known as Janus - his supposedly dead former partner from the film's opening. General Oramov attempts to frame Bond for the theft of Goldeneye, but when he kills the Minister of Defense and frames Bond for that, kidnapping the girl. Bond fights his way out using a tank, and then fights Oramov on a fancy military train. All escape, and Bond follows Oramov's trail to a secret satellite tracking base in Cuba, using the help of the CIA (oddly, played by the same guy who played the villain in The Living Daylights). After infiltrating the base, getting captured, and sabotaging the program with the girls' help, Bond engages in a final fight against Janus high above the control dish, a fight Janus ultimately loses.

I was surprised at how little I had already seen of Goldeneye. I had always assumed I'd seen, and parts of it were familiar, but I don't believe I'd ever seen the film all the way through, start to finish. It's a pretty solid reboot of the series, with a new Bond, new M, new Moneypenny, and a completely new context for villainy. It's worth pointing out that Fleming himself never thought the Cold War would last as long as it did, which is why he created SPECTRE, a concept abandoned in the films over two decades earlier, and one not taken up again until the Daniel Craig films. Desmond Llewellyn serves as Q, and Sean Bean (future Ned Stark) makes for a great villain and an excellent physical match for Bond.

Goldeneye is one of the better Bonds. Pierce Brosnan makes for a great Bond, though he'll always be Remington Steele to me. The changes in new actors and in the plot's background bring it thoroughly into the  - for then - modern era. Even though I would categorize this in the "Renegade General" plot, it works well. There is some minor unbelievability in the theft of the helicopter, and some of the tank stunts (besides the physical - not long before, the Red Army rolled platoons of tanks out to stop a coup). But it's a good film overall, and a very good Bond film. We can thank the success of Goldeneye for the continued series of the franchise following a very wobbly decade and a half.