Movie Review - GoldenEye (1995)

Sometimes patience is more than just a virtue; sometimes it's a saving grace. After nearly thirty years of James Bond movies being released just about every other year, the movie producers realized that their ideas, originality, and ability to spark the interest of others was waning. On top of that, their 1989 movie License to Kill was a box-office flop, probably the least-grossing film in the series to date (although I still think it's a pretty good movie myself, but I digress...). As a result of a couple of downer movies, the producers decided it was time to find a new James Bond since Timothy Dalton (who played James Bond and the evil grocery store owner Simon Skinner in Hot Fuzz, if that helps put anything into perspective) wasn't doing the best job. So they waited. For six years.

But once they finally announced Pierce Brosnan as their new Bond, things started to look interesting, seeing as Brosnan had played a debonair detective in the TV show Remington Steele for several years and was apparently a looker for the times. And the movie itself certainly didn't disappoint. This movie is the Bond movie that I could potentially watch over and over again more than any of the other ones, just because of how wildly entertaining it is. Before the main titles can even start, two death-defying stunts were performed, considered landmarks for their time: an extremely high and dangerous bungee jump, and later a motorcycle jump off a cliff following a plane that had to be reached in free-fall.

It's absolutely jaw-dropping, and the film just takes off from there. I'll admit that it has its slow moments at the beginning, but the pacing is never painfully slow, dry, or boring as the franchise was guilty of in its earlier years. The entire cast was revamped for the end of the twentieth century, featuring much more modern characters with only one returning veteran. The plot itself wasn't focused so much on the Cold War as it had been in the past few movies, so Bond was able to move on to more interesting and complex assignments. The story itself is incredibly engaging and one that won't be easily forgotten. The action scenes were definitely the best in the series at the time, and in my honest opinion, the only movie that beat GoldenEye on this was probably Casino Royale in 2006.

There have been several critics that say this film is too flashy and superficial, relying on gadgets and explosions and eye candy to sell itself. While that could definitely be true, it certainly has me hooked, so I don't care. There was also a video game, incidentally, based off of the movie that was wildly popular, and if you haven't heard of it, I recommend looking it up to see what all the hype was about. But I would really give this movie a try, especially if you're an action movie aficionado like myself.