Amph 60+ Years of James Bond 007

Yeah, that's kind of along that lines that I think is the missing link. ala:

Bond-I'm after Sanchez because he went after my friend Felix to the point that it's so personal, I'll throw my career away.
Bovier- I'm a cynical tough as nails pilot..You mean Felix Leiter? He was the one who recruited me from the military...I'll put my current cynicism aside because it's personal for me too!
(Bond and Bouvier together, wink wink) Boy, it sure does highlight your morality when thinking about someone as stalwart like Felix could be hurt so badly...
Bond then goes of to the mission.
Bouvier-Bond! I thought what we had was more personal... huff-jealousy....so on and so on..continuing how the movie unfolded.

There was no suitable force for Lowell's character.

Although it is also kind of strange that Leiter would spend so many years as a distinguished CIA case manager, and then switch to the DEA, even as an agent in charge. Although I don't remember if it was explained that Leiter had actually switched to the DEA or he was simply detailed out to them from the CIA, so that may have been covered.

 

But that's sort of the opposite of my point. I was agreeing with Havac that Lowell's response is serious, justifiable, and reflective of them treating the character as an actual human being rather than a prop. She is sensibly angry, even considering her CIA background, because the explanation you are offering for Bond's actions doesn't make any sense. Sleeping with the other woman was still entirely superfluous, and didn't really have anything to do with advancing the mission.

 

Right, but this only supposes that Lowell's character never came across anything like Bond seduction before, which doesn't make any sense. No matter if she was an actual CIA operative, or an Army pilot turned CIA contractor, back when the movie was made, all of these areas were near completely male-dominated fields. Lowell's character would have been dealing with an endless line of army officers, less savory characters, and testosterone fueled operators. What was she doing? Waiting out an entire 10 year career in the military/CIA just so Bond could come along and sleep with her?

The way she was introduced set her up as that independent minded person. "Even considering her CIA background" is the most important aspect. They gave Bond a real and personal reason to act the way he was. I mean, Bond was willing to throw away his license to kill/007 status in his pursuit of revenge. In other words, he would be willing to do anything. Lowell's character saw that, as it was made very clear from the start. So, when Bond ended up seducing the badguy's girlfriend as a means to an end, Lowell suddenly gets jealous because she thought they would go make a happy life after one encounter? That after a single romp with Bond, she's all jealous and sullen, and you're trying to say that's the more human portrayal? In the span of 2 scenes, Lowell went from a hip, fiesty, hold your own woman in the bar, to basically a 6th grader with a crush- all because of the power of Bond's loins, with no other personal explanation for her vulnerability given? I don't see the actual human response.

I'd also say that's why it seemed forced. In other words, she started strong, but ended up more like a prop because I don't think they knew what to do with the character. This was a transition movie between the different Bond eras, so while they had a different concept for Lowell's character, they didn't bring it home, and she ended up more like Tatiana, the blond from FRWL. In fact, Lowell's character probably pinned more overtly than Tatiana, but toward the end, it was a toss-up.

For someone much more interesting, look to how Natalya was portrayed in Goldeneye. Now she was vulnerable but strong, and held in her own with her "boys and their toys" persona. Natalya should have been Lowell's character made for this movie. I suppose you could say that Lowell broke the ground for Goldeneye, as I still think Goldeneye should have been Dalton's final movie.

 

I mean I like Goldeneye a lot but I think with Dalton it may have been one of the best ever.

 

But you keep dodging the fact that the only "end" realistically achieved by seducing the bad guy's girlfriend was being able to sleep with another woman. Nothing was gained, and prospectively, nothing was likely to be gained. Why don't you speak to the fact that Bond just sleeping with random women--affiliated with his enemies or no--didn't make any sense at all? Like any reasonable person, she expressed disappointment about that. Had there been some actual value to the seduction in terms of his mission, you might have a more compelling point.

Secondly, I'm confused about the nature of your argument. Everyone the military or intelligence services is a depraved philandering sex addict, so she shouldn't have minded? What?

 

Except... you are ascribing outcome to motive without evidence.

It's not out of the realm of possibility that Bond read the situation as "she knows my secret and may trust me more, even if she gets cold feet, if she's romantically entangled with me" rather than just using fear of Sanchez as a crutch. I don't know, you don't know, I'm not sure the movie knows... (I don't think anything was explicitly said either way)

 

What exactly would the thought process be, in that case "People value sex with me more highly than life itself."?

The movie doesn't know because there isn't a reason. When there are plot holes, you don't say "Oh well maybe it's just such an excellent but complex reason that even the movie itself didn't know what it was." You call a spade a spade. If you want to pretend that Bond needed to sleep with Lupe, then there's a plot hole, because we never get anything close to a reason why. If there's no reason, then Lowell's response to Bond's purposeless act is appropriate.

 

Bond has used sex for any number of reasons though... in fact, wasn't this almost exactly the same circumstance to Maud Adams' charater in TMWTGG? (she died, but still...) There was no reason for Bond to sleep with her as she was afraid of Scaramanga...

 

Yeah Bond sleeping with random women, that's what he does. Except Lowell's character knew that, as she presumably spent years in that world as well. Spies, Special Forces, hard boiled pilots spend all sorts of time in strip clubs, and with prostitutes and with "marks" and what not, at least based on theatrical stereotype which Bond is very much a part of. I'm not saying that everyone in the military/spy world is a sex addict, but you're acting like Lowell's character only discovered that spies sleep around after Bond did so with her and the possibly that Bond would use sex as a weapon never crossed her mind. That is, despite the fact that's the world she operates in.

What you're saying would be like when Lowell ripped her dress to reveal the mini skirt/thigh holster, to have a scene where Bond gets all dejected and ask her "I thought you only get sultry for me, now it's not special anymore." Really? If Bond was that thin skinned, he would never make it in the spy world, which is my point with Lowell's character.

If they introduced Lowell's character as a sheltered librarian that Bond had to get information from, then her defensive reaction to Bond's use of casual sex would fit because it wouldn't be the norm for her. That actually might have been interesting to show the opposite perspective of Bond's use of sex back then, which occurs in the more recent movies. It's not like Lowell was introduced at a PTA meeting though. That movie is called True Lies, and it stars Swartzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. Instead, Lowell was set in a smuggler's bar. Lowell is introduced as basically the Han Solo of the movie, holds her own in the initial fight, but then goes off and gets all huffy because Bond has casual sex, just like he always does, and presumably every single spy that Lowell would run across in her career did/would do?

Don't set the backstory to make Lowell the counter- Bond, just to loose that aspect the first time Bond sleeps with her. All I'm saying is that it would have been more powerful to give them a reason together, a personal connection, for her to be taken off guard by Bond and end up acting the way she did with him, in order to uphold her characterization and make him the "one" that gives her the wish to settle down with. At least the good aspect of that whole muddled relationship is that Bond did choose her and the end of the movie, but it's a sort of pyrrhic victory for her at best.

That's the disconnect. It's not a huge point of the movie, but it shows a bit of the disjointed aspect which keeps it from being more readily appreciated.

 

To add Wocky, actually the Maud Adams example here is the perfect illustration to what I'm saying. Maud Adam's character was just a regular person, a woman terrified by the boss she works for, in this case, Saramanga. Bond comes off strong and brutish, but then switches gears. Do you actually think Bond had any feelings for Maud Adam's character? Of course not. He used sex, just as much as he used the backhand, because all he really wanted was information. He didn't let her know that though, as the emotional manipulation was the only thing that overcame her fear.

That's how I've always taken Bond sleeping with Lupe. Bond showed Lupe an alternative to the point that it muddled her loyalty, because Bond was manipulating her. It wasn't just sex for no reason at all/Bond was just horny and didn't have a plan. Bond most certainly had a plan.

Now, Lowell operates in the same field as Bond, at least she was set up like that from the beginning. But suddenly, after one night with Bond, she is rendered utterly incapable of recognizing such manipulation. That for some reason, she becomes personal in an instant to the point that she becomes hurt/jealous because Bond is engaging in the above. Absent of anything else, that change in characterization doesn't make much sense.

 

I think your read of the character is too dependent on her perceived "professionalism." "She's a professional, therefore she should be above jealousy in this situation, and when the movie has her reacting emotionally to Bond's involvement with another woman, it makes it harder to take the character seriously as a professional" would be, I think, a fair summation of your position here, correct?

But I think you're over-emphasizing her professionalism. She's an ex-army pilot and a CIA informant -- she's tough and capable, but she's not a 007-style spy. There's no real reason to think that she wouldn't feel emotions in this situation. And even 007 himself spends the entire movie being entirely "unprofessional" because even professionals can have unprofessional emotional reactions. If Bouvier were written to be a tough-as-nails, all-business or ice-cold professional -- someone more in the vein of Bond girls like Camille, XXX, Aki, or even Jinx, that would be more understandable to demand that kind of detachment from her, but she isn't -- she's a tough, capable girl, but not an emotionally detached professional spy/killer. That's just not what her character is. You've got this box of the cool professional that you want to put her in, but the movie doesn't go along with that because that's not what her character is designed to be and that's not what she's written as or presented as, but rather than adjust your concept of the character, you complain that the movie is characterizing her wrong. I think if you gave the character as written a chance, instead of demanding that she fit in the box, you'd appreciate her more.

Further, I think you're overdoing it in terms of her reactions. She's not stricken with middle-school jealousy -- she sleeps with Bond and demonstrates feelings for him. She then, midway through this operation with him, some woman shows up who's obviously also emotionally involved with Bond. Out of nowhere, she has to come face-to-face with an Other Woman and confront the fact that the exclusive relationship she thought she had with Bond doesn't exist; he's been screwing around behind her back. Now, it's true that Bond isn't really that involved with Lupe -- he wants to protect her, and he's using her desperation to escape Sanchez to get information, but he doesn't have real romantic feelings for her -- but Bouvier doesn't know that; she just sees a woman who's emotionally involved with James. She gets emotionally wounded and angry, and basically calls Bond an SOB. She thought they were in a relationship, he cheated on her, she gets upset. It's not the stuff of ice-cold professionalism, but nor is it the stuff of the playground. I don't think you can just dismiss a woman's response to being cheated on as petty jealousy. Of course, Bouvier ends up continuing to help Bond, and the worst jealousy we see at the end is when, after she came back to save Bond, she sees Bond at the party cannoodling with Lupe, and gets distraught and goes off to have a cry in private. It's an emotional reaction, yeah, but I can't see any failure to behave like an ice queen as equating with schoolyard jealousy. Bond then recognizes that she's legitimately upset, and jumps into the pool to make the point that, while he used Lupe to get at Sanchez, and cared about protecting her from him, he actually cares about Bouvier romantically. If you're just going to dismiss any time a female character has an emotional reaction to the status of a relationship as childish jealousy, I don't think you're going to get very far with any realistic attempt to depict Bond's romantic entanglements, which is all this is.

 

GoldenEye (1995)

Behind the scenes

After Licence to Kill, EON fully intended to continue with another Bond film on the regular schedule of one every other year. MGM/UA, which owned half the rights after MGM had bought up United Artists earlier in the eighties, went into chaos. It was nearly bought, but that deal fell through, then it was bought by a guy named Parretti, who treated the company more like a treasure chest than a production company, and failed to actually make any movies. He also happened to be a crook, and he had gotten his financing from a state-owned French bank that was horribly mismanaged and near bankruptcy itself. Parretti got hit with securities fraud charges and the bank took over MGM, which it then turned around and sold back to the guy Parretti had bought it from. In the middle of this mess, attempts to make any films basically fell apart. James Bond took six years to get back into theaters, which remains the longest layoff in the history of the series.

Longtime writer Richard Maibaum died in 1991, but Wilson had a draft ready with a different writing partner, and Dalton had one more movie on his contract. Production just couldn't start, however, and as it got pushed back farther and farther, the Cold War happened to end. Licence to Kill hadn't relied on the Cold War, but the films previous to it increasingly had, as the series moved on from SPECTRE and Drax/Stromberg-style lone-wolf supervillains. Furthermore, without the framework of the Cold War, the whole intelligence community was shaken up, suddenly looking out over a changed world. Bond would obviously have to address the new order in some way. It took until the start of 1994 for Michael France's screenplay to be delivered, which ended up being rewritten and polished by three other writers. With script in hand and the studio chaos over, Timothy Dalton, who had stuck with the franchise throughout the uncertainty and reupped after his initial contract had expired, quit the role in April 1994. The long layoff had taken a toll on his enthusiasm, and when the film didn't enter production early that year as he had been promised, he decided that it was time to finally move on from the uncertainty.



Two months later, Pierce Brosnan was announced as the new James Bond. He had been famously cast for The Living Daylights before Remington Steele's renewal forced him out, and it was no surprise that the actor was cast when the role became available again. Brosnan signed on for three films with an option for a fourth. Up-and-coming actor Sean Bean was cast as his villain. At the time Bean was coming off making the miniseries Scarlett . . . where he played the villain and the leading man was Timothy Dalton.

In 1992, Stella Rimington had become the first female head of MI5, and that gave the writers the idea to run with a female M. A post-Cold-War female M was created, and Judi Dench was cast in the role, replacing Robert Brown. Moneypenny was also recast for Brosnan, giving us the series' third Moneypenny to go along with its third M. Samantha Bond got the part -- unknown to the casting directors, she had been friends with the outgoing Moneypenny, Caroline Bliss, since childhood.

As the hiatus had drawn on, Cubby Broccoli's health had worsened; he was by this time in his mid-eighties. As production of GoldenEye ramped up, he stepped back, overseeing production and being credited as "presenting" the film, but turning over the hands-on production duties to Michael Wilson, his stepson who had co-produced the last three titles with him, been executive producer on the three before that, and written the last five films; and his daughter Barbara Broccoli, who had also been involved in the series for a long time, being an assistant director on the last two Moore films and associate producer on the Dalton ones. Cubby passed away months after GoldenEye's release.

After directing a record-setting five consecutive films, John Glen moved on from the director's chair. He was replaced by Martin Campbell, a Kiwi, starting a new era in which the use of a single repeating house director ended. As Maurice Binder had died in 1991, Daniel Kleinman became the new designer for the credits sequences.

Licence to Kill had been the first film not to use a Fleming title, and for this film, none of the unused titles were deemed suitable either. They still drew from Fleming indirectly, however, by using the name of his Jamaican estate, Goldeneye.

There had been some concern that the first post-Cold-War Bond film, suffering from the long layoff due to studio chaos, would be a flop. Instead, it took in the biggest box office haul yet, and even adjusted for inflation, it was still the most successful since Moonraker. It made over $352 million to Licence to Kill's $156 million.

Plot



The film opens in the eighties, with Bond infiltrating a Soviet weapons plant alongside 006, Alec Trevelyan. Bond destroys the plant, but Trevelyan is captured and executed by Colonel Ourumov, the commander of the facility.

It then flashes forward to the present, with Bond being "evaluated" by an MI6 bureaucrat whom he seduces. Bond investigates Xenia Onatopp, a member of the criminal syndicate Janus, in Monaco. She and Ourumov steal an EMP-hardened helicopter from an arms demonstration there and escape. They fly to a Russian bunker controlling the Soviet satellite EMP weapons system GoldenEye, take control of the system, and fire one of the GoldenEye satellites to cover up the damage. They massacre the staff in the process, sparing their inside man Boris, and only progammer Natalya escapes.

Bond is sent to Moscow to find out what's going on, and connects with CIA agent Jack Wade, who points him to Zukovsky, an ex-KGB mobster Bond once shot in the leg. Zukovsky agrees to set up a meeting between Bond and Janus. Bond attends, only to find out that the head of the syndicate is Trevelyan, who wants revenge for the British government's betrayal of his Cossack ancestors at the close of World War II. Bond and Natalya, who had been captured after trying to meet with Boris, are left to die, but Bond defeats the trap only to be arrested by the Russians. As Bond and Natalya explain Ourumov's treachery to the Russian Minister of Defense, Ourumov comes in, shoots the minister, and sets them up for his death. Bond escapes, but Ourumov captures Natalya. Bond steals a tank and chases Ourumov across Moscow, finally confronting Ourumov, Trevelyan, and Onatopp on an armored train they use as their headquarters. Bond kills Ourumov and rescues Natalya, but Trevelyan and Onatopp escape to Cuba, where they intend to use a secret satellite array to control the remaining GoldenEye satellite.

Bond goes to Cuba to search for the satellite dish with Natalya, but their plane is shot down as they pass over the lake in which the dish is hidden. Onatopp arrives and tries to kill Bond on the ground, but he kills her and gets into the facility, where he's captured and brought before Trevelyan. Trevelyan monologues about his plan to have Boris transfer money out of the Bank of England and then cover up the transaction while simultaneously gaining his revenge by EMPing London, wiping out its electronic records and thereby destroying the economy. Natalya reprograms the satellite to reenter the atmosphere before she's captured. Bond fights Trevelyan and kills him on top of the satellite assembly, and Boris can't stop the satellite from burning up before he is killed by an explosion. Bond and Natalya escape and try to make out, only to find themselves surrounded by Jack Wade and his backup Marines.

Bond himself

Brosnan's Bond looks much like Dalton's -- it's probably the smoothest visual transition in the series -- and the movie was written for Dalton, so it still carries a sense of Dalton's grit. Bond is referred to as a misogynistic old relic of the Cold Wars by the new M, with whom he has an openly antagonistic relationship, and his approach to women and his job are questioned by Natalya. It's a more openly introspective take on Bond than LTK, but I'd argue less successful -- it has a few scenes of women chewing out Bond, and a shot of him looking mournfully into the sunset, but LTK's running exploration of Bond's actions, and the reinforcement of the theme through his actions, is missing -- Bond just goes around doing stuff, mostly. Brosnan also isn't as dark an actor as Dalton -- he tries, and he's not bad, but he can't resist going a little more glib and perpetually-debonair than Dalton.



How it fits into the series

GoldenEye was written as a continuation of the Dalton era, and it basically works as such, more of an updated TLD than anything else. It's not a harbinger of how the Brosnan era would go on, however -- the films quickly slid back to cheesy supervillain fare, now pushed further within the emergent blockbuster action film mold.

It may not be entirely fair to blame Brosnan for the change, as GoldenEye also represents a massive change behind the scenes. It's Cubby Broccoli's last film, the start of the new Wilson/Broccoli producer partnership. It's also the start of a new paradigm in which the series shuffled screenwriters for a bit before deciding on Purvis and Wade and abandoned the house director setup. John Glen was the last man to direct two Bond films in a row, and the only director to return for more than one film since is Campbell, who came back a decade later to do another film. As many people directed the next five films after GoldenEye as had directed the previous sixteen.

I should also mention the departure of Caroline Bliss, Dalton's Moneypenny, and the arrival of only our second recasting of Moneypenny, Samantha Bond, who would stay throughout Brosnan's run. We also have the arrival of Judi Dench as M, who, unlike the unfortunately forgettable Brown, took the role in a decidedly different direction. Dench would ultimately inhabit the role for seventeen years, as many as Bernard Lee, though in six fewer films.

Review

A very respectable first outing from Pierce Brosnan, it's too bad that GoldenEye didn't point the way forward for the rest of his Bond career. It doesn't quite reach full greatness – it's too modern to have retro charm or any sort of classic-Bond chic, or get graded on a curve, but it doesn't have the really impressive, visceral action, depth, and skill in execution of the Craig pictures, nor the depth of performance Dalton brought – but it's well above typical Bond fare, especially the disaster zone of the rest of Brosnan's run.



The best part of the film is the pre-credits sequence. The very beginning is great, with the stylish and impressive cinematography introducing the dam, and the memorable bungee stunt introducing Bond. We then get a witty, debonair-under-fire Bond working his way through the Soviet facility and, for the first time, working alongside another 00 agent. Frankly, I can't believe it took them so long to show another 00 in action with Bond, because it really is great to see Bond cooperating with an ally completely on his level, working as part of a team, and showing camaraderie. The sequence also doesn't downplay Trevelyan to make Bond look good – 006 gets to be, if anything, even more of a badass than 007 in the battle. Bond then evades capture in a great sequence – the humor of the slow-played barrel maneuvering is a wonderfully handled breather in the action – and gets another memorable stunt to escape, this one totally ridiculous but awesome enough that it doesn't matter. It's a high-energy, confident scene with a great dynamic, and it shows what Brosnan brings to the table at his best – great looks, an arrogant suavity, and some warmth underneath.

The rest of the film has its share of highlights, too. The Q Branch scene is possibly the best of the series, featuring a cheery Q – his delivery of "Hunting!" is a highlight – lots of background gags, and "Don't touch that, that's my lunch!" which had me break down laughing.



Bond in a tank is a good concept; the sequence goes on a long time and reaches over the top, but it remains fun, and I'm surprised we'd never seen Bond in a tank before.

I liked the return of the Aston early on, and I liked Bond as a reckless daredevil, even if the car race with Xenia didn't amount to much. Xenia herself got a Bondesque introduction at the baccarat table, and she worked well as a henchwoman – beautiful but deadly, and with a unique presence. The weird vibe of her being, essentially, an insane nympho who likes it super-rough and gets a sexual thrill out of murder was out there and overplayed, but it at least made her memorable.



Trevelyan, as the main villain, was good, but I don't think we got the full potential out of the concept – either of a 00 agent gone rogue, or of Bond facing off against an old friend. There's just not quite enough mano-a-mano stuff there. Bean is great, and the nature of Trevelyan's plan is good – a nice mix of pique and greed. I just wish he got a little more to do – he doesn't appear as the villain until well into the movie – and a little stronger faceoff against Bond that displayed his physical and spycraft skills as more of a threat.

As for his subordinates, Boris was amusing as an arrogant, misogynist hacker stereotype, and Ourumov was effective as a creepy traitor. The main problem with Ourumov is that, as the film points out, his corruption doesn't make the most sense, but it never comes away with a big explanation for that. He basically just exists to provide a decoy for the actual nature of the villain until Trevelyan is revealed.



Dench is effective as the new M. She basically only gets one scene, and it's too on-the-nose about Bond being a dinosaur while she's the new number-crunching, bean-counting bureaucrat instead of the old-school previous M, but Dench is right for the role. It's nice just to hear the old M acknowledged, and I suppose it's gratifying that the creative team do see Bond as a misogynistic, arrogant bastion of the old days rather than a perennially modern man. I'm less a fan of the new Moneypenny. Caroline Bliss was the babe in the secretarial pool and it made sense for her to enjoy a back-and-forth with Bond, and Lois Maxwell was the same way. Samantha Bond is a decent-looking woman, but in combination with nineties fashions, she looks too much like a mousy housewife and less like someone who can convincingly flirt with James Bond. On the good side, she does get some good banter in with him, pointing out that what Bond does would be sexual harassment – if she weren't the one who enjoyed flirting with him so much. Samantha Bond acts the part well and the writing is good – it's just that her look doesn't suit the character as well as the other Moneypennys, IMO.

As for the movie's lead Bond girl, she's another example of the look going the wrong way. It's nice to have an actual focus on the woman's story before she ever meets Bond, and Izabella Skorupco's acting is fine, but there's just something wrong about the Bond girl being a dowdy, perpetually-disheveled computer programmer. She's just not the most interesting character, and the film never really finds a way to make her exciting. They try to give her more to do by getting on Bond's case about his coldness and destructiveness, but it doesn't really seem to be coming out of anywhere, and it isn't handled gracefully enough to really work. The running gag of her complaining about his bad luck with vehicles works much better as commentary, and she gets a better final scene with Bond than usual.

Joe Don Baker basically does his same ugly American shtick as Jack Wade that he did as Whitaker. It's a little more charming this time, and I enjoyed his stereotype-breaking interest in gardening and his sidelong reference to Felix, but otherwise the character didn't do much for me.

Aside from some weak characters and the failure to get the most out of its premise, the film has other problems. Some are age-old – the helicopter death-trap thing doesn't make any sense whatsoever, and I will be so glad when contrived death-trap scenes stop being a thing. The miniature work isn't that great. The biggest problem is that the film gets a little soggy in the middle, taking a long time to really get moving after the prologue, dawdling in Monaco and then sitting in Russia too long. It could use a fleeter pace.

GoldenEye has a lot of great elements, and it puts them together into a really entertaining, fun movie, a good debut for Brosnan. With a little more work, though, I think they could have been put together into a genuinely great film, instead of just settling for a fun action romp.

Rankings

1. From Russia with Love
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. Licence to Kill
4. Dr. No
5. For Your Eyes Only
6. GoldenEye
7. The Living Daylights
8. The Spy Who Loved Me
9. Goldfinger
10. Thunderball
11. You Only Live Twice
12. The Man with the Golden Gun
13. A View to a Kill
14. Diamonds Are Forever
15. Octopussy
16. Live and Let Die
17. Moonraker

Questions for discussion

1. How does GoldenEye work as a debut for Brosnan? Is it as good as its reputation?
2. Is this Brosnan at his best? How good is he?
3. Commentary on the loss of Dalton?
4. I think this is a fair place to point out the aging of the character. The first two Bonds cast were 31 and 29 at their debuts. Roger Moore broke that trend by being cast at 45, which allowed him to play a continuation of Connery's character (at least theoretically -- Bond kept aging roughly appropriately with the world and the people around him). Since Moore's casting, however, the focus on going back to pick up favorite prospects who hadn't been cast before meant that the producers kept looking at actors in their early thirties, but then casting them in their early forties. Sean Connery said, at the end of Moore's run, that the role of Bond should be played by a man in his early or mid thirties, but even Craig, the "young" Bond, just starting out in the reboot, was 38. It appears that the age of the character has been defined irresistibly upward by the force of Moore's long run and the delayed castings of Dalton and Brosnan. A few questions come out of that: how do you feel about Bond being redefined as a man in his forties rather than his thirties? How do you feel, in general, about the decisions to go back to earlier prospects rather than move on to a younger crop of actors?
5. As a corollary to that, Moore's Bond could conceivably have been the same person throughout, with the same history going back through 1962. With the casting of Dalton, that was lost, and we entered what was definitively an uncertain, or at least sliding, continuity. Now we have Brosnan, who is himself seven years younger than Dalton, shown to be active in the eighties and being dismissed as an ancient Cold War dinosaur even though the Cold War ended when he was in his thirties. What's the effect on the character?

 

I think this is a fair place to point out the aging of the character. The first two Bonds cast were 31 and 29 at their debuts. Roger Moore broke that trend by being cast at 45, which allowed him to play a continuation of Connery's character (at least theoretically -- Bond kept aging roughly appropriately with the world and the people around him). Since Moore's casting, however, the focus on going back to pick up favorite prospects who hadn't been cast before meant that the producers kept looking at actors in their early thirties, but then casting them in their early forties. Sean Connery said, at the end of Moore's run, that the role of Bond should be played by a man in his early or mid thirties, but even Craig, the "young" Bond, just starting out in the reboot, was 38. It appears that the age of the character has been defined irresistibly upward by the force of Moore's long run and the delayed castings of Dalton and Brosnan. A few questions come out of that: how do you feel about Bond being redefined as a man in his forties rather than his thirties? How do you feel, in general, about the decisions to go back to earlier prospects rather than move on to a younger crop of actors?

To me James bond will always be my all time favourite. I grew up watching james bond as the older type actors so it would just seem strange for him to suddenly be portrayed as a younger generation. The Actors in their mid 30's to late 40's to me will always make the better James bond. They need to look like they've been at the job for a while, i can imagine being a double 00 would be rather stressful and age you considerably. Although that's just my opinion.

 

As I mentioned before, I love Goldeneye; would likely have made it near the very top had it been a Dalton film.

Also: Perrier.

For #3, I think Brosnan's best was The World is Not Enough for a variety of reasons, but this was a pretty decent debut and I still reaaaaaaally like Goldeneye.

 

Goldeneye is particularly sentimental for me because it was the first Bond film I ever saw and I saw it in theaters. For my seven year old self, watching scenes like the Aston Martin and the Ferrari at the beginning and the tank chase was like seeing my imaginary Hot Wheels chases put on the big screen. It was just pure joy. All of that alone would be enough to make Goldeneye a film that I simply can't judge fairly compared to other films in the franchise, except there's yet one more, extremely crucial reason. That is the videogame, of course. That, combined with the movie itself, makes for a film that stands out extremely large in my heart and imagination, and wasn't matched by any Bond film until eleven years later with Casino Royale.

 

Honestly, I think GoldenEye is overrated. It's decent, but it never does enough to be really amazing.

 

Goldeneye is a fairly entertaining film, imo. I personally think it is Brosnan's best, mostly because i can't stand the others that he made. Although, Tomorrow never Dies is alright, if you can get over the fact tahat the villain just wants media global coverage.... and nothing else.

Brosnan vs 006 was probably one of the most decent hero-villain fights i have seen in a while. and it still draws me in to watch the way that two former best friends just let it all out on one another.

 

Goldeneye is a solid entry that is unfortunately schizophrenic when it comes to tone. I can't decide if it's Dalton gritty, or Moore goofy, of Connerey suave. It's a problem that will plague almost the whole Dalton run, that seems to have been conceived as a "Bond's Greatest Hits" package. That's most obvious in Die Another Day, but for me the nadir of his run is really The World Is Not Enough. But more on that when we reach it.

 

Goldeneye. One of the most damn catchiest songs ever.

 

Brosnan's run generally feels to me like an update of Moore's sensibility. It's no longer outright campy, but it's still silly. It still meanders through iterations of the same old formula, but now with modern action-film bombast. GoldenEye has the benefit of a bit of Dalton sensibility still being there, but even so, it feels more like the half-Moore muddle of TLD than the pure, stripped-down, high-functioning excellence of LTK.

 

This is a really fun action movie with a great breakout performance from Sean Bean. He was used very effectively.

 

I will always have a soft spot for Goldeneye because of its related video game. I spent countless hours playing with my friends, and insisting everyone follow the "No Oddjob" rule.

 

This, Brosnan is neo-Moore. I like GoldenEye less and less every time I rewatch it.

 

Goldeneye? It's the most efficient of the formulaic entries, but that doesn't necessarily imply quality. Brosnan is light-weight (outmatched by nearly every actor whom he comes across), the admittedly weighty 00-traitor conceit underutilized, and the musical score atrocious.


My question: Is anyone else seriously put-off by the high body-counts accrued by Brosnan's Bond? As a critic of the Schwartzenegger/Stallone/Seagal actioners, it's disconcerting to see James Bond transformed into a Terminator. The crafty, ruthless spy of Dr. No or Licence to Kill has been supplanted by a death machine tethered to a machine gun, wiping his enemies out by the dozens. (Worse still, in the Archive escape sequence, he's slaughtering Russian soldiers who are merely safeguarding a government building! Bad form, James.)

 

I will say this: one of the things I did note with displeasure back when Goldeneye came out is Bond's usage (it seemed moreso than his previous entities) of assault rifle-esque automatic weapons. Of course, now Craig uses them and everyone loves him...