Goldeneye

“Goldeneye,” released in 1995, looks exactly like a James Bond film. It begins with a stunt (a bungee jump from the top of a tall dam). It steps it up with an even more unhuman stunt (Bond races an airplane flying off the side of a cliff, jumps after it, free-falls, falls on it, climbs aboard and flies to safety). In the tradition of R rated names, it has a villainess with a name in that same vain: Xenia Onatopp.

Obviously, there is a villain who wants world domination, and a madman ruling over a secret headquarters with obedient slaves.

Everything is set into place. However, in an important way, this James Bond movie, the 18^th (or 19ths, if you count the non-EON “Casino Royale”), marks the passing of a torch. This is the first Bond film that is self-aware, that has lost its purity and easiness of its world view, and has some understanding of the insanity and sadness of its protagonist.

One important and revealing scenes is on a Caribbean beach, where Bond is enjoying a dangerous pause between scenes of near-death experience. His lover is the lovely Natalya Simonova, played by Izabella Scorupco, a Russian computer programmer who has joined his mission to save the world, etc. Instead of small love talk, she asks Bond: “How can you act like this? How can you be so cold?” To which Bond replies not with a classy joke but with, It’s what keeps me alive.” In one of the past Bond movies, no woman would have asked that, and Bond definitely would not have given that kind of an answer.

More evidence of Bond’s loss of innocence: He is now aware that he’s going through the same thing. Despite that all the Bond films have followed a story patter so rough that Bond could have predicted what was going to happen by looking at his watch, there has always been the fiction that each movie is more or less unique. Bond has never said the obvious like, “Do you realize you’re no less than the 12^th megalomaniacal madman striving for world domination that I’ve met?”

There is always one absolutely necessary scene: Bond has been kidnapped by the villain, who wants to only kill him. However, like all stupid villains, he always talks first by explaining his plans for world domination and boasts about it.

Roger Ebert stated in his review, “Preens. Doesn't realize that his mistress will become attracted to Bond. This scene is so inevitable, indeed, that it helped give rise to the definition of the Talking Killer in Ebert's Little Movie Glossary.”

In “Goldeneye,” the unthinkable occurs. Ebert noted, “Both Bond and the madman apparently have read the Glossary, and can no longer act unself-consciously.” Bond has been kidnaped by the villain who plans to take over Earth from cyberspace, via a powerful communications satellite. He squints his eyes and says, “How shall we kill you?” Bond replies, “What – no small talk? No chit-chat? That’s the problem with the world these days – no one takes the time to conduct a proper interrogation.”

That’s definitely the case. Even Bond himself has changed. Now played by the great Pierce Brosnan, the fifth Bond actor, he is now more sensitive, more susceptible, more mentally complete, than the Bonds played by Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton. They were all, in their own ways, cold and cool. Brosnan’s Bond looks comfortable in the casinos of Monte Carlo, but he’s more perceptive, more aware of relationships. Ebert said, “I am not sure this is a good thing. Agent 007 should to some degree not be in on the joke.” He should definitely never have to listen to lines such as this from Agent 006, played by Sean Bean: “The vodka martinis do silence the screams of all the men you’ve killed. And all those women you failed to protect.”

Ebert noted, “Perhaps our popular conception of maleness has changed so much that James Bond can no longer exist in the old way. In "GoldenEye," we get a hybrid, a modern Bond grafted onto the formula.”

The result is not monotonous. Obviously, the special effects and stunts are adequately amazing, including cool image of the robbery of a high-tech helicopter, a chase between a car and a tank, a crash between a tank and a train, and such surprising additions as a Russian country & western bar, with Stand By Your Man in a Slavic accent.

The story is about an Earth satellite that has been hiding in secret orbit and can disrupt Earth communications, giving the person who controls it power over governments and markets. After Xenia Onatopp (an ex-fighter pilot, played by Famke Janssen) and her accomplices (Gottfried John) steal a priceless Tiger helicopter that is untouchable to the satellite, Bond tracks her to St. Petersburg, Russia, where the Janus arms syndicate is located. This leads to a love scene where Onatopp looks like she knows some Sumo wrestling.

Ebert ended his review by saying, “Watching the film, I got caught up in the special effects and the neat stunts, and I observed with a certain satisfaction Bond's belated entry into a more modern world. Brosnan was quite adequate, although all of the later Bonds suffer from the reality that no one else will ever really replace Sean Connery. I had a good enough time, I guess, although I never really got involved. I was shaken but not stirred.”

For those who started out the Bond franchise with this movie, it’s actually a good movie to start it off with. I remember growing up in the 90s and this game was on the Nintendo 64. I never did own the game or the system, but my best friend in grade school did and we pretend played the game a lot during recess. However, this movie is a great movie to start off Brosnan’s run as Bond. Even though he doesn’t have the same charm to it like Connery and even Moore had, he is still a good actor to play Bond because he has a different style of cool to it. Definitely don’t miss out on this movie because it is a must see.

Check in tomorrow for the next entry of “James Bond month.”