30 Years Anniversary Review Of GoldenEye

I remember the very first time i visited London back in the year of 2002 it was right during Christmas weekend. The streets were filled with Christmas lights and Christmas decorations, much more than i was used to see in the capital city of Stockholm here in Sweden. I was only staying in London for a short while to hang out with my Scottish female friend Sharron, because we were going to celebrate New Years Eve in Edinburgh. One specific thing i remember in London that was quite big during this time of year was that the latest James Bond film Die Another Day was still running in cinemas with Pierce Brosnan. You could see double decker buses with Die Another Day posters and cinemas was still making sure James Bond fans could enter any cinema to enjoy the latest Bond chapter. The idea was that i was going to watch the film here in London while i stayed here. That plan changed because Sharron wanted a night out in bars instead and i ended up really drunk, and on the flight to Edinburgh i wasn´t feeling well at all. I did not watch Die Another Day in cinema in Scotland either, not until i returned to Sweden in January 2003 and i finally watched the film in cinema. Not one of the better James Bond films but at least not as terrible as Moonraker with Roger Moore so i suppose that´s good. Always been a James Bond fan since childhood and that´s thanks to my grandfather Ingvar who used to watch the James Bond movies all the time. He introuduced me to the very first Sean Connery films and we continued with the next James Bond known as Roger Moore. Back in those days we used to rent James Bond films on VHS when he lived in the city known as Kungälv. I have basically seen all the James Bond films since the 90´s in cinema except for No Time To Die, probably because of the pandemic and i didn´t visit the cinema until 2022. Either way i noticed that this year it is 30 years ago Pierce Brosnan´s first Bond movie GoldenEye turns 30 years old this year. I did see this film in cinema back in the 90´s and at the time i did enjoy this film with the brand new James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan. Since then i bought the VHS tape of the film and i still own a double DVD version of this film. I decided to revisit this film to see if my opinion have changed anything after 30 years. Is this still a solid James Bond film in this legendary franchise or have GoldenEye aged a lot over the years and lost some of it´s Bond magic?

MI6 agents James Bond ( Pierce Brosnan ) and Alec Trevelyan ( Sean Bean ) infilitrate a clandestine Soviet chemical weapons lab in Arkhangelsk. After witnessing Trevelyan seemingly executed by the facility´s commanding officer, Colonel Arkady Ourumov ( Gottfried John ), Bond destroys the site and escape in a stolen aircraft. Nine years later, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Bond attempts to prevent Xenia Onatopp ( Famke Janssen ), a member of the Janus crime syndicate, from stealing a Eurocopter Tiger attack helicopter during a military demonstration in Monte Carlo, but is unsuccessful. Returning to MI6 headquarters In London, Bond joins MI6 staff monitoring an incident in Severnaya, Siberia, after the stolen helicopter turns up at the radar site there. An electromagnetic pulse blast suddenly hits the site, destroying it and several Russian fighter aircraft, while knocking out some satellite systems in orbit. The newly appointed M ( Judi Dench ) assigns Bond to investigate, after it is determined that the blast came from a Soviet-era sattelite armed with a nuclear electromagnetic pulse space-based weapon, codenamed "GoldenEye", 

One of the things i noticed while watching this film again was that this really feels like a 90´s action film. The music feels very 90´s, the editing feels like a 90´s action film and of course some of the characters also feel very 90´s. But i am totally fine with all of this because this was supposed to be the first film to bring James Bond in a more updated version since License To Kill back in 1989. If you loved the previous James Bond actor known as Timothy Dalton, you might think differently of Pierce Brosnan playing this legendary character. I personally feel that he was the perfect choice to continue the legacy of James Bond. Pierce Brosnan have always been an actor who knows how to be both charming and very serious as well, and he clearly knew how to combine this in GoldenEye showing the best out of Bond´s personality. What becomes very clear with GoldenEye is how effective many of the action scenes are in this film. I would probably say that this is one of the James Bond films where there are more action scenes compared to several of Roger Moore´s 80´s Bond movies such as Octopussy or A View To A Kill. GoldenEye manage to find a great balance of action scenes and a good sense of humour without loosing some of the charming qualities of a Bond movie that we are familiar with. I really enjoy the character Natalya Simonova ( played by Swedish actress Izabella Scorupco ) in the sense that she´s not the typical Bond girl. She is much tougher, doesn´t follow the typical Bond girl model we are familiar from the 70´s or 80´s. The evil character Xenia Onatopp ( played by actress Famke Janssen ) is perhaps one of the coolest evil women in this franchise, absolutely insane. Legendary actress Judi Dench as M is of course one of the true highlights in this film, this is the perfect casting choice for this character. The story surrounding the space based weapon GoldenEye works well and actually bring some intensive action scenes towards the end. Director Martin Campbell who i have seen several films from in the past, i would say this is definetely one of his better films. Not as good as Casino Royale with Daniel Craig but still proved he knew exactly what this franchise needed into the 90´s. GoldenEye is without a dout the best James Bond film with Pierce Brosnan and im still a big fan of this film. If you are a fan of this franchise in general i think you should revisit GoldenEye and have a really good time.

Rating: DDDD