The plot is shamelessly Bond: unbelievable feats, mad villains, outrageous gadgets, cheesy one-liners, and a black-and-white sense of good-and-evil. From Arkhangelsk to Havana, GoldenEye follows a globetrotting attempt to prevent an international syndicate from firing an electromagnetic space weapon at a major target on earth. Among the villains are Bond’s former spy-partner (Sean Bean), a treacherous Soviet General (Gottfried John), a hilarious computer hacker (Alan Cumming), and a sadistic femme fatale (Famke Janssen). All are flawlessly portrayed by their respective actors. The action scenes too are never boring, from infiltrating facilities to tank chases and derailing armoured trains.
Perhaps the greatest strength, however, is just how in tune with itself the film is. Bond is a superhuman character, not an exploration of the human condition. He has always done astonishing and impossible things, often bordering on the absurd. In a sharp departure from the attempted realism of his predecessor, Timothy Dalton, Brosnan’s Bond thrives on the self-acknowledgement of his own lack of realism. Through the impossibilities, absurdities, and even some continuity errors, GoldenEye is never without good humour, nor is the eye-rolling ever tasteless. All this signals to the viewer that the movie has few pretensions to make: it is simply for fun.
Far from the one-dimensional Bond Girls of the 1980s, here they are authoritative, intelligent, or downright sadistic.
With GoldenEye, one need not ponder it or focus too much, which makes it very watchable. Even the portrayal of women in the film, for the first time self-aware, is handled effortlessly for a series with an infamous 'sexist, misogynist dinosaur' in the lead. Far from the one-dimensional Bond Girls of the 1980s, here they are authoritative, intelligent, or downright sadistic. The only blatant hiccup in the film is its only, and admittedly vain, attempt to inspect Bond’s psyche: it is a scene so out-of-tone with the rest of the film and, albeit brief, seemingly contradicts the self-aware unrealism that characterises GoldenEye.
Nonetheless, the back-to-basics and simple tone, in conjunction with the brilliant performances and all-round fun plot, make GoldenEye an excellent seventeenth addition to the Bond series. Additionally, the film’s good guys are equally watchable and well-performed: a new M. (Judi Dench), the returning Q. (Desmond Llewellyn), a Russian mafia boss (Robbie Coltrane), a very unlucky satellite programmer (Izabella Scorupco), and a clueless American contact (Joe Don Baker). They strike the balance between excitement, liveliness, and humour well, completing the excellent film that is GoldenEye.
Overall, the film transforms the absurdity and cringe of earlier Bonds into a modern and adapted film, without ever straying into droning commentary. It is humorous without being comical, self-aware without being cynical, and unrealistic without being tedious. In addition with its brilliant writing, performances, and execution, GoldenEye is deservedly my favourite Bond film. It is, to any reader, well-worth watching, or indeed, rewatching.