Goldeneye (James Bond 007)

I think my next opinion will be unpopular with James Bond fans. People who have followed the franchise for years. For casual fans, general audiences? They might agree with me that this is the best James Bond film and Pierce Brosnan is the best James Bond.

To be fair to Daniel Craig, I do believe Skyfall and No Time To Die were better pieces of cinema than this was. But neither of those films really feel anything like the first 20 Bond films. This the best James Bondy James Bond film.

Let's start with Brosnan and why he he worked. I think he is the first and so far only James Bond actor that checks off ALL the boxes. I think only he and Roger Moore are classically movie-star handsome in the way James Bond should be. Unlike Moore, Brosnan is actually the right age. Also I feel like Brosnan is the first James Bond actor since Sean Connery who is equally adept at comedy and drama. Moore did funny stuff but lousy pathos. Dalton nailed the dangerousness of the character, but he never made me laugh. Brosnan is equally at home with a brood or a smirk. That, the movie star looks, and the proper age make him the best Bond.

James Bond movies make a habit of not surprising me, and that's okay. I have long opined that there is nothing wrong with telling a predictable story the way it should be told. It is in fact pleasurable. For instance, aside from Sean Bean's prominence in the opening credits, I knew 006 would be the Big Bad of the film, because that's how it works. But even if I could predict that, what I didn't predict was that this is the first Bond movie to tell the predictable story the right way. It's the first Bond movie that went down as it should have. I have a couple of quibbles (when have I never?) mostly involving Boris, but really, even if I understood what was going to happen, I enjoyed it because it was so well told. I believed the movie for the first time ever. And it had a stunt at the beginning as crazy and ridiculous as the dumbest of the Fast & Furious movies (Bond jumps into a falling plane midair and takes it off from there). Doesn't matter. The story itself worked.

I will not undersell the script, but I'm guessing a large part of things coming together might have to do with the excellent quality of the actors. Judi Dench, Sean Bean, Alan Cumming, Robbie Coltrane, the franchise isn't messing around with washed-up TV actors anymore. Even Joe Don Baker, who was one of the least successful Bond villains in my mind, turns in a shockingly great performance as CIA agent Wade. Coltrane in particular makes his frenemy relationship with Bond riveting. He's gonna help him. But he might shoot him in the knee too, and you just don't know which first.

I love that M wasn't simply recast, but that the female version is an actual character replacement. And I like that she and Bond don't like each other. When she calls Bond as sexist, misogynistic pig, and a relic of the Cold War era, I actually agree with her. Regardless of how charming Brosnan is, the character has always been on thin ice with me for that reason.

Aside from the explosion visual effects being better than ever (which is to be expected six years later, and this the first Bond film of the CGI age) I felt the knock-down drag-out fights were boarded better and landed harder too. I actually believed the characters were punching each other. Not unusual for modern films. A first for James Bond films.

And yes, part of me liking the film is that the pacing, the budget, and the sets actually feel like a modern film. Even the best of the previous Bond films have this tinny-seeming audio and basic sets that dates them ALL as old movies. This one very much doesn't feel dated (at least not yet) and it's the first one that doesn't.

I like Natalya saying back the quip that Bond meant nothing to her and they could kill him. It very much served him right, even if like him, she's bluffing.

I mentioned the story being told right. I love the bit with the Russian minister or whoever simply telling Bond he's gonna execute him. And Bond disgustedly tells him that he misses sinister interrogations, and that the lack of those skills these days makes the business worse off. But Natalya's reaction is to spill her guts instead. The guy then turns to Bond and asks him to diss his interrogation skills again. Whatever nuance Bond believes the guy lacked, his Bad Cop routine actually got the needed information. Touche.

I can't believe they got away with those sex scenes on a PG-13 rating. You couldn't in 2022. The movie would get an R, and a Hard R at that. Thrusting and noises are a no-no, much less completion.

The only really problem I had with the movie is I don't feel Boris' betrayal had a solid motivation or explanation. It feels like a loose end to me, and maybe on the DVD there's a deleted scene about it. But it bothered me that he's portrayed as harmless until he wasn't. It was the only bit of the story told in the way it should NOT have been told.

But really, this is my favorite Bond movie. I hear the next three Brosnan films are much worse, so I expect it to remain so. *****.