Movie Club: Goldeneye

WELCOME EVERYBODY TO THE LATEST DISCUSSION THREAD OF THE NEW MOVIE CLUB, DESIGNED TO RUN PARALLEL WITH R.O.C.K.S. A big thanks to everyone that are joining us through all of this.

The next few weeks we're going to do a few Bond films, and I've taken the decision to do the first outing each of the three Bonds that most embody what one thinks of when one hears the name James Bond - that is to say, Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan.

This week it's the turn of Pierce Brosnan, so we're watching Goldeneye.

Remember any ideas for films to discuss are most welcome, and should be made on the Movie Club Introduction thread (the sticky one), and anyone is welcome to add their thoughts about movies already discussed on their respective threads.

Just a friendly reminder to everyone that, whilst fans are obviously welcome to passionately discuss and give their views on these movies, please remember to keep things on a friendly footing and respect your fellow posters.
Also, please do not post where or how to find the full movie online. And do not post asking others to PM it to you. You are however allowed to watch the movie in whatever manner you want.

Connery had "Goldfinger", Moore had "The Man With The Golden Gun" and Brosnan had "Goldeneye". I guess "gold" is a lucky word for James Bond. :biggrin

The opening of the movie is fantastic and immediately we are thrown into the midst of the action. The rappeling down the dam, the free-falling into the plane. Typical awesome Bond stunts. There'a s lot of other impressive action scenes (including the tank chase) scattered all throughout the movie. I'm not too crazy about the theme song. I just found it to be a bit too loud in places. The opening sequence is great though.

Natalya is different than more conventional Bond girls but I suppose that's exactly why I like her character very much. She's beautiful yes, but she's not overtly sensual. She's more like a normal person, caught in a dangerous situation, and she handles herself very well. She's not typical damsel in distress that Bond has to rescue, but rather a partner for Bond.

Alec Trevelyan is an interesting character. In most Bond films, we never see any other double o agents other than Bond. The only one I remember before this movie was 009 in "Octopussy", but he too had a very short role. So not only do we get to see agent 006, but also that he is the main villain. Again that is something that wasn't common to Bond movies - the villain being from Mi6. Usually the villain was always a SPECTER agent or some other megalomaniac. I remember once reading a funny article about how it is difficult to remember any Sean Bean movie in which he does not die. :biggrin

Brosnan is simply superb as the titular spy! He doesn't imitate any of his predecessors, brings his own style and charisma to the role, and yet manages to not stray too far away from the character of James Bond that we have all become used to. I wish he had stayed on for longer.

I feel "Goldeneye" is a great addition to the Bond franchise and one of the top Bond films. After Dalton's last Bond outing, there were questions about the franchise. Since the movies before that usually revolved around the Cold War, people thought that the end of the Cold War might also mean the end of Bond. But this movie proved them wrong. It really invigorated the franchise in a big way. A 10 out of 10 from me! :thumbsup

What a great movie.
Of all the five Bond movies I have watched fully I would say this is maybe the best or close second best.
Pierce Brosnan is great as Bond.
Sean Bean is excellent as the villain.
All of the cast are really great in their roles.
I really like the story.
My favourite scene is maybe the opening scene on the dam and the chase to the plane. Very exciting.

I remember all the hype around this film when it was released. It's such a shame I didn't watch it back then and never had much real interest in Bond movies.

One memory I do have though of Goldeneye is the game on the N64. I didn't have the game or the N64 but my friend in school, another Mark lol, had an N64 and the game and we used to play it. It was an excellent game and was basically the pioneer of the first person multiplayer shooter game that inspired present games like Call of Duty and Battlefield etc. I have actually got the Goldeneye remake on the PS3 which is a very good game.

I am really pleased we have covered the Bond movies on these threads. I was never much of a Bond fan but now having watched these movies I have really enjoyed them and I will definitely watch more of them.

When Goldeneye premiered, there had been no Bond for 6 years - the biggest gap still between two Bond films. I think the makers were worried that what with the collapse of the USSR and end of the Cold War, Bond was no longer relevant.

So they pulled out all the stops for this. Everything about this movie is screaming "this is Bond!" - like they did with George Lazenby and Roger Moore when they played the part for the first time, they made sure the viewer was in no doubt that this was a Bond movie. The action sequences, the theme song, the villain with the plot - this film is like a stick with "James Bond" stamped through it.

First, the theme song - whether it's your cup of tea or not, you can't deny it sounds like a Bond theme. It probably sounds more like a Bond theme than all the others for the previous twenty years! Bono & The Edge got the right vibe in the written song, and Tina Turner singing it here is basically the producers trying to go for a Shirley Bassey feel. It worked passably well enough, and the title sequence certainly evoked the good old days too. Interestingly, Ace Of Base recorded a song for the titles, but because the producers weren't confident that the film would be a hit, they didn't want to risk damaging a relatively young act's career with connection to it if it flopped. They re-recorded the song as "Juvenile" - and listening to it, you can see how Bond-like it sounds.

Secondly - Pierce Brosnan. He was born to play Bond. He was such a natural in the part. It's a shame that this was the only really good Bond film he did. (It's the only one I've seen more than once.)

Mind you, while it's his first Bond film, Brosnan had effectively done a couple of warmups as Mike Graham in a couple of UNACO films just a year or two before, Death Train (great) and Night Watch (meh). I think both were straight to TV movies. There are parallels with Bond here, not just from their being action thrillers, but if you read the UNACO books they were based on, which were written just shortly before the end of the Cold War, changes had to be made to the adaptions to factor that in. Death Train in particular bears little resemblance to the original book.

Sean Bean as the villain - yes, great concept, a fellow 00 agent of Bond's, a close friend, believed to be dead, turns out to be the big baddie here, and it works very well indeed. Actually, his plan reminds me a little bit of two of Alistair MacLean's books, The Satan Bug (very good) and Goodbye California (unusually boring for such a good thriller writer).

The new M gets some good sparring in with Bond here, Judi Dench is great in the part. What with Samantha Bond (!!!) taking over the part of Moneypenny too, the only familiar face in this movie was Desmond Llewellyn as Q, who continued in the part for two more films until his death at the end of the 90s. Again, with Q's scene, they really went to town with his workshop.

Speaking of Q's gadgets - that pen that Boris keeps clicking (a habit established at the beginning of the movie), because he just clicks it twice in one go, then spins it round and clicks in twice again and repeats, it's very difficult to keep count of exactly how many times he's clicked it, but you can see Bond is watching that pen like a hawk, he's keeping count, and he knows when to part it from Boris.

Xenia Onatopp is possibly the most scary-yet-still-sexy Bond villainess ever. She beats Bond in the verbal sparring in the casino (another touch that they felt necessary to include to remind us this was a Bond film, the casino), then makes some very excited noises when she's being aggressive. Curiously, both Famke Jansen and Pierce Brosnan appeared opposite Patrick Stewart earlier in the decade, Stewart played Brosnan's boss in Death Train (but not Night Watch for reasons I don't know), equivalent to M you could say, and of course Jansen guested in an episode of Star Trek TNG in 1991 - and then went on to star opposite him in the first three X-Men movies.

Natalya - yes, very much more than just window dressing. Sure, she's worth a second glance, but the character is integral to the plot, so tick. That, you may recall, was the one issue I had with Ursula Andress in Dr No. But Natalya, yes, she is the only survivor of the initial attack at Severnaya, and manages to escape entirely on her own. The way she's caught up in the situation is a nod again to the movies of Hitchcock or the novels of Alistair MacLean, two masters of suspense in their respective genres.

If I had to pick one fault, it's the modern arrangements for the music, especially the opening theme. I felt like cheering when the orchestra came in for the tank chase in the middle!

All in all, yes, one of the best Bond films ever.

Goldeneye was a fantastic Bond movie. Brosnan's role as Bond was definitely a return to the old-skool days of the franchise - great casting here. And, the film was excellent as well. A lot of action, and a solid story. As LiamABC said, it was also worth noting that Goldeney was the first Bond film released after the fall of Berlin Wall in '89 & the supposed end of communism in the Soviet Union. So, the movie was interesting from another stand-point as well; i.e. it proved that Bond was still relevant in a post-communist USSR world.....since, a lot of the villains he had fought in previous films had been Russian.

Also liked the suggestively named Xenia Onatopp; though not as obvious as Pussy Galore, I'd say her character's name (and her character) is a close tie with Plenty O' Toole ;)

Unfortunately, I missed this in the theater when it was released since it came out during my last semester @ college. I wasn't seeing many (if any) movies then, since I was busy trying to finish up my classes & graduate that December.