GoldenEye (1995)

Preceded by: Licence to Kill (1989)
Succeeded by: Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

See our full list of James Bond films.

	Director: Martin Campbell	COUNTRY UK/USA Genre Action, spion NORWEGIAN TITLE GoldenEye RUNNING TIME 130 minutes
	Producers: Michael G. Wilson Barbara Broccoli
	Screenwriters: Jeffrey Caine Bruce Feirstein

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
James Bond	Pierce Brosnan	½
Alec Trevelyan / Janus	Sean Bean
Natalya Fjodorovna Simonova	Izabella Scorupco	½
Xenia Zaragevna Onatopp	Famke Janssen	½
CIA Agent Jack Wade	Joe Don Baker	½
M	Judi Dench
Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky	Robbie Coltrane
Defense Minister Dimirti Mishkin	Tchéky Karyo
Colonel/General Arkady Orumov	Gottfried John	½
Boris Grishenko	Alan Cumming	½
Q	Desmond Llewelyn
Moneypenny	Samantha Bond

Review

In 1995, the James Bond series was rejuvenated after its longest hiatus to date. Out went the stern Timothy Dalton, and in came the suave Pierce Brosnan, who combined Roger Moore's elegance and tongue-in-cheek humour with a more modern, direct action approach. The series had grown edgier toward the end of the 1980s, and GoldenEye recaptures that sensibility while merging it with well-paced, unmistakably 1990s action. Brosnan is at his best-looking here, making Bond more believable as a sex symbol than the agent had been in a long time. At the same time, he is entirely persuasive as both spy and killer. Brosnan is comfortable with the Bond clichés – and also able to refresh them.

Also refreshing is the writing, despite some flaws and improbabilities. The villains are larger than life and delightfully idiosyncratic, from the nerdy Boris to the fascinating Trevelyan and the outrageously funny Xenia Onatopp. The script represents a return to basics, with large-scale schemes that don't feel rushed. It is a pleasant surprise to see Bond acting as a classic spy again, which he does here in several segments. In GoldenEye, the main themes are friendship, loyalty, and Bond's ability to love, with the Bond/Trevelyan relationship being particularly interesting in this respect. The skilled director, Martin Campbell, avoids making his film overly political, despite the historical framing, and instead creates a modern, enjoyable and quite suspenseful Bond adventure that stands as the best in the series in recent decades.