Bond Revisited

GoldenEye (1995)
Bond 17

When a deadly satellite weapon system falls into the wrong hands, only Agent 007 (Pierce Brosnan) can save the world from certain disaster. Armed with his license to kill, Bond races to Russia in search of the stolen access codes for "Goldeneye," an awesome space weapon that can fire a devastating electromagnetic pulse toward Earth. But 007 is up against an enemy who anticipates his every move: Alec Trevelyan, a.k.a. Agent 006, a mastermind motivated by years of simmering hatred. As Bond squares off against his former compatriot, he also battles Trevelyan's stunning ally, Xenia Onatopp, an assassin who used pleasure as her ultimate weapon. When the horrifying extent of Trevelyan's plan is revealed, Bond must call upon his sharp wits and killer instincts. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: First completely original James Bond film, without reference to any Ian Fleming novel or short story. Pierce Brosnan's first appearance as James Bond. He was offered the role in The Living Daylights, but lost it due to his contractual obligations to "Remington Steele". Before Pierce Brosnan was cast as James Bond, Liam Neeson, Mel Gibson, Sam Neill, Hugh Grant and Lambert Wilson were all rumoured to be in the running for the role. Several changes had to be made to the script during production because the plot was virtually identical to True Lies (1994) which was being released at the time. The satellite dish used in the end of the film is the same one used in the film Contact. It is the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico.

The Bond film to follow Licence to Kill (which eventually became GoldenEye) was supposed to be released in 1991 or 1992, but legal squabbles over the ownership of James Bond, disappointing box office results on Licence to Kill, and the death of longtime screenwriter Richard Maibaum, delayed the start of production for several years. Although he was contracted to play Bond a third time, after several years elapsed with no new film, Timothy Dalton announced he didn't want to play the role again. This opened the door for Pierce Brosnan.

The scene where Xenia kills the old man qualifies as the first actual sex scene shown in an official Bond film. (There is a love scene between Sean Connery and Barbara Carrera in Never Say Never Again, but that isn't an official Bond). The body count is around 100. Because the series was caught up in litigation, the six-and-a-half-year hiatus between the release of Licence to Kill and GoldenEye was the longest gap between Bond films since the series first started in 1962. The opening weekend box office gross was slightly altered to $26,205,007. The same last three digits were used in the reports for the opening weekends of the next two Bond films as well.

The Characters:

• James Bond - Pierce Brosnan takes over as the intrepid British spy. Winner
• Alec Trevelyan- Sean Bean. Once an agent working for Her Majesty's secret service, agent 006, Trevelyan betrayed MI6 on a mission in Soviet Russia while working with James Bond, who considered Trevelyan his best friend. During the mission to blow up the Arkhangelsk chemical weapons facility, Trevelyan was caught by the base's commander, Colonel Arkady Ourumov, and apparently shot point blank in the head. Presuming Trevelyan dead, Bond continued the mission and escaped in a supply plane. Nine years later, Bond, while pursuing the thieves of a stolen helicopter, is told by Valentin Zukovsky that the head of a crime syndicate known as Janus (previously under suspicion for the stolen helicopter) is a Lienz Cossack. Later, Bond discovers that the head of Janus is none other than Trevelyan himself, and that not only was his execution staged, but he now employs Ourumov, who has risen to the rank of General.
  
• Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov - Gottfried John. By the time the main story from GoldenEye takes place, Ourumov is a General and the Russian head of the space division. Previously, he was a former Soviet Colonel in charge of a Russian chemical weapons factory in the pre-title sequence. It is there that he interrupts Bond and Alec Trevelyan in the middle of a mission, shoots Trevelyan in the head and nearly captures Bond, who nurtures a grudge against the Colonel for years afterward, believing that he killed his partner and friend. The shooting was staged though; Trevelyan lives and becomes an international terrorist and thief called "Janus." He employs the now-General Ourumov, who is in charge of the Severnaya Space Facility in Siberia, to help him steal the GoldenEye satellite. Ourumov accompanies Xenia Onatopp to Severnaya, where she murders all the staff she can find. Ourumov later reports to Dmitri Mishkin, who informs him that the Severnaya incident was the work of Siberian separatists and that only one computer technician, Boris Grishenko, was missing. Mishkin criticises Ourumov for coming to such a fast conclusion when unbeknownst to Ourumov, Natalya Simonova also lived and escaped the incident.
• Xenia Zaragevna Onatopp - Famke Janssen, better known today as one of the X-Men. Xenia, born in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, was a fighter pilot in the Soviet Air Force. After the collapse of the USSR, she joined the crime syndicate Janus, led by renegade MI6 agent Alec Trevelyan. Early in the movie, Bond gets into a car chase with her, meets her at a casino, and places her under surveillance. Her main characteristic is that she apparently can receive sexual satisfaction through killing. Her sadistic sexual proclivities, coupled with her overall lack of conscience, would seem to qualify her as a psychopath.
• Natalya Fyodorovna Simonova - Natalya Simonova works as a Level 2 programmer at the Severnaya facility, on work involving missile guidance systems. When the treasonous General Ouromov and Xenia Onatopp attack the station with a stolen Tiger helicopter, she is left the only survivor besides Boris Grishenko, who had allied himself with Ourumov and Alec Trevelyan, the plan's mastermind. She attempts to find Boris, whom she believes to be innocent; he meets her in a cathedral and turns her over to Onatopp. Simonova and Bond, who have both been captured by Trevelyan, are trapped in the stolen Tiger helicopter. The helicopter fires missiles at itself, but Bond is able to eject the two, who are subsequently arrested by the Russian government.

The Theme Song:

The soundtrack to GoldenEye was composed by Eric Serra (prolific Bond composer John Barry says he was offered it by Barbara Broccoli, but turned it down). Serra's score has been heavily criticised: Richard von Busack, in Metro, writes it is "more appropriate for a ride on an elevator than a ride on a roller coaster", and Filmtracks says Serra "failed completely in his attempt to tie Goldeneye to the franchise's past." The producers later hired John Altman to provide the music for the tank chase in St. Petersburg. Serra's original track for that sequence can still be found on the soundtrack as "A Pleasant Drive In St. Petersburg". Serra composed and performed a number of synthesizer tracks, including the version of the James Bond Theme that plays during the gun barrel sequence, while John Altman and David Arch provided the more traditional symphonic music. The theme song, "GoldenEye", was written by Bono and The Edge, and was performed by Tina Turner.

The Vehicles & Gadgets:

• BMW Z3: A convertible, which comes fully loaded with the usual Q refinements, including a self-destruct system and Stinger missiles behind the headlights. The car barely features in the film and Bond ends up trading it for Jack Wade's plane.
• Cessna 172: Jack Wade's aeroplane, which is shot down while searching for the satellite dish in Cuba.
• Grappling Belt: Q gives Bond a size-34 belt containing a 23 m rappelling cord and a piton-shooting buckle. When fired, it shoots a grapple attached to high-tensile-strength wire designed to support Bond's weight. Bond uses this to escape from Ourumov and his troops.
• Aston Martin DB5: The car Bond is seen driving at the start of the film, registration BMT214A. This is not the same car as seen in Goldfinger and Thunderball (that car was registered BMT216A); it appears to be Bond's personal car and re-appears in the next film Tomorrow Never Dies (its appearance at Castle Thane in The World Is Not Enough did not make it into the final film). The car is equipped with a refrigerator in the centre armrest to hold champagne and two glasses, and a communications system including voice commands and a fax machine, which prints out of the in-dash CD player.
• Armoured train: The armoured locomotive pulling the train in which Trevelyan escapes St. Petersburg is a British Rail Class 20 No. D8188 (TOPS number 20188, which was owned by music producer and pundit Pete Waterman at the time), with the addition of some plating to give the impression of a Russian armour (in the film, Trevelyan mentions that the trains were used to haul mobile ICBMs around the country).
  
• Explosive Pen: Q gives Bond a Parker Jotter pen that doubles as a "class-four" (C4) grenade. Three consecutive clicks arms the four-second fuse; another three disarms it. Boris Grishenko unwittingly sets this off at one point, allowing Bond and Simonova to escape.
• Omega Watch: Bond's watch, standard issue of MI6, can remotely detonate mines and has a built-in laser that can cut through metal.
• Grapple and Laser Gun: At the start of the film, Bond bungee jumps off a dam, and uses the grapple gun to lock on to the building below. He then uses the gun's built-in motor to pull him down. Once on the building, he uses the laser function to infiltrate the ventilation system.
  
• Tank: Bond steals this from a Russian military building. An older T-55 tank was made up to resemble a T-80BV in the film. [Source]

The Pretitle Sequence:

The story begins with Bond destroying Arkangel chemical weapons facility in the Soviet Union, along with his friend and colleague Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), 006. Trevelyan is captured and shot by Colonel Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov but Bond escapes and blows up the facility, completing the mission. The sequence is notable for two stunts. The second, a plunge off of a cliff and freefall to catch up with a plane that provides 007 with an escape vehicle really pales in comparison with the spectacular bungee jump that starts the film off. At the time it was a world record for bungee jumping and brought to mind Bond skiing off the cliff in The Spy Who Loved Me.

I like Brosnan's Bond. He seems to have a certain je ne sais qui. Xenia Onatopp is one of the better evil Bond girls, she really looks like she is having fun. All in all a good movie. I do also like the addition of Dame Judi Dench as M.

Up Next: Tomorrow Never Dies, Bond 18, James Bond must stop a media mastermind from starting World War III for riches and fame.