Taking on the role of James Bond isn't an easy job unless your name is Sean Connery, but a 41 year old Pierce Brosnan smashed into it with GoldenEye a quarter of a century ago. He was supposed to get the 007 role back in 1986, but a TV contract held him back. Watching GoldenEye after all these years was a treat. Even though I knew exactly what was going to happen, it was still exciting.
I think having seeing Dame Judith Olivia Dench as M really made this feel like a hybrid of the modern and older Bond films. GoldenEye was meant to be a new Bond for a new time and she helped it be just that. Having a daughter and thousands of female students I embrace feminism, but modern feminism in Hollywood today is both stupid and insulting. Men are always portrayed as dumb and weak. I don't need to go any further into it. What I'm trying to say is that Judith Dench was a great example of positive feminism. She was smart, strong, and tells James Bond,
You don't like me, Bond. You don't like my methods. You think I'm an accountant, a bean counter more interested in my numbers than your instincts.
Bond admits that the thought had occurred to him and she replied,
Good, because I think you're a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War, whose boyish charms, though wasted on me, obviously appealed to that young woman I sent out to evaluate you.
The Game
I realize now that most of my memories are with the game which was a great re-creation of the film considering the technology of the time. This is a game that has been extremely hard to emulate. It worked great on an original Xbox which was hacked, but I've never had a good emulation experience other than that.
My friend gave me this junker Samsung J2 phone. It sucks ass. It can't do anything. It has less than a gig of RAM and less than that for storage. It can emulate Super Mario 64 well though.
So I thought maybe I could continue with the spirit of GoldenEye and play this on the phone that's only job is N64 emulation, but it was too hard to control using touchscreen controls and it was impossible to aim. One day I'm going to get a real N64 again and hack it to have HDMI out with Super Mario 64, Wave Race 64, Super Smash Bros. 64, GoldenEye, and Mario Kart 64.
Conclusion
If this movie were a reality, I could see the Russian newspapers saying, "British terrorists steals a tank and goes on a rampage through the city killing many innocent Russians." Bond really does a good job of fucking shit up in this one. Wherever he goes there is death, explosions, and the destruction of every vehicle he enters. It's like he's King Midas, but instead of gold, everything he touches goes up in flames.
It was kind of a trip watching this in 2020, because back in 1995 this felt so futuristic, but it looks out of date today. The only thing that didn't make sense was how 006 played by Sean Bean had Cossack parents who were betrayed by the British in 1945 and he was hellbent on revenge. The emotional part of the story makes sense, but not the math. Even if the character was 2 years old when he lost his parents in 1945, he'd be over 50 years old. Even if they died in 1950, he'd still be too old. Sean Bean was 36 when filming GoldenEye and looks almost as good as Bond, so it didn't make any sense. Maybe MI6 gives it's agents an anti-aging vaccine.
I watched this on Amazon because I canceled my Netflix after seeing they promote pedophiles and little girls in cheerleader outfits. I got all the images from pressing the PRINT SCREEN button on my PC while watching the film. I embedded the link to Amazon in the images if you want to purchase the film. Thanks for looking back on this classic Bond film with me today. What's your favorite 007 moment?
Resources:
Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoldenEye
IMDB
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113189/characters/nm0001132