So many aspects of GoldenEye are memorable and iconic, starting with the new 007 himself. Pierce Brosnan was instantly perfect as the British secret agent, with audiences unanimous in the belief that the Irish actor was born to play James Bond. GoldenEye also introduced a new M played by Judi Dench, who would redefine the role, and brought back hallmarks like Q (Desmond Llewelyn) and 007's Aston Martin DB5.
James Bond's nemesis in GoldenEye was his friend, the former agent 006, Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), who planned to attack the world with an EMP weapon, the GoldenEye satellite. 007 also faced Alec's deadly attractive henchwoman, Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), in an international caper that established James Bond's relevance in the 1990s.
However, it was GoldenEye's heroic Bond Girl, Natalya Simonova (Isabella Scorupco), who challenged James in a way that would foreshadow 007's cinematic future.
Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond Had A Conversation In GoldenEye That Changed 007 Forever
Before GoldenEye enters its action-packed third act, James Bond sits on the beach in Cuba, morbidly musing about how he has to kill Alec Trevelyan, his former friend. Natalya Simonova then speaks to Bond, not in a sexy or seductive way as previous Bond Girls have, but rather, she cuts to the heart of 007:
Natalya Simonova: "You think I'm impressed? All of you with your guns, your killing, your death. For what? So you can be a hero? All the heroes I know are dead. How can you act like this? How can you be so cold?"
James Bond: "It's what keeps me alive."
Natalya Simonova: "No. It's what keeps you alone."
Bond and Natalya's exchange isn't as memorable or quotable as other dialogue in GoldenEye, like M calling James "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur" or 007 and 006 quipping, "Half of everything is luck, James." "And the other half?" "Fate." However, Natalya questioning James this way was unprecedented, as 007 rarely displayed this kind of soul-searching in previous Bond movies.
Pierce Brosnan's predecessor James Bonds played by Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, and Timothy Dalton, generally didn't question their motivations or self-righteousness. The prior Bonds also didn't ponder the self-isolation that comes with the job of being a secret agent, gleefully indulging, instead, in the pleasures of women, travel, gadgets, and martinis.
To bring James Bond into the 1990s, when audiences demanded more depth and character motivation in their action heroes, Pierce Brosnan's 007 exposed his inner turmoil. Really, for the first time, James Bond questioned his life, his choices, and their cost, before steeling himself to complete his mission to bring down Alec Trevelyan, not "for England," but "for me."
In Brosnan's later Bond movies, James would keep struggling with his feelings, like with his doomed former flame Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher) in Tomorrow Never Dies, and being betrayed (again) by Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) in The World Is Not Enough. Pierce brought a new soulfulness to 007 that would become central to the James Bond played by his successor, Daniel Craig.
Daniel Craig's James Bond Lived The Changes GoldenEye Foreshadowed
If Pierce Brosnan's James Bond wrestled with his inner turmoil, Daniel Craig's 007 would wear it on his sleeve. From his debut in Casino Royale onward, Craig's Bond, who lived in his own separate, rebooted continuity, was both a blunt instrument and a raw nerve. Craig's 007 took things much more personally, from love to betrayal to facing his own mortality.
James Bond's two great loves in the Daniel Craig era, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) and Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), got in his face and challenged him the way Natalya Simonova did Pierce Brosnan's 007 in GoldenEye. Vesper and Madeleine were even more impactful, especially after Lynd did betray James in Casino Royale, and Bond believed Madeleine had in No Time To Die.
In Spectre, Madeleine Swann pressed James Bond to defend his life choices further than Natalya in GoldenEye. Swann's questions were uncompromising: "Why, given every other possible option, does a man choose the life of a paid assassin?" and "Is this really what you want? Living in the shadows? Hunting, being hunted? Always alone?" Bond's quippy deflections felt hollow in response.
The cost of James Bond's license to kill and the toll being a secret agent took on his mind, body, and soul were tantamount to why audiences responded so strongly to Daniel Craig's 007, and why his films were among the biggest hits of the James Bond franchise.
All of this can be traced back to Natalya Simonova calling James Bond out on the beach in GoldenEye.
Release Date
November 16, 1995
Runtime
130 minutes
Director
Martin Campbell
Writers
Ian Fleming, Michael France, Jeffrey Caine, Bruce Feirstein
English (US) ·