Pierce Brosnan starred in four GoldenEye. Released in 1995, GoldenEye was directed by Martin Campbell, and it introduced the world to Pierce Brosnan as the new James Bond. GoldenEye also starred Sean Bean as the villainous Alec Trevalyan AKA 006, Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp, Isabella Scorupco as Natalya Simonova, and introduced Jedi Dench as the new M. GoldenEye was a box office smash, grossing $356 million worldwide.
After a 6-year interval since the previous James Bond film, 1989's License To Kill, due to a legal battle over the 007 rights between United Artists and MGM, Pierce Brosnan as the new 007. GoldenEye plunged James Bond into a mission to stop the Janus organization, who had taken control of a Russian satellite called GoldenEye that threatened the world with an electomagnetic pulse that would cripple technology. GoldenEye proved to be a milestone, and the rebirth James Bond needed.
GoldenEye Updated James Bond’s Formula For The 1990s
Bond Entered The Blockbuster Movie Era
GoldenEye is an ideal blend of the traditional James Bond formula mixed with 1990s blockbuster action and infused with relevant post-Cold War intrigue. Pierce Brosnan's James Bond was the right secret agent for this dangerous new era of duplicitous enemies seeking super weapons for world domination. From the thrilling bungee jump in the flashback prologue that opened GoldenEye, to 007's destructive tank chase through St. Petersburg, and GoldenEye's climatic battle atop a satellite dish in Cuba, Brosnan and GoldenEye took James Bond's action-adventure to another level.
Every Pierce Brosnan James Bond Movie, Ranked Worst To Best
Pierce Brosnan was the fifth actor to play James Bond, with his run as 007 often considered one of the long-running series most divisive.
Pierce Brosnan was simply born to play 007. Brosnan fused his James Bond actor predecessors, Sean Connery's elegance, Roger Moore's wit, and Timothy Dalton's grit. Pierce's Bond spied hard and lusted even harder. Yet Brosnan also conveyed that his Bond had a complicated inner life, as if the decades of risks and close calls had taken a toll on him that he powers through for Queen and country. In GoldenEye, Brosnan's 007 was immediately iconic and effortlessly glides into danger in every exotic port of call he visits. GoldenEye took James Bond seriously, and audiences instantly believed in 007 once more.
GoldenEye Introduced 2 Classic James Bond Villains
Alec Trevelyan And Xenia Onatopp Are All-Timers
GoldenEye pits James Bond against two all-time great 007 villains. As Alec Trevelyan, Sean Bean is arguably the most ferocious and memorable antagonist Pierce Brosnan's James Bond faced. GoldenEye ingeniously made Trevelyan a former British Secret Service operatve and colleague of Bond's - codename 006. In Alec Trevelyan, James met his equal in skill and guile, and 006 was a broken mirror reflection of Bond himself. GoldenEye was the first instance of a Double-0 agent going rogue and menacing the world, and Trevalyan stands as perhaps the toughest foe, physically and mentally, that Brosnan's 007 faced.
Skyfall would repeat GoldenEye by making Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) a former MI6 agent who faced Daniel Craig's James Bond.
Famke Janssen's Xenia Onatopp is the only female James Bond henchman who measures up to the iconic Oddjob (Harold Sakata) from Goldfinger and Jaws (Richard Kiel) from The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. While other evil women have tried to kill James Bond, Xenia was the deadliest. The ravishingly seductive but deadly Onatopp could crush men between her thighs and, unlike other nefarious Bond Girls who ended up ing forces with 007, Xenia was unrepentant and diabolical to the last.
GoldenEye is stocked with memorable bad guys.
In addition, GoldenEye introduced Robbie Coltrane as Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky, a Russian gangster and former KGB agent James Bond has encountered in the past. Coltrane was so memorable, he returned in The World Is Not Enough. GoldenEye also co-stars Alan Cumming as Boris Grishenko, the treasonous Russian computer programmer to helps Alec Trevelyan steal the GoldenEye satellite, and Gottfied John as the Russian General Ourumov. GoldenEye is stocked with memorable bad guys and the heavies in Pierce Brosnan's subsequent James Bond movies don't quite measure up to them.
Judi Dench Gave James Bond A Modern M
Dench Became M To Two Different 007s
One of GoldenEye's best innovations, which had long-lasting implications for the James Bond franchise, was casting Judi Dench as M. James Bond's MI6 boss, as originated by Bernard Lee, was previously a veteran of World War II. Dench updated M for the 1990s and beyond. Initially introduced as the "evil queen of numbers," M was a no-nonsense taskmaster who sharply regarded 007 as "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur... a relic of the Cold War." Bond had to prove himself to the new M before she became James' most ardent er.
Judi Dench’s M Was The Real Bond Girl Of Daniel Craig’s Billion Dollar 007 Movie
Daniel Craig's James Bond romanced several Bond Girls, but M held a special place in his heart as evidenced by what happened in Skyfall.
Judi Dench was so iconic as M that she not only returned for all of Pierce Brosnan's sequels, but Dench's M was rebooted for Daniel Craig's James Bond era. Dench played M in four of Craig's Bond movies, Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre, developing a more maternal yet still uncompromising relationship with Daniel's 007. Thanks to GoldenEye, Dench set a new gold standard for M and redefined James Bond's relationship with his master at the British Secret Service.
Pierce Brosnan’s Other James Bond Movies Had Problems GoldenEye Lacked
Brosnan's Bonds Got More Cartoonish Over Time
GoldenEye was an ideal debut for Pierce Brosnan's James Bond that brilliantly kicked off his 007 era. While The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day exceeded GoldenEye's box office, neither they nor Tomorrow Never Dies clicked the way GoldenEye did. 1997's saw 007 face media magnate Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce), who wanted to use headlines to ignite World War III. Yet despite martial arts sensation Michelle Yeoh ing forces with Bond, and Teri Hatcher's tragic turn as James' ex-lover, Paris Carver, Tomorrow Never Dies underwhelmed compared to GoldenEye.
Pierce Brosnan's James Bond Movies |
Release Year |
Director |
Worldwide Gross |
|---|---|---|---|
GoldenEye |
1995 |
Martin Campbell |
$356,429,933 |
Tomorrow Never Dies |
1997 |
Roger Spottiswoode |
$339,504,276 |
The World Is Not Enough |
1999 |
Michael Apted |
$361,730,660 |
Die Another Day |
2002 |
Lee Tamahori |
$431,942,139 |
1999's The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day exposed James Bond to the excesses of 90s-era blockbusters. The World Is Not Enough benefitted from an intriguing villain, Sophie Marceau's treacherous Elektra King, but stunt casting Denise Richards as nuclear scientist Dr. Christmas Jones, and a nonsensical plot involving Renard (Robert Carlyle), a Bond villain who feels no pain, sank Pierce Brosnan's third Bond movie.
11 James Bond Gadgets From Pierce Brosnan's Movies Ranked
The James Bond gadgets were no more prevalent than during the Pierce Brosnan era of 007 movies, and all of them are great gadgets in their own right.
Despite an intriguingly stark pre-credits sequence where James Bond is captured and imprisoned in a North Korean prison, 2002's Die Another Day quickly devolved into a live-action cartoon where James Bond drove an invisible car, Halle Berry played a secret agent named Jinx, 007 fought a North Korean who surgically and implausibly turned himself into an Englishman named Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), and Madonna cameoed as a fencing teacher. Pierce Brosnan was a superior 007, but his oeuvre never matched the majesty of GoldenEye, his enduringly spectacular debut as James Bond.
Your comment has not been saved