Watching this film shocked me. It was the first Bond film that came out when I was old enough to recognize. ‘GoldenEye’ was the first Bond after a six-year interruption caused by a lawsuit (what else?) after Dalton’s second and unfortunately, last part as 007 in ‘License to Kill’.

1. I was six years old. I probably didn’t watch it till I was eight years old or so, but that’s not imporant. This film just seems older to me than any of the 80’s Bonds. The special effects are the worst. When, sat the beginning, the satellite dish came down, I couldn’t believe it (don’t even get me started on the train Sean Bean tries to escape in at the end of the film). It looked like a random ‘Mac Gyver’ or ‘Knight Rider’ episode. Well, the special effects in the older Bonds seem cheap now, too. But with the pre-‘GoldenEye’ ones, it never struck me in this particular way. I really was shocked, but why? All of it looked accurate to me once, that may be the reason for my strange feelings. Really weird. This also may be the very first step of getting old, I don’t know. It certainly disturbs me more than I could my first grey hair imagine to. But on the other hand, and this took me some time to realize: the movie is frikkin’ 16 years old. Sixteen.

However, I have some more notes: Bond’s car is, among others, a BMW Z3. I even remember liking its design as, say: ‘fresh and sporty’. Now, it almost looks like an 80’s car to me (especially the back), but without the charm and cool that you’d expect to come with that.
An female antagonist-sidekick that jills off by firing a whole AK-47 magazine (come and get me, weapon nerds) at a bunch of people is certainly a nice touch, but I really didn’t like the implementation here. It was just weird how the Russian General looked at Miss Onatopp¹ when she moaned full of lust, clearing her magazine. A slightly quieter moan would’ve added seriousness to the film and even more sadism to the character (less freak show). But the average 90’s viewer needed that, I guess.

Yeah, that’s what was strange about the film. Regarding the Brosnan-semi-reboot and the film itself: The only strong character in it is Judi Dench’s M. Brosnan delivers kind of a 90’s version of Dalton’s Bond. More serious (than Moore), living by principles and so on. But the whole character-building consists of some random cliché lines between him and the Russian programmer chick (‘Oh, you boys just want to kill each other!’ - ‘We have to.’) with no further effect. Very different from Daniel Craig’s Bond, whose disenchanted sentiment really marks the film and is a whole different level of acting.

Oh, and what a cheap ‘Thunderball‘-ripoff the ‘Oh, where’s the huge satellite dish?‘-part at the end was.
For what it’s worth: ‘GoldenEye’ in the International Movie Firearms Database.

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1. ^_^