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Today's Date is:

Goldeneye


Reviewed by: Charles Tashiro
Genre: action/adventure
Video: widescreen enhanced 2.35:1
Audio: Dolby 5.1 surround
Language: English, French
Subtitle: English, French
Length: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Rating: PG
Release Date: 10-19-99
Studio: MGM
Commentary: The commentary by director Martin Campbell and producer Michael Wilson.
Documentaries: "The World of 007" is a feature-length review of the series up to the production of "Goldeneye."
Featurettes: "The Goldeneye Video Journal" provides a glimpse into the film's production.
Filmography/Biography: None
Interviews: None, although both the documentary and featurettes include several interviews.
Trailers/TV Spots: 12
Alternate/Deleted Scenes: none
Music Video: Tina Turner, "Golden Eye"
Other: None
Cast and Crew: Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Izabella Sorupco, Famke Janssen, Joe Don Baker, Judi Dench
Screenplay by: Jeffrey Caine; story by Michael France
Produced by: Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli
Directed By: Martin Campbell
Music: Eric Serra
The Review: The Bond series is a reliable commodity, and I put it that way deliberately, because what is most striking about "Goldeneye," both as film and DVD, is just how much of a package it is. What matters is to provide the formula: a sexy actor in the lead, plenty of gorgeous women, exotic locations, spectacular stunts, clever gadgets, and so on. You can expect technically proficient filmmaking, a story compelling enough to hold your attention for two hours, enough appeal to the adult in you not to feel insulted, but certainly no challenges to your brain power. Which isn't to claim that the films are all equally good. Everyone has his or her favorite installment, and I won't get into the debate as to who is the "best" Bond. "Goldeneye" is a respectable, if not terribly imaginative entry that suffers from over-production. No Bond film was ever cheap, but as the profits from the series increased and the scale of the productions ballooned, they have become ever shinier and just a tad off-putting. "Goldeneye" seems particularly showy, possibly because it was the debut film for Pierce Brosnan in the role and was the first Bond entry for several years. No doubt the producers felt they had to give it their all to reassure audiences that the formula still works. (It's interesting, for example, how many people in the behind-the-scenes footage on the DVD refer to the need to make Bond contemporary, as if all involved felt a little defensive about keeping him alive.) As with most of the Bond films, "Goldeneye's" story is almost incidental. This time around, Bond is up against a renegade British agent and a bunch of post-Soviet Russians trying to blackmail the world with a space weapon that can destroy us all with the flick of a button. That's the excuse; the *purpose* of the filmmaking is perhaps best conveyed by the arrival of the "Bond car," this time a BMW Z3. The film introduced the car to American audiences, and it serves absolutely no function in the story, except as the excuse for an elaborate, thoroughly gratuitous stunt (Bond's American ally, Joe Don Baker, lands a plane over the car as he drives it). Once introduced, it never appears again, and for that matter, Baker doesn't do much either. As far as I know, this is the most explicit the series has ever gotten in its merchandising tie-ins. It's a symptom of what's gone wrong with the series (and big budget filmmaking generally) that an entire scene was included just to sell a new toy. It manages to give the whole film the air of a two-hour plus BMW commercial. Sean Bean makes a respectable villain as Bad Boy agent 006, Alec Trevalyan. Famke Janssen makes the most of villainess Xenia Onatopp, Judi Dench is a good choice as the grim, tight-lipped new M, and Brosnan acquits himself respectably. (He at least has a sense of how to deliver the film's rather tired witticisms.) It's all smartly put together, and the DVD reflects the care put into the production of the film, with a stunningly clear transfer and one of the most elaborate menus I've ever seen. Still, one can be forgiven feeling that it's all a tad pointless, with the elaborate production a substitute for substance. There is a problem with formula filmmaking (and no matter how high profile the Bond series may have become, it's almost the classic instance of milking a successful formula till it's dry). The filmmakers have to do a delicate balancing act. On the one hand, they have to deliver the goods the audience expects. At the same time, they have to keep one step ahead of the our jadedness. "Goldeneye" accomplishes this feat with shiny new wrappings, a breakneck pace, more explosions than would seem possible to include in a single movie other than a war film, lots of shifts in location, expensive clothes, immaculate photography and all the usual tricks of basically empty filmmaking. It's not a bad movie, or even a bad Bond, but no one seems to have asked whether they might not have been better off just re-thinking the whole thing and starting over, particularly with every other movie on the block doing much the same thing.
Image and Sound Both picture and sound have been given extreme care and attention. At a technical level, this disc is hard to beat, which is only appropriate given the qualities of the movie itself.
The Extras "The World of 007" is a feature-length review of the series up to the production of "Goldeneye." It provides a host of excerpts from films, interviews with actors, technicians and stunt people from throughout the series. In no sense critical--it was obviously created as a promotion for the release of "Goldeneye"--it nonetheless provides a nice synoptic history of the series up to that point as well as a reasonably good explanation of its popularity. Many of the actors interviewed provide fascinating anecdotes. My personal favorite is Roger Moore's unabashed admission that he was perfectly happy not to perform one stunt in "Live and Let Die," followed by a story from the film's stunt coordinator explaining why it was just as well he didn't. The section on stunts, in fact, is probably the most interesting for those wanting to know about production of the series, even though it is rather short compared to other portions of the documentary. featurettes: "The Goldeneye Video Journal" provides a glimpse into the film's production, including interviews with Pierce Brosnan and director Martin Campbell. The most interesting section involves a detailed look at the production of the opening stunt, as Bond dives from the heights of a dam. There are also some nice, small details that go by almost in passing, such as the background extras in one scene miming their way through a song as the principles play out their dialogue. The featurette is a little short, and it ends abruptly, but many of the ingredients provide a real, nitty-gritty sense of production. (There is a second, promotional featurette which is far less interesting, although it does contain the best single description of the film. In an interview, Brosnan describes "Goldeneye" as a romp, and that pretty accurately sums it up.)
Commentary The commentary by director Martin Campbell and producer Michael Wilson was obviously recorded as the two sat watching the film. Rich with anecdotes and details about production, it nonetheless (unsurprisingly) does not provide much insight into the film itself. The upside of having production personnel perform these second soundtracks is the background information it can provide. The downside is that the commentary doesn't reveal much about the films' importance or its' place in film history. It's nice to know how particular effects were produced, or that the Bond Aston Martin was borrowed and had to be repaired when an accident occurred, and so on and so on. That tells us a lot about how the film was made. A commentary by a critic or historian, on the other hand, might help us to understand the film's significance in the series, where it adheres to the formula or deviates from it. Fortunately, both Campbell and Wilson perform their task unselfconsciously, with a good sense of how to connect to the listener.
Final Words: One would be hard put to come up with a more carefully executed, feature-packed DVD than "Goldeneye." Crafted with loving care and respect for the Bond series, the disc is obviously the work of people dedicated to providing a rich assortment of treats to motivate repeated viewing. It is nonetheless a symptom of the film's weakness that those repeat viewings are likely to be motivated less by a desire to watch the film again than to listen to the director's comments or learn a bit more about the series. Both disc and film are triumphs of technology, glossy, expertly produced, but also ultimately rather forgettable.


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 July 6, 2001