GoldenEye

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Details At A Glance

General
Extras
Category Bond Theatrical Trailer - 2.35:1 (16x9), Dolby Digital 2.1
Audio Commentary - Martin Campbell (Director) and Michael G. Wilson (Producer)
Booklet
Rating pg.gif (1010 bytes)
Year Released 1995
Running Time 124:05 Minutes 
RSDL/Flipper No/No
Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region 4 Director Martin Campbell
Studio
Distributor
UnitedArtists.gif (10720 bytes)
Fox Home Entertainment
Starring Pierce Brosnan 
Sean Bean 
Izabella Scorupco 
Famke Janssen 
Joe Don Baker
Judi Dench
Desmond Llewelyn 
Samantha Bond
Case Amaray
RPI $34.95 Music Eric Serra

 
 
Video
Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384Kb/s) 
English Audio Commentary (Dolby Digital 2.0, 192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement 16x9Yes.jpg (4536 bytes)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
Miscellaneous
Macrovision ? Smoking Yes
Subtitles English
English for the Hearing Impaired
Annoying Product Placement Yes
Action In or After Credits No

Plot Synopsis

    I have managed to deduce that the quality of a Bond film is often reflected by its theme song, and this is a deduction that I am sure a lot of people have come to after seeing the last few Bond films, be it theatrically or at home. GoldenEye was the first to feature the new, more human (some would say Connery-like) Bond that got audiences back into the theatres at a time when the critics were writing the series off, thanks in no small part to a great new Bond in Pierce Brosnan and a superb M in Judi Dench. The film also features a rather interesting song written by the main songwriters of U2 (Bono and The Edge) and performed by the great Tina Turner. This is in contrast to Tomorrow Never Dies, which featured a theme song by Sheryl Crow that sounds a lot like the singing Minnie Driver performs during GoldenEye's early confrontation between Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane) and Bond. While Tomorrow Never Dies was certainly not a bad film, it was a bit of a letdown after the stellar performances in GoldenEye. Then there's The World Is Not Enough, which featured a surprisingly mood-setting opening song by Garbage, and was a very enjoyable film to look at, thanks in no small part to the presence of Denise Richards. So how does Goldeneye stack up against the other two offerings to star Pierce Brosnan? Well, in my personal opinion, I would rank GoldenEye a close second to The World Is Not Enough, mainly because the sex and violence in Goldeneye is just a touch too theatrical and watered-down for my liking. I mean, come on, this is a Bond film, and the last time I had a serious look, the average Bond audience member was aged well over the general target audience of a PG film.

    The film begins with James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) bungee jumping down the face of a dam, anchoring himself to a building at the foot of the dam's wall, and then entering the building in the style that we should expect from Bond. We are soon introduced to Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), who just happens to be Agent 006 at the start of the story. After the mission at the dam is completed, all without Bond so much as getting a hair out of place, we jump forward about nine months, at which point we are introduced to the film's femme fatale, a rather vicious and pyschotic woman named Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen). After Bond and Xenia chase one another around in their sports cars, with a psychologist who is meant to be assessing Bond a less-than-enthusiastic passenger in his BMW, we soon see what makes Xenia such a special villian. From there, we are introduced to the usual MI6 staff, with Miss Moneypenny (Samantha Bond) giving her exchange with Bond a delectable twist by stating that someday he will have to make good on his innuendoes (and boy do we live in hope, given some of them). Next, we are introduced to the new head of MI6, known simply as M (Judi Dench), who also leaves a mark of her own upon the story. Finally, we are introduced to the man who has kept the series consistent on one level for sixteen episodes now, the great Q (Desmond Llewelyn), who sadly passed away shortly after the premiere of The World Is Not Enough. There's enough comic relief during Bond's meeting with Q to fill up three movies, which is not a bad effort considering that this particular exchange only spans about five minutes altogether.

    Of course, no Bond film would make it past the opening sequence without there being a reason why Bond has to be called back into service once the original job is completed. The reason why Bond is called back into service nine months after his mission with 006 is simple: reports are filtering out of the crumbling Soviet Union that a space-based electromagnetic pulse weapon has been developed by the increasingly corrupt military. In a nutshell, this weapon is capable of rendering any electronic equipment within a thirty-mile radius of its blast area useless, making it a less-than-ideal weapon to fall into the wrong hands. Bond's mission, as explained by M, is a relatively simple one: find out if GoldenEye exists, and if so, try to prevent the wrong people from using it. Meanwhile, a Tiger-class helicopter developed by the Navy is stolen from the ship where it was meant to be demonstrated, right under the watchful eye of the Navy and its audience. Of course, the fact that the Tiger is a helicopter designed to be immune from electromagnetic interference, and that it magically reappears at the site of a GoldenEye blast, is far from a coincidence. This, of course, is the place where we are introduced to the last of the principal characters, a scientist by the name of Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco), who is nowhere near as interesting as our previously introduced Xenia.

    As I have already stated, I feel this this is a slightly weaker Bond due to the more juvenile approach taken by director Martin Campbell, who constantly cites problems with various censors in his commentary as a reason why the film is so pedestrian in its portrayals of sex and violence, the two quintessential ingredients of a Bond story. After listening to this commentary for a while, I sincerely wanted to beat Martin around the head and remind him that there are ratings in every civilized country other than PG. However, what GoldenEye lacks in the way of detailed excitement, it more than makes up for in character development and genuinely funny moments. I should stress that when I say "character development", I don't mean that you will see a whole new sensitive side to Bond, but rather that the story takes hold and makes the viewer care about the new incarnations of the characters. It is also quite interesting to see a moment where Bond has no snide remarks or pithy comebacks for his opponent, as Sean Bean puts it in one of the film's best scenes. Having only seen a handful of Bond films myself, I would have to say that this one ranks as a favourite, because of the way it made me see the whole Bond saga in a different light. Having previously given up on the series due to finding Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton to be unequal to the task, I found Pierce Brosnan's Bond to be much more palatable. Others may differ, and some have cited the more action-oriented mood of the more recent Bond films as a bad thing. Personally, the one comment by the detractors I will agree with here is that, out of respect for the late Desmond Llewelyn, the gadget-room schtick should end with this film. Time to move onto something else, United Artists.

Transfer Quality

Video

    Having seen the problems that can be caused by compressing a two-hour-plus film to a single-layered DVD, I would have really liked for MGM to have taken the time to recompress the film onto an RSDL disc to allow the film more space to breathe. Sadly, they did not choose this course of action.

    The transfer is presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1, complete with 16x9 Enhancement, which is at some odds with the information on the packaging. Do not be fooled by the markings that state this film to be a 1.85:1 transfer, as I don't think I have ever seen a Bond film shot in this ratio, and cropping the film into this ratio would be a pointless exercise.

    The transfer was mostly sharp and clear, but there were some scenes that exhibited a copious amount of haze that in turn translated into some grain that looks suspiciously like compression artefacts. After the sequence in which Bond leaps from the train with Natalya, the crawling of specks in the background really had me worried that the film was finally so starved for bits that the image was just going to dissolve into nothingness. Thankfully, the film's imagery never falls that far below the threshhold of viewability, but it does threaten from time to time. The shadow detail was excellent, with one critical scene in particular involving Alec handled exceptionally well. There was no low-level noise in the picture at any time.

    The colour saturation was spot-on from start to finish, with each different location represented well.

    MPEG artefacts were not specifically noted in this transfer, but the fact of the matter is that you can tell when scenes are pushing the compression just a little too hard for their own good. During some of the scenes after combat or car chases, the image seems to be falling apart under the weight of the compression, and this is one area where a recompression to an RSDL disc would have really made a difference. Film-to-video artefacts were not noticed except for some small amounts of aliasing on the grille of Bond's car, which again is a surprise considering how tightly compressed the film is. Film artefacts were exceptionally rare, with only a single black dot being noticed at one point in the picture.

Audio

    There are two audio tracks on this DVD: the original English dialogue in 5.1, with a commentary by Director Martin Campbell and Producer Michael G. Wilson in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. I listened to both tracks.

    The dialogue was always completely clear and easy to understand, even during Minnie Driver's deliberate effort to sing badly as well as she possibly can, which is the subject of some interesting discussion during the commentary. Even Famke Janssen was relatively easy to make out in spite of her broad accent. There were no audio sync problems on this disc.

    The score music by Eric Senna is a typical piece of Bond scoring, ranging from the sophistication of background music for the dialogue sequences to the manic chase sequence music. Overall, this is one of the better Bond scores I've heard for a while. As I have mentioned before, one's reception of the opening title song is often indicative of how the rest of the film will be recieved, and Goldeneye is no exception. Tina Turner's performance of the theme song sticks in the mind long after it is over, and it is certainly a far better effort than Tomorrow Never Dies, which reminds me a hell of a lot of the aforementioned performance by Minnie Driver.

    The surround channels were used quite aggressively for music and special effects, although the amount of ambient sound directed into these channels was very slightly disappointing. This was the only weakness during the non-action scenes, especially during the briefing room sequence, where some directed ambient sounds could have helped build a better atmosphere. The subwoofer was used frequently and copiously to fill out the soundtrack, with anything that made a bass-heavy sound exploding through the room like a bull on acid. Of this type of sound, you can expect an abundance, as the Bond series just wouldn't be the same without a series of vehicles crashing into one another.

Extras

Menu

    The menu is very plain, but easy to navigate, and it does not appear to be 16x9 Enhanced. The Special Features menu makes a reference to a non-existent Film Soundtrack option that merely starts the film with the English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, with the subtitles turned on. Presumably, this option was meant to be an Isolated Score, which obviously never made it to the DVD. [Ed. It's just a very badly worded way to turn the audio commentary off.]

Audio Commentary

    Director Martin Campbell and producer Michael G. Wilson talk about every little aspect of the making of GoldenEye, and this is where a good number of the problems with this installment in the Bond series become apparent. Much mention is made of the problems with censors from various countries that certain acts of violence caused, but after watching the film it could not be more obvious that the crew wanted to dumb-down this episode in order to appeal to more juvenile audiences. As a result, the film suffers a great deal, and I can only say I am glad that the makers went back to their usual M-rated approach in future episodes. The commentary is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, with the commentary mixed into the centre channel and the film's soundtrack quietly mixed in below them. A minor audio glitch in the commentary can be heard from 116:08 to 116:09. This is about twenty-six minutes after yet another hilarious statement that the film didn't really suffer for any of the censor cuts. Whatever Martin and Michael were smoking when they recorded this track, I want some of it!

Theatrical Trailer

    Clocking in at two minutes and thirty-four seconds, this is presented in the aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 Enhanced, with Dolby Digital 2.1 sound.

Booklet

    An eight-page booklet that extensively talks about production issues, which is well worth the reading time.

R4 vs R1

    The Region 4 Standard version of this disc misses out on;     Since the R4 DVD has now been re-released as a Special Edition, it is more appropriate to compare the R1 Special Edition and the R4 Special Edition, both of which appear to be identically featured, which makes the local Special Edition disc the version of choice.

Summary

    GoldenEye strongly competes with Tomorrow Never Dies to be the weakest of the Brosnan Bond films, but thankfully fails by a small margin. It is presented on a good DVD that could have been a classic if given a second layer.

    The video quality is very good, but often starved for bits.

    The audio quality is excellent.

    The extras are reasonable.
 
 

Ratings (out of 5)

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© Dean McIntosh (my bio sucks... read it anyway)
June 26, 2000.

Review Equipment
   
DVD Grundig GDV 100 D, using composite output; Toshiba SD-2109, using S-video output
Display Panasonic TC-29R20 (68 cm), 4:3 mode, using composite input; Samsung CS-823AMF (80 cm), 16:9 mode/4:3 mode, using composite and S-video inputs
Audio Decoder Built In (Amplifier)
Amplification Sony STR-DE835
Speakers Panasonic S-J1500D Front Speakers, Philips PH931SSS Rear Speakers, Philips FB206WC Centre Speaker, JBL Digital 10 Subwoofer