Pierce Brosnan makes his 007 debut by bringing a refreshing dash of dynamism, humour and self-mocking jingoism back to the classic formula.
Named after the house in Jamaica of Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, Goldeneye finds the ageless secret agent dealing with deadly double agents in a crumbling post-Soviet Russia and a modern feminist boss.
James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and 006 Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean) break into a Soviet chemical weapons facility at Archangel. Trevelyan is apparently killed, but Bond destroys the facility and escapes.
Nine years later, at a casino in France, Bond meets Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) – a beautiful woman who, he discovers, is probably a member of the Janus crime syndicate, based in St Petersburg. The head of Janus is a Cossack who apparently lives on an old missile train.
Onatopp kills a Canadian admiral and steals his pass. Using it, she and an associate obtain access to the demonstration of a new helicopter, which is hardened against all forms of electromagnetic jamming or radiation.
They steal the helicopter and, later, Onatopp uses it to take Ouromov (Head of the Russian Space Division) to a satellite control station at Severnaya. There they steal the control codes for the two highly secret GoldenEye satellites, which use nuclear explosions to form an electromagnetic pulse, which can disable and destroy all of the electrical devices in whatever area they are fired at.
Ouromov uses one of the satellites to blow up Severnaya itself to cover his tracks – escaping in the protected helicopter while three MiGs are sent to investigate the crash, their electronics malfunctioning. Ouromov (Gottfried John) is unaware that a woman – Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco) – has escaped.
Bond is sent by M to find out what happened. Knowing that Onatopp is somehow involved, he ensures that he comes to the attention of the Janus crime syndicate, but is shocked to discover their head is Alec Trevelyan – formerly 006.
Trevelyan is bitter at the treatment of his parents by the British (they were Cossacks returned to Stalin after World War Two) and he intends electronically stealing billions of pounds from London’s financial market and then covering his tracks using GoldenEye to wipe all records of the transactions.
Bond follows Trevelyan to Cuba, where his satellite control station is located, and blows it up before he can transmit the firing signal, Trevelyan is killed in a fight with Bond.
James Bond Pierce Brosnan
Xenia Zaragevna Onatopp
Famke Janssen
Alec Trevelyan, 006/Janus
Sean Bean
Natalya Fyodorovna Simonova
Izabella Scorupco
CIA Agent Jack Wade
Joe Don Baker
M
Judi Dench
Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky
Robbie Coltrane
Dimitri Mishkin
Tchéky Karyo
Colonel/General Arkady Ourumov
Gottfried John
Boris Grishenko
Alan Cumming
Q
Desmond Llewelyn
Miss Moneypenny
Samantha Bond
