Buy me a pint! Why 'GoldenEye' still holds up 30 years later

So, the world was ready for Brosnan's Bond, and ready for GoldenEye to deliver not just the thrills, but hopefully, prove, just a little bit, that Bond could still be relevant in the edgy and also, somewhat politically correct 1990s. Early in the movie, Moneypenny, played by the coincidentally named Samantha Bond, makes a jab at James being a womanizer early in the film, and mentions that his flirting could qualify as "sexual harassment."

GoldenEye also gave us the first appearance of Judi Dench as Bond's boss, M, an idea that seems so familiar now, it's hard to remember that in 1995, it was a big swing. M, being a woman and calling Bond a "sexist" to his face, was an important moment for the franchise, and it played into the larger theme of the movie: Does 007 have a job now that the Cold War is over?

This single notion powers GoldenEye in wonderful ways, weaving an intricate, yet elegant plot in which Bond has to confront the fact that his old buddy, Alec Trevelyan, 006 (Sean Bean), is now an independent terrorist. Instead of a rogue Soviet faction stealing a dirty bomb (as was a major fear in that decade), Trevelyan nabs a smartly tech-focused weapon; the GoldenEye, a satellite capable of delivering targeted EMPs, aka an electromagnetic pulse. In 1995 and now, EMPs are real and can cause havoc with technology, just not always on a huge scale. But if a modern Bond movie were to use the GoldenEye satellite again, it would be far more dangerous, since we're even more reliant on electronic devices today.

Having Fun Again

In a not-so-subtle way, GoldenEye asks a simple question: When things aren't clear and you can't rely on technology or equations, who are you gonna call? The answer to that question is James Bond, who, in one of the film's better sequences, drives a stolen tank through Saint Petersburg, crashing through walls, knocking over statues, and generally being an unstoppable force. Both in metaphor and in actuality, the message of this scene is clear: James Bond is a tank in this movie; he's old school, straightforward, and reliable.

But, unlike the dialed-down humor of the Dalton films, GoldenEye had its socially relevant self-awareness, but ate its silly, 007 humor cake at the same time. In the aforementioned tank sequences, at one point, a statue with a sword drops off of Bond's stolen tank, and the sword, briefly, rams the back bumper of the tank. Bond's response? To look over his shoulder, straighten his tie, and move on. Clearly, director Martin Campbell (who would later direct Casino Royale in 2006) was having a lot of fun here.

And that's just one of many gags in the movie that make GoldenEye the right amount of silly. Did Bond use to visit Russia? He tells Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) that he used to "shoot in and out." And, despite bringing back a formula of giving Bond two love interests: good girl Natalya (Izabella Scorupco) and the wicked Xenia, Bond actually only hooks up with Natalya, making Brosnan's Bond, at least in this movie, not nearly as promiscuous as Sean Connery or Roger Moore's versions. Bond was still a badass, but thanks to Brosnan's charm, he also, somehow, played Bond as a nice guy.

Plus, he also came across as a guy you could hang out with. Brosnan's jokey call and response with Bean at the start of the movie creates a brief moment of feeling out with the guys: "Buy me a pint!" Bond calls says to Trevelyan, and for a second, we all could imagine having a beer with this Bond.

The Sounds of Bond

Perhaps the only thing about GoldenEye that hasn't aged well is its strange, minimalist soundtrack. The last Bond score from legendary composer John Barry was 1987's The Living Daylights, and the score for Licence to Kill was done by Michael Kamen. For GoldenEye, producer Barbara Broccoli clearly wanted something new and modern, and so Éric Serra, known for movies like Subway and Léon: The Professional, was hired. Most of this music sounds forgettable or overly minimalistic, though it did inspire the style of the Bond music for the N64 game version of GoldenEye a few years later.

Still, the GoldenEye soundtrack was redeemed in two ways. First, because Campbell was worried about the low-key score, additional music was recorded by John Altman for the tank chase sequence, which featured the familiar James Bond themes. Second, the title song to GoldenEye, sung by the legendary Tina Turner and written by Bono and the Edge of U2, is one of the best all-time Bond songs ever. It's still great today, and kicked 007's 1990s run off to a solid and mainstream start.

Could 007 have found himself in the 21st century without GoldenEye? The film was named for author Ian Fleming's GoldenEye estate in Jamaica, and the place where he wrote the majority of the Bond books. In this way, GoldenEye had one foot in the past and one foot in the future. Bond may have been reborn again in the 21st century, but he probably wouldn't have had nearly as much fun without GoldenEye coming first.

GoldenEye streams on Prime Video.