Okay, you’ve caught me – this isn’t quite a trilogy but you’re here anyway so let’s just continue.
The 6th person to wear the 007 persona was Pierce Brosnan, and rewatching the series reminded me how much I enjoy the old school tech, villains and suave of the James Bond world.
Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond spanned the following movies; Goldeneye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), The World Is Not Enough (1999) & Die Another Day (2002)
Die Another Day (2/5)
The final film from the Pierce Brosnan James Bond series was surprisingly my least favourite. I had gotten into a grove with his movies that presented Bond as a cheesy, one track minded agent that was all about the job (and the women). Die Another Day felt too personal. He had been set up, been cast aside, and was on a mission to discover by who (but you kind of forgot that was even the point by half way through).
I did actually like the cast of this movie more than the others which was why it felt like such a shame that ultimately I enjoyed it least of all.
Goldeneye (2.5/5)
It was a toss up between Brosnan’s debut and finale for my least favourite. Though there was that incredibly intro of Bond jumping off the side of a dam before stealthily infiltrating a soviet chemical weapons plant – the movie was so slow.
That was my main negative to this movie. The storyline was a good intro to the series by having a classic Russian enemy and ridiculously over the top weapon of mass destruction and Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp was bloody legendary.
The World Is Not Enough (3/5)
Robert Carlyle’s villainous Renard being actively on the chess board was a delight, and the hauntingness of his backstory with heiress Elektra King made him even more chilling. I know what I said in Die Another Day about things getting too personal, but in The World Is Not Enough I didn’t mind because the crosshairs were focused on M and her closeness to the mission at hand.
Jumping from the top floor of a bank in Bilabo, taking down paragliding snowmobiles with nothing more than a pair of ski’s, faking his way into the heart of the villain’s plot by pretending to be a nuclear physicist and sinking a bloody submarine. This movie really hit the roof with crazy shit Bond could get away with.
Tomorrow Never Dies (3/5)
In case you’ve lost track this was the second movie in the series, and where I thought the franchise begun to hit its stride.
There was just something a tad more realistic in this movie compared with the others. Still crazy as hell but the idea of someone’s goal being to control the media doesn’t sound too far from the truth. Thankfully the realism was met with an equal amount of outlandishness – a handcuffed chase scene, dropping down a fifty story building without a parachute and just the usual bondness.
Arguably it was the most action packed of the series, and Bond had a formidable ally in badass Michelle Yeoh’s Wai Lin and adversary in the media megalomaniac Edward Carver.
Rewatching these movies reignited the passion I have for James Bond that I hadn’t realised had even been extinguished. I won’t comment on the most recent movies which of course star Danial Craig as the agent with a licence to kill, but I will say that I felt the heart of who James Bond was watching Pierce Brosnan’s portrayal.
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