This James Bond film from 1995, reissued for its 30th anniversary, is named after Ian Fleming’s own “Goldeneye” estate in Jamaica – though perhaps oddly, the film’s only Caribbean location is supposed to be Cuba. There’s a fair bit to enjoy here, although perhaps it’s best experienced on TV over Christmas in a Quality Street stupor. GoldenEye was the first to star Pierce Brosnan as 007, the first to see Judi Dench as M, and the first film to challenge its own franchise identity. As M crisply says to Bond: “I think you are a sexist, misogynist dinosaur and a relic of the cold war” – although her criticism of her star agent begins and ends with that description.
The film gamely attempts to reposition itself in the new post-Soviet world, with a key scene (and some of the opening sequence) taking place among the discarded, crumbling statues of Soviet heroes. Perhaps even more gamely, it revives the memory of the Lienz Cossacks who were chillingly repatriated to the Soviet Union after the war by the British to be slaughtered by Stalin.
