Goldeneye was the last real James Bond film

It's sort of futile to claim there is a "real" James Bond film at all when the films have always been chameleons, adapting to the popular filmmaking and storytelling styles of every period in which they were created. The adaptability is a big part of the reason the basic formula as a brand continues to work, decade after decade.

 

I think "GoldenEye" might actually be my favourite Bond film ever: I had watched Martin Campbell helm for British television "The Professionals" "Reilly: Ace of Spies" and "Edge of Darkness" in the 80s and been saying that he was actually put on this Earth to make 007 movies, and when he got the chance with "GoldenEye" he hit it out of the park.

Brosnan was a superb Bond and many members of the public loved him, including many women and kids, who had had varying experiences with Bonds over the years.

Sean Bean was a great villain with that sense he was every bit 007's equal, and probably cleverer, Famke Janssen was great fun and the MI6 team was the best ever: Judi Dench, Samantha Bond, Michael Kitchen and Desmond Llewellyn. The song was a cracker and Daniel Kleinmann's titles were the best the series had yet had, and some of the best action scenes ever, even the comic relief parts were good.

The score was divisive, though I liked it.

 

Confused thread, is this about the last real Bond film, or the last good Bond film? There were previous films that weren't very good at all but were definitely Bondesque. Otherwise, if you are going for the last Bond film to have all the elements without overdosing on soap opera stuff (TWINE, SF) origin stuff (CR) or choppy CGI action (DAD, QOS) I would say Tomorrow Never Dies checked pretty much all of the boxes so is the last "REAL" Bond film. Spectre tried to check the boxes but underneath it all it didn't feel Bondian at all, and frankly sucked too.

 

The most un-Bond films:

FRWL - Hitchcock - the series hadn't found its franchise formula, but surely with Bond you aren't supposed to wait for the last 3rd to get to the action/suspense.
DAF - any action parody of the time, hard to pinpoint exactly, but this film is so cheap looking and spoofy.
LALD - Smokey and the Bandit - some love it, but it is just a chase film for nearly the whole duration.
LTK - Miami Vice - obvious enough.
QOS - Bourne - again, obvious.

Other films would throw in little parts of current trends (Kung Fu in TMWTGG), but it wouldn't take over like these films. Some would throw in Moonraker but I think it has all the hallmarks of a fun Bond film, and only goes Star Wars at the end. I would sooner toss in SF for being so gloomy.

 

No kidding about the chases, someday I'll have to re watch it with a stopwatch. The boat chase seemed to last.. 30 minutes?

Interestingly, if adjusted for inflation is one of the most successful and profitable Bond films ever; approximately $1B in 2021 money