Bradley Ruzicka

The fifth post in my “James Bond at 60” series focuses on the Pierce Brosnan Years.

For me, the best of Brosnan’s four films was his first, 1995’s GoldenEye. While I enjoyed his next two movies, Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough, I didn’t consider them very memorable. Brosnan’s last Bond film, Die Another Day, was a disappointment. Like many critics, I felt the movie relied too heavily on questionable computer animation that distracted from the plot. At times, it seemed like a cartoon. Unfortunately for Brosnan, he wouldn’t have the opportunity for redemption, suffering a fate similar to Timothy Dalton. Due to circumstances beyond his control, he didn’t get a chance to make a fifth film.

In Autumn 1985, following the financial and critical disappointment of Roger Moore’s last Bond picture, A View to a Kill, work began on a script for the next film with the intention that Moore would not reprise the Bond character. One of the actors being considered as his replacement was Brosnan. He’d first met producer Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli on the set of 1981’s For Your Eyes Only, when his wife, Cassandra Harris, was cast in the movie as Countess Lisl von Schlaf. Broccoli said at the time, “if he can act… he’s my guy”. The next year, Brosnan was given an opportunity to star as a criminal-turned-private investigator in the NBC-TV series Remington Steele.

The Steele role seemed to be preparing Brosnan to inherit the 007 mantle, with the character capturing traits of previous Bonds. Like Moore, Brosnan’s portrayal exemplified a high degree of suaveness, elegance, charm and wit. But, on occasion, he’d also display a masculinity and grittiness reminiscent of Sean Connery. Overall, the actor succeeded in “combining the character’s Englishness with a classless internationalism that is highly knowing.” Although not yet 30 years of age, The Washington Post noted that Brosnan “could make it as a young James Bond.”

In the summer of 1986, Remington Steele was cancelled by NBC due to falling ratings. However, an announcement that Brosnan would become the next Bond caused a surge of interest in the series. Unfortunately for both Broccoli and Brosnan, his contract gave NBC a 60-day option to make another season of the show after it was cancelled. On the last possible day, NBC decided to exercise the option, resulting in drastic repercussions. Broccoli withdrew Brosnan’s offer, citing that he didn’t want his character associated with a contemporary TV series. The edict from Broccoli was that “Remington Steele will not be James Bond”.

Instead, Broccoli hired Dalton in October to be the next 007. For Brosnan, this was the worst of both worlds. Not only was he no longer the new Bond, but interest in Remington Steele plummeted, with only five new episodes filmed before the show was again cancelled. What he didn’t know at the time was how soon he’d get another chance. After eight years and only two films, Dalton decided not to return to the Bond role in 1994. Eon Productions once more turned to the actor they originally wanted after Moore’s retirement. Brosnan accepted Eon’s offer, a three-film contract with an option on a fourth, starting with $4M for the first movie, GoldenEye.

On June 7, Brosnan was announced as the fifth actor to play James Bond. He finally would get to play the role he narrowly missed out on in 1986. Unfortunately, his hiring would mark Broccoli’s last major decision. The long-time producer was not well and could no longer handle the day-to-day stress of making a major motion picture. Prior to the making of GoldenEye, he decided to turn the franchise over to his daughter, Barbara Broccoli, and his stepson, Michael G. Wilson. On June 27, 1996, seven months after the release of Brosnan’s first film, Albert Broccoli died of heart failure in his Beverly Hills home. He was 87 years old.

When Broccoli first became interested in Ian Fleming’s character, he discovered the movie rights were owned by Canadian producer Harry Saltzman. The two agreed to create a production company, EON, and its parent holding company, Danjaq. Ultimately, Saltzman withdrew from the partnership due to financial difficulties. However, Broccoli continued on, putting all his energies into the Bond franchise until his death. In his honor, his surviving family decided that all subsequent Bond films should bear his name. Therefore, each film since Tomorrow Never Dies have opened with the line “Albert R. Broccoli’s EON Productions presents”.

As for Brosnan, he was seen by many as the quintessential Bond in appearance and manner. He displayed an air of coolness, elegance and a grace which made him believable as an international playboy, if not purely as an assassin. Critic Andrew Spicer said that “Brosnan’s frame carries the ‘Armani look’ with its refined understated Englishness, to perfection. His lithe, sinuous athleticism is well suited to the fast-paced action and state-of-the-art gadgetry that retains the series’ core appeal.” James Berardinelli described Brosnan as “a decided improvement over his immediate predecessor” with a “flair for wit to go along with his natural charm”.

Journalist James Chapman also considered Brosnan’s appearance striking, saying the actor had “old-fashioned, darkly handsome matinee idol looks.” In fact, fellow journalist John G. Stackhouse argues that it’s preposterous any man as strikingly handsome as Brosnan could be a secret agent. “When Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan enters a room, everyone notices. Thus, it is ridiculous to suppose that James Bond, looking like that, could be a secret agent for longer than about two seconds.” In addition to looks, film critic Roger Ebert felt Brosnan’s Bond was “somehow more sensitive, more vulnerable, more psychologically complete” than previous portrayals.

However, when Brosnan’s first film was ready to be released, Bond had been out of the public eye for six years due to legal disputes between United Artists / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Eon. By the time these disputes were settled in 1993, the Cold War was over. The Soviet Union was no more. According to the series, Everything or Nothing, The Untold Story of 007, there was real doubt that Bond’s appeal could survive in a post-Cold War world. Some in the film industry felt it would be “futile” for the Bond series to make a comeback, and that it was best left as “an icon of the past”. But the fans had not forgotten.

GoldenEye was released to critical acclaim, using the end of the Cold War as a backdrop for the story. It grossed $350M worldwide and had the fourth highest worldwide gross of any movie in 1995, becoming the most successful Bond film financially since 1979’s Moonraker. When adjusted for inflation, it grossed 83% more worldwide than the preceding Bond film, 1989’s License to Kill. While the storyline reflected current events, Chapman argues that the film works Brosnan’s portrayal of Bond into the history of the others in the series through the post-credits sequence use of the Aston Martin DB5, previously seen in Goldfinger and Thunderball.

According to Chapman, that sequence “immediately evoked the memory of Connery”. At the same time, Bond writers knew that, because of the changes in public attitudes, Brosnan character could not be as overtly sexual and dominant over women as Connery’s Bond. British historian Jeremy Black commented on the shift in the Bond character during Brosnan’s first three films as reflective of changing social opinions, particularly relating to women in society. In addition to the films’ more modern characterization of women, Bond was now more health conscious, becoming a non-smoker.

Brosnan was clear he wanted to change 007’s smoking habit. “I don’t give a damn about everyone’s perception of the character. I think smoking causes cancer therefore he doesn’t smoke.” Yet, despite the changes, Brosnan’s characterization of Bond was seen by Black as being “closer to the Fleming novels than Moore … [but] he is also lighter and less intense than Dalton”. Brosnan brought back the use of humor prevalent with other portrayals, something both fans and critics felt was missing in Dalton’s character. He provided a “mix of action and danger threaded through with the right amount of wit and humor”. Movie critics Smith and Lavington saw the humor largely as puns that were “flippant, but not crass.”

Brosnan returned in 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies and 1999’s The World Is Not Enough. Both were successful financially while critics varied on the quality of the films. In 2002, Brosnan appeared for the fourth time as Bond in Die Another Day. Although the movie was again a success at the box office, it received decidedly mixed reviews. Some praised the work of the director while others criticized the film’s heavy use of computer-generated imagery. Brosnan himself criticized many aspects of movie. However, during the film’s promotion, he stated he’d like to continue as Bond.

“I’d like to do another, sure. Connery did six. Six would be a number, then never come back.” Yet, shortly after the release of Die Another Day, the media began questioning whether or not Brosnan would indeed reprise the role for a fifth time. At that point, the actor was approaching his 50th birthday. He kept in mind that both fans and critics were unhappy with Moore playing the role until he was 58. Increasing costs were also a factor, with Brosnan making $16.5M on his fourth film, over 10% of the total budget. But the actor was receiving popular support from the franchise’s fanbase for another instalment. For this reason, Brosnan remained optimistic Broccoli and Wilson would bring him back.

However, the events of September 11, 2001 had had a sobering effect on the producers. According to the documentary Everything or Nothing, Broccoli and Wilson struggled with the direction of the franchise in a post-9/11 world. In October 2004, according to Brosnan, the pair told him they didn’t know how to go on with the series or what they’d do next. It was at this point that he considered himself dismissed from the role. Brosnan later admitted he was hurt by how his tenure ended. “I was utterly shocked and just kicked to the kerb with the way it went down.”

Although rumored to be in the running to play 007 in the next movie, Casino Royal, Brosnan repeatedly denied it. In February 2005, he confirmed on his website that he was definitely finished with the role. A disappointing end after 10 years, but not without its compensation. Over the course of five films, Brosnan earned $41.1M, more than all the previous Bond actors combined. His career continues to this day, having starred or otherwise participated in at least one movie a year. Included is the 2008 adaptation of the ABBA musical Mamma Mia!, where he played Sam Carmichael. His singing in the film was disparaged by critics, with it being compared to the sound of a water buffalo, a donkey, and a wounded raccoon.

Following is a brief description of each of Brosnan’s Bond films.

— GoldenEye (Released November 13, 1995): In 1986, Bond and Agent 006, Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), infiltrate a Soviet chemical weapons facility. However, the pair are discovered before they can complete their mission. Bond manages to plant explosives and escape capture. But Trevelyan, after being shot, can’t escape before the facility is destroyed. Nine years later, Bond witnesses, and attempts to stop, the theft of a prototype Eurocopter Tiger helicopter at a military demonstration. This particular helicopter can withstand an electromagnetic pulse. Bond investigates and finds that Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), a suspected member of the Russian Janus crime syndicate, is involved in the theft.

Onatopp and Russian Colonel Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov (Gottfried John) subsequently use the helicopter to infiltrate their country’s GoldenEye satellite command complex. They steal the controls for the dual weapons and use one of them to destroy the facility with an electromagnetic pulse. Prior to their departure, Onatopp kills the staff except for co-conspirator Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming). However, one person survives, Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco), a programmer who escapes the carnage. Bond tracks both Simonova and the perpetrators to St. Petersburg.

There, with the help of former KGB agent-turned-gangster Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane), Bond confronts Janus’ leader and discovers that leader is Trevelyan. Somehow, he survived the blast in 1986 and is now in charge of the syndicate. Together with Ourumov, Trevelyan attempts to kill both Bond and Simonova, but they escape. Simonova helps Bond track Trevelyan to Cuba. After infiltrating his complex, they learn of his vengeful plan to steal money from the Bank of England before erasing all of its financial records with the second GoldenEye, devastating Britain’s economy. Simonova disables the satellite while Bond destroys the complex, killing Trevelyan, Grishenko, and Onatopp in the process.

GoldenEye was the first Bond movie directed by Martin Campbell. It was also the first in the series not to take story elements from the works of Fleming. The story was conceived and written primarily by Michael France and Kevin Wade, using the Soviet Union’s dissolution as the background for the plot. M was recast, with Judi Dench becoming the first woman to portray the character, replacing Robert Brown. Miss Moneypenny was also recast, with Samantha Bond replacing Caroline Bliss. Desmond Llewelyn as Q was the only actor to return.

The film accumulated a worldwide gross of $356.4M on a budget of $60M. Critical reception of the film was mostly positive at the time and only improved over the years. Some viewed it as a modernization of the series and felt Brosnan was a definite improvement over his predecessor. Film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes has it at a 79% approval rating on 82 reviews, the tenth-best Bond movie on the site. The consensus states, “The first and best Pierce Brosnan Bond film, GoldenEye brings the series into a more modern context, and the result is a 007 entry that’s high-tech, action-packed, and urbane.” Tom Sonne of The Sunday Times considered it the best Bond film since The Spy Who Loved Me.

— Tomorrow Never Dies (Released December 9, 1997): Bond investigates the sinking of a British warship in Chinese waters, the theft of one of the ship’s cruise missiles, and the shooting down of a Chinese fighter plane. He uncovers a link to media mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce), which suggests that Carver had purchased a GPS encoder on the black market. Bond travels to Hamburg to investigate Carver and seduces his wife, Paris (Teri Hatcher), an ex-girlfriend. He obtains information that helps him infiltrate Carver’s newspaper headquarters.

When Carver discovers the truth about Paris and Bond, he orders both of them killed. Paris is murdered before Bond can save her. He then kills her assassin and escapes with the encoder. Bond subsequently encounters Chinese agent Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh), who is also investigating the matter, and the two agree to work together. They discover Carver used the GPS encoder to push the British ship off course and into Chinese waters. Carver’s goal is to incite a war for ratings as well as to replace China’s current government with one more supportive of his plans to obtain exclusive Chinese broadcast rights. With the British fleet on their way to attack China, Bond and Lin track down Carver’s stealth ship.

The pair infiltrate the vessel in order to prevent Carver from firing the stolen cruise missile at Beijing, wiping out China’s government and insuring war between the two countries. When Lin is captured, Bond is forced to improvise. He uses a grenade to blow a hole in the ship, making it visible to British and Chinese radar. Bond then destroys both the ship and the cruise missile, averting war between the two countries. In the process of disabling the vessel, Bond kills Carver and his henchmen before rescuing Lin as the ship sinks.

Tomorrow Never Dies was the first Bond film directed by Roger Spottiswoode after Broccoli and Wilson were unable to convince Martin Campbell to return. Similar to GoldenEye, an entirely original story was required as there remained no Fleming stories left to adapt. As a result, the scriptwriting process was finished very late due to lengthy disputes between the director and the producers. The Daily Mail reported that Spottiswoode favored one version of the script, but Broccoli and Wilson insisted on a rewrite two weeks before the start of filming. Wilson stated, “We didn’t have a script that was ready to shoot on the first day of filming.”

The movie performed well at the box office, earning $339.5M on a budget of $110M. The gross was just behind GoldenEye but the budget was almost double, the first to exceed $100M. Included was a hefty $4.2M raise for the film’s star. Tomorrow Never Dies earned a Golden Globe nomination despite mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave it just a 56% rating based on 90 reviews. The site’s consensus states: “A competent, if sometimes by-the-numbers entry to the 007 franchise. Tomorrow Never Dies may not boast the most original plot but its action sequences are genuinely thrilling.” The title song, sung by Sheryl Crow, was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1998.

— The World Is Not Enough (Released November 8, 1999): Bond recovers a ransom paid by Sir Robert King, a British oil tycoon and friend of M (Judi Dench). However, the money is booby-trapped and kills King. Bond traces it to Renard (Robert Carlyle), a KGB agent-turned-terrorist. He’d previously kidnapped King’s daughter Elektra (Sophie Marceau). M believes Renard is targeting Elektra King a second time and assigns Bond to protect her. The pair are subsequently attacked during a tour of her proposed oil pipeline. Bond again seeks out his former KGB adversary, Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane) for information.

Zukovsky informs him that Elektra’s head of security, Davidov (Ulrich Thomsen), is in league with Renard. Bond kills Davidov and follows the trail to a Russian ICBM base in Kazakhstan. Posing as a Russian nuclear scientist, Bond meets American nuclear physicist Christmas Jones (Denise Richards). The two witness Renard stealing the GPS locator card as well as a half-quantity of weapons-grade plutonium from a bomb. Renard later uses the plutonium to initiate an explosion within Elektra’s pipeline in an attempt to kill Bond and Jones, making it appear Renard is targeting Elektra. However, after Elektra thinks Bond is dead, she kidnaps M, taking her to Istanbul.

Elektra then reveals she had her father killed as revenge for using her as bait to capture Renard and resents M for advising her father not to pay the ransom. Elektra also reveals that she and Renard are now partners. They intend to destroy Istanbul in an effort to increase the value of Elektra’s pipeline, which goes around the city, sabotaging the Russians’ oil pipeline in the process. Bond establishes that the pair will do so by creating a nuclear explosion in a captured Russian submarine located in Istanbul’s port. Bond frees M before tracking down and killing Elektra. With Jones’ help, he disarms the bomb on the submarine, killing Renard in the process.

The World Is Not Enough was the first Bond film directed by Michael Apted, with the original story and screenplay written by veteran Bond writers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Bruce Feirstein. The title was taken from a line in the 1963 Fleming novel, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Despite mixed critical reception, the movie earned $361.7M worldwide on a budget of $135M. Once again, Brosnan’s salary increased significantly, this time to $12.4M. The movie became both the highest grossing and most expensive of the Bond series to date. Unfortunately, it also became the first to win a Golden Raspberry Award.

Denise Richards was chosen “Worst Supporting Actress” at the 1999 Razzie Awards. Richards and Brosnan were also nominated for “Worst Screen Couple”. Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a 52% rating based on 145 reviews, the lowest of the Brosnan Bond films. The site’s consensus states, “Plagued by mediocre writing, uneven acting, and a fairly by-the-numbers plot, The World Is Not Enough is partially saved by some entertaining and truly Bond-worthy action sequences.” In 2006, Entertainment Weekly picked it as the worst Bond film of all time, saying it had a plot “so convoluted even Brosnan has admitted to being mystified.”

A sad note. The World Is Not Enough was the last film for Desmond Llewelyn. He played the character Q in 17 of 19 Eon-produced Bond films, more than any other actor, beginning with 1963’s From Russia With Love. Q (standing for Quartermaster), like M, is a job title rather than a name. He is the head of Q Branch, the fictional research and development division of the British Secret Service. On December 19, 1999, while driving home alone from a book signing event, Llewelyn was involved in a fatal car crash, three weeks after the film’s premiere. He was 85 years old. An inquest recorded a verdict of accidental death.

In The World Is Not Enough, during Q’s briefing of 007, he introduces John Cleese as R, his heir presumptive, and the film alludes to Q’s retirement. Llewelyn had stated not long before his death that he had no plans to retire and would continue playing Q “as long as the producers want me and the Almighty doesn’t.” Cleese replaced Llewelyn as Q for the final Brosnan film, Die Another Day, having inherited the title of quartermaster from his predecessor. After the 2006 series reboot, Q did not appear again until the third Daniel Craig film, where he was played by actor Ben Whishaw.

— Die Another Day (Released November 20, 2002): Bond investigates North Korean Colonel Tan-Sun Moon (Will Yun Lee), who is illegally trading African conflict diamonds for weaponry. Moon is apparently killed while Bond is captured and tortured for 14 months. Ultimately, North Korea exchanges Bond for Tang Ling Zao (Rick Yune), Moon’s assistant. Despite being suspended by MI6 on his return, he decides to complete his mission and tracks Zao to a Cuban gene therapy clinic. The clinic alters a patient’s appearance through DNA restructuring. While in Havana, Bond meets NSA agent Giacinta ‘Jinx’ Johnson (Halle Berry), who is also investigating Zao.

Both determine Zao is a patient and attempt to kill him, but he escapes. However, he leaves behind a clue that points to British billionaire Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens). Graves’ company operates a mirror satellite, Icarus, which is able to focus solar energy on a small area and supposedly provide year-round sunshine for crop development. During his investigation, Bond discovers Moon didn’t die. Instead, he underwent gene therapy, assuming the identity of Graves. Bond and Jinx pursue Graves and his assistant Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike), a British double agent, to the Korean peninsula. Stowing away on Graves’ cargo plane, they expose his plan.

Graves intends to use Icarus to cut a path through the Korean Demilitarized Zone, which is heavily mined, with concentrated sunlight. This will allow North Korean troops to invade South Korea and reunite the countries through force. Bond struggles with him to gain possession of the Icarus controls as Graves attempts to escape by parachute. But Bond opens his parachute prematurely, pulling Graves out of the plane and into one of its engines. He dies and the Icarus beam is disabled, preventing the invasion. Meanwhile, Jinx kills Frost in a sword fight. Bond and Jinx escape in Graves’ helicopter before the plane disintegrates.

Die Another Day, directed by Lee Tamahori, marked the franchise’s 40th anniversary. For Tamahori, it was the first and only Bond film he’d direct. The movie surpassed The World Is Not Enough as the highest-grossing and most costly to date, earning $431.9M worldwide on a budget of $142M. At the time, the film received generally positive to mixed reviews. Over time, opinion shifted, with the movie often occupying a low rank on Bond-related lists. It’s been strongly criticized by some reviewers for relying too heavily on gadgets, CGI, and special effects, with the plot being neglected.

Moore remarked, “I thought it just went too far – and that’s from me, the first Bond in space! Invisible cars and dodgy CGI footage? Please!”. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an approval rating of 56% based on 220 reviews, same as Tomorrow Never Dies. The site’s consensus reads, “Its action may be a bit too over-the-top for some, but Die Another Day is lavishly crafted and succeeds in evoking classic Bond themes from the franchise’s earlier installments.” However, for Broccoli and Wilson, it was the end of the line. They were at a loss as to future storylines, having long ago exhausted Fleming’s stories. The well had run dry.

A post-9/11 world required a new beginning. “The first Bond movie that came out [after] 9/11 was Die Another Day,” says Andrew Ellard, a screenwriter and script editor who’s been a Bond obsessive since childhood. “In that moment, the world was angry and paranoid and looking to understand the complexity of what had happened.” What the world got instead was a Bond movie full of invisible cars and campy ice lairs. “It just struck totally the wrong tone,” says Ellard. It was time to take James Bond back to the beginning, with a new actor portraying 007 in a grittier fashion that reflected the era’s cultural climate.

To end this post, I’ve included a compilation video showing Brosnan’s “40 Great James Bond Quotes” including Bond’s famous introduction; “Bond, James Bond”.

Enjoy!

As always, your feedback is appreciated!