Goldeneye really is the best Bond film. It site at the juncture of the transition to a post Cold War world, opening in the late USSR—007 gets haunted by ghost from his past in 006, just as the UK was facing reality as former Empire and its own indiscretions and lost glories.

Serra's score is key. The strongest gunbarrel sequence, and a motif theme evoking everything from submarine sonar to Oktavist chants in Orthodox tradition. There's no Moore goofiness here, no camp—Brosnan plays a straight ex Royal Navy Commander Bond.

When we meet this Bond, he does crack some witticisms—but the rest of the escape sequence doesn't rely on clever conversation like in Goldfinger or ludicrous contraptions as in Moonraker. He shoots his way out. He runs and guns better than the troops chasing him, and wins.

This Bond also has grace, with sex and the mission in order just under the surface—playing baccarat just as in Dr. No, with the greatest anti-Bond girl/Bond girl that wasn't, Xenia Onatopp (poetic license). You get the feeling they'dve made a nice couple.

As great as Brosnan is, in his best Bond film, Sean Bean as Alec Trevelyan, 006, is the best Bond Villain ever—ever. (And has been ripped-off since in uninspiring, hackneyed films)

An especially poignant scene; Bond can't resist a smirk when his former comrade asks about ol' Q.

The more you learn about the British Empire, about the Liberal order that a Bond in the real world would be defending, the fight for 'democracy', the hollowness of the global financial system 006 is about to disrupt, the more tragic this film becomes.

006 did nothing wrong!