Movie

GoldenEye (1995)

Pierce Brosnan’s four Bond movies were escapist material, which allowed for outlandish characters like a Georgian assassin who crushes men between her thighs. Xenia is the first villainess from the Brosnan era to make the top twenty. This was the golden age of evil Bond girls.

The change of leading man comes with a new supporting cast. There’s now a woman in charge of the 00 section, with Judi Dench in her first appearance as M. Samantha Bond is Moneypenny, and Q (Desmond Llewelyn) is a mainstay. Bond one-liners and crazy gadgets are included, and director Martin Campbell – helming his first franchise reboot – brings style to the frantic set pieces. Massive explosions, dramatic escapes, and impossible stunts are packed into two hours of entertainment.

By this point, filmmakers were experimenting with the tried and tested formula. Two surprise bad guys are thrown into the mix, though savvy viewers will guess both twists before they happen. A secret lair and army are standard for a Bond villain, but controlling a Russian satellite weapon requires technical genius. The female lead is Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco). If we discount her, that leaves only the egotistical Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming) as the insider.

Besides introducing a new lead actor – with ambiguous camera angles before his grand reveal – the prologue assault on a Soviet chemical weapons lab gives us Sean Bean as 006 Alec Trevelyan. He is supposedly executed after the mission goes wrong, setting up a vendetta between 007 and Colonel Ourumov (Gottfried John). However, Bean is second on the credits and always plays bad guys, so it’s no shock he survives to become the main villain.

Xenia is the most physical female opponent Bond has ever faced. That covers sexual activity (not advisable with her) and getting beaten up by the hero. She can take a lot of punishment (and enjoys it) given her background as a Soviet fighter pilot.

The villainess knows how to exploit male weaknesses. Her first appearance comes early when a female operative tests Bond’s driving skills. That goes how any fan would expect, with Bond flouting the rules and racing a mysterious brunette in a Ferrari. She’s an excellent driver herself, able to pull off swerving manoeuvres at high speed. There were several close calls before Bond wisely broke off the contest. And takes the safer option to romance his passenger.

Bond catches up with Xenia at a Monte Carlo casino. She’s enjoying good luck at the baccarat table until the tuxedoed charmer shows up to change her fortune. The typical Bond introduction then follows, with names exchanged in classic style. Xenia has a date with an admiral, but Bond suspects something is amiss, so he has Moneypenny run a background check.

Not spending the night with Xenia turns out to be a smart move, since the assassin murders the admiral in bed with her signature thigh-crushing routine. When Bond discovers the body the next morning, it appears he died in ecstasy.

Xenia and her male accomplice use the officer’s stolen ID to board a French warship. The villainess murders two pilots to steal their flight jackets (and dark-tinted visor helmets), all to hijack a prototype helicopter. Bond arrives too late to stop them, and the detained hero can only watch as they escape.

Villainess

Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen)

Three murders in the opening half hour tell us Xenia is not a woman to trifle with. Ourumov – now a general – runs a weapons test at a remote Siberian facility, a ruse to steal the arming keys for a satellite-based electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon. Xenia slaughters the civilian staff with a submachine gun once they’ve outlived their usefulness, and even Ourumov looks uneasy at her enthusiasm for mass murder. The only survivor is computer programmer Natalya, who escapes the massacre through luck and ingenuity. As Bond women go, she’s at the more competent end of the spectrum.

We’re shown how devastating the stolen GoldenEye is when the villains fry the computers and cover their escape. Back in London, Bond watches the attack unfold on monitors, and Natalya is the only person who can identify the thieves. Of course, the person she contacts is the traitor, Boris. Natalya is already nervous when she arrives at an eerie church, and things get worse when she discovers her confidant is in league with Xenia.

Bond’s investigation takes him to St. Petersburg, where he receives help from CIA agent Jack Wade. Joe Don Baker is one actor to play multiple roles in the series, in a non-villainous role this time. The hero also forms an uneasy alliance with Russian mob boss Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane).

Bond asks too many questions, a pet peeve of villains. So it’s time to send Xenia for a (literal) steamy encounter in the hotel sauna. This meeting is more intimate – a bizarre mix of verbal exchanges and rough sex. Xenia attempts to thigh-crush Bond, but he frees himself. The hero has had quite enough of the foreplay and demands to meet the boss.

Another gloomy meeting spot: a statue graveyard, where Bond knocks Xenia out and discovers the missing helicopter. The hero is surprised to see his old partner Alec alive, but soon realises he’s walked into a trap. But does Trevelyan kill Bond? No, he locks him and Natalya in the helicopter and sets off radar-guided missiles to destroy the evidence and the pesky secret agent. A stupid move that allows the heroes to escape the blast with an ejector seat.

The hero barely has time to argue his case to Natalya before the Russians show up. In the interrogation, she fingers Ourumov, but the villain frames Bond for the defence minister’s murder. Xenia is absent from the action that follows: a chase through an archive building where Natalya is recaptured. After a dramatic escape, Bond steals a tank to pursue the bad guys. A one-sided chase with Bond even more indestructible than usual.

After wrecking half of St. Petersburg, the hero tracks the villains to an old Soviet missile train. The armoured vehicle survives a cannon blast, but not a head-on collision with the tank. Bond has the upper hand against Trevelyan, but his foe knows his weaknesses and has Ourumov bring Natalya in as a bargaining chip. Now that the true villain has shown his face, the accomplice is expendable.

Trevelyan repeats his mistake by locking Bond in with Natalya and setting off an explosion. Didn’t he learn the first time? After another narrow escape and a loud bang, the heroes swap dreary Russia for sunny Cuba. We get romance on the beach and a more human Bond, but that’s only a brief interlude. The final confrontation takes place at a secret control facility hidden underwater. Everything is formulaic: gadgets, a resourceful female ally, close-quarters fights. But it’s worked for thirty years, so why change things?

Bond’s last encounter with Xenia occurs in the jungle after his plane is shot down by a missile. With the hero dazed from the crash, the henchwoman descends on a rope from a helicopter and overpowers him. She’s armed, but wants to humiliate Bond, and squeezes him between her thighs. Natalya intervenes, but gets head-butted (if you’re watching the uncut version). After a quick struggle, Bond uses Xenia’s rifle to shoot the helicopter, and the villainess – still hooked to the rope – is crushed between two tree branches. A Bond one-liner to cap things off, but Xenia deserved a longer fight scene.

Honourable Mentions / Discussions: Timothy Dalton / Pierce Brosnan Bond Movies

The Living Daylights (1987)

Timothy Dalton plays a more serious Bond, but the fantastical plot elements remain. Locations are still exotic, the gadgets hi-tech, and the women beautiful, but villain ambitions are toned down somewhat. The grittier 007 films tend not to feature female foes, and even the leading lady – Maryam D’Abo as the cellist Kara Milovy – is incompetent and present for romance only.

Kara gets an intriguing introduction, going from an innocent concert performer to a sniper whom Bond is reluctant to kill. This is later revealed to be a setup to fake a defection, and Kara is no weapons expert. When Bond asks Q to research female assassins, one muscular woman’s MO is strangulation by thighs. Foreshadowing for GoldenEye?

Other than Kara, the key players in this Cold War thriller are male, and the villains are some of the weakest in the series. The CIA uses Bond’s sexism against him by employing two beautiful agents, but besides trapping the hero, they are given little to do.

Licence to Kill (1989)

Dalton’s second and final entry dispensed with the humour and gave us a violent revenge thriller. James Bond goes rogue and seeks payback when drug dealer Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi) leaves Felix Leiter a hospitalised widower. The plot is not so outlandish, even if Sanchez runs a drug factory disguised as a temple. The trademark action and stunts are present, with a ten-minute tanker truck chase (as explosive as you might expect) to finish.

No henchwomen on show, but the female characters are stronger than expected. Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell) is a competent lead who can handle herself in a fight. Absent for the first half, she makes a powerful impression in the second as an operative equal to 007. Most of the plot revolves around their infiltrating Sanchez’s organisation and turning the villains against each other. There’s an extended role for Q as an unlikely field agent, but ultimately this comes down to Bond versus the drug dealer.

Talisa Soto as the villain’s mistress Lupe is a more traditional Bond girl, but she proves a valuable ally. We get an unmasking scene after two Asian “ninja” narcotics agents – one female – capture Bond on a rooftop. Their interference messes up his plan to kill Sanchez, and the woman dies in a hail of bullets soon after.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

An insane villain plans to start a war between two nuclear powers. Sound familiar? This time it’s the UK against China, and the bad guy is Elliot Carver, a media mogul who thinks global conflict will improve his ratings. After the era of fake news, this techno-thriller doesn’t seem so implausible. And there’s enough action, including a spectacular motorcycle chase in Saigon, to make this a watchable, if routine, adventure.

As the only Brosnan movie without a female villain, the enemies are fairly generic. Jonathan Pryce is a hammy foe who reveals his scheme too soon. For henchmen, he has a tough guy to do the fighting and a computer hacker for the technical stuff. Fortunately, the women are more interesting. Teri Hatcher is Carver’s wife, who had a previous relationship with Bond, and that suggests her life will end tragically.

China sends an agent of its own – Wai Lin – to investigate Carver’s network. She’s played by Hong Kong action star Michelle Yeoh, so does all the fighting and stunts you would expect. Other than a couple of moments of idiocy, she’s an effective secret agent. Her one-woman ninja army is a highlight during the otherwise weak climax on a stealth boat. She gets captured during the finale, and the romance feels awkward, but Wai Lin is among the best female leads.

Die Another Day (2002) – Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike)

Michelle Yeoh was slated to return for Brosnan’s final Bond outing, but she dodged the proverbial bullet by not appearing. The end product is a mess, with a watchable – though far-fetched – first half followed by a truly awful second half. The villain is a North Korean colonel obsessed with conquering the South by any means necessary. After his supposed death, he takes on the identity of British entrepreneur Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens) to complete his evil scheme.

The ability to replace human DNA and completely change one’s appearance seems believable compared to other elements. Such as an invisible car, a solar-powered ray satellite operated by a wrist computer, and electrified armour. Other than the fencing match between Bond and Graves that turns into a brutal sword fight, the film is overblown and ridiculous, even for 007.

Halle Berry is NSA agent Jinx, who becomes the main protagonist for some parts. This includes daring solo action and spouting awful puns. When she converses with Bond, it’s truly painful. A female Korean interrogator stings her prisoners with scorpion venom, but she only features in the prologue.

The main villainess is Miranda Frost, an MI6 operative working undercover as Graves’ publicist. In fact, she’s a double agent who betrayed Bond to the North Koreans. Frost is introduced as an Olympic champion fencer (complete with an unmasking scene). But when Bond confronts Grave in his ice palace (more silliness), he discovers his fellow agent is untrustworthy.

After Bond escapes and rescues Jinx (no surprises there), the two agents go after the villains. The climax takes place on a military aircraft with Bond battling Graves and his electric suit, while Jinx and Miranda have a sword duel. The skimpy outfits make the fight seem ludicrous, and Jinx completes Bond’s revenge mission. When he arrives to see Miranda already dead, he doesn’t look too happy.

Note: The “missing” third Brosnan film will be covered as a ranked villainess entry later