From 1995 to 2002, Pierce Brosnan held the reins of the James Bond franchise. Before Brosnan’s tenure as the 007 agent, it had been six years since a James Bond movie had graced the silver screen. Timothy Dalton had been the last actor to play Bond in 1989’s License to Kill. Pierce Brosnan, for his part, would go on to star in only four James Bond movies as the super-spy extraordinaire.
Like every other 007 actor before him, the quality of Brosnan’s Bond movies varies from film to film. Broadly speaking, the movies tend to experience a declining level of quality as they go. The plug was finally pulled in 2002 with Die Another Day and there wouldn’t be another Bond film until 2006’s Casino Royale with Daniel Craig at the helm. Although every 007 aficionado undoubtedly has their favorite movie starring Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, this list will attempt to rank the Irish actor’s best and worst entries.
4 Die Another Day (2002)
Die Another Day is arguably the weakest of the bunch on Pierce Brosnan’s resume. All James Bond movies require viewers to suspend their disbelief to some extent. The plots, not to mention Bond’s vast plethora of futuristic gadgets, are all pretty farfetched. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing for fans looking for escapist entertainment. Nevertheless, certain Bond movies invariably go a little overboard in what they expect fans to take at face value (Moonraker tends to come to mind). Die Another Day falls into this category as well.
The plot of the movie revolves around Bond’s efforts to discover the identity of the double agent that led to him being captured and imprisoned in North Korea for over a year. Events then spiral into a rather dubious plot involving gene therapy, solar-powered superweapons, and stolen diamonds. Fans would be forgiven for thinking that the plot is a bit hard to follow. Coupled with this tangled narrative is Bond’s overreliance on increasingly ludicrous gadgets. Bond’s Aston Martin even turns invisible! Overall, the film leans much too heavily on style over substance.
3 The World Is Not Enough (1999)
It’s open for debate whether or not The World Is Not Enough is worse than Die Another Day. The plot of The World Is Not Enough is also pretty hard to believe, though perhaps not quite to the extreme as the previous entry. Some of the co-stars of this film proved to be a mixed bag. Critics at the time praised Sophie Marceau’s performance as Elektra King, the main antagonist of the plot. Conversely, Denise Richards, who played the nuclear physicist Christmas Jones, was widely panned.
The narrative of The World Is Not Enough is interesting, though it won’t blow the minds of longtime spy-thriller enthusiasts. The twists and turns the movie tries to invoke can likely be spotted by fans from a mile away. That said, the action sequences certainly retain their entertainment value and refrain from completely going off the deep end like Die Another Day. Nothing about the film breaks the mold, however, and stands as a fairly “by the numbers” Bond adventure.
2 Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Tomorrow Never Dies is one of Pierce Brosnan’s more interesting 007 outings, at least from the standpoint of the narrative. The film co-stars Jonathan Pryce, who plays a memorable villain in the form of Elliot Carver, an amoral media mogul. In addition, Michelle Yeoh plays Wai Lin, a Chinese operative whom Bond works with throughout the movie.
The plot itself centers around Carver’s attempts to drive the UK and China into a war for his own personal enrichment. Although the idea of Bond trying to stop a war between two superpowers is a pretty tired trope for the franchise( many focused on the Cold War), there’s enough of a unique spin on it to make Tomorrow Never Dies an intriguing entry that fans may not want to skip.
1 Goldeneye (1995)
Without a doubt, Goldeneye is Pierce Brosnan’s greatest James Bond movie, while also being the actor’s first. The movie feels right at home alongside other classic 007 entries. The film avoids reveling in the more absurd aspects of the franchise that marred Brosnan’s later movies. Goldeneye also includes one of the series’ best villains, Sean Bean’s Alec Trevelyan. Of course, fans mustn’t also forget Famke Janssen’s character, Xenia Onatopp, a brutal assassin who specializes in strangling her victims using her thighs.
Goldeneye’s action sequences are impressive. The fight sequence toward the end of the movie where Bond and Trevelyan duke it out atop a massive satellite dish is as exciting as it is memorable. The film was a popular and financial success, spawning the equally legendary Goldeneye 007 video game in 1997. Although Pierce Brosnan’s tenure as James Bond isn’t nearly as sterling as that of Sean Connery in terms of success, Goldeneye rightfully deserves its positive recognition.
