Goldfinger User Reviews

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The best part of Goldfinger is the theme song. It’s a great theme song. In fact, that whole opening credits sequence is good.

Goldfinger isn’t a bad film, but it simply doesn’t hold up anymore, especially in the light of Casino Royale. The new Bond films make the old series – especially the films after Goldfinger – look ridiculously stupid. And rightly so, because these old films, whether the rabid fans will admit it or not, are, to put it bluntly, dumb. Sean Connery has said that he thinks people take James Bond too seriously. He’s right. It’s not meant to be taken seriously. Nothing that is inherently stupid should be.

And Goldfinger, just like the rest of the Bond films, is inherently stupid – just a little less stupid than the other films in the first version of the franchise. The puns are horrifically bad, but at least they are funny, though you’ll hate yourself for laughing at them. The script is rife with clichés and hokeyness. The antagonists actually call their master plan “Operation Grandslam”. Nobody ever uses the prefix ‘Operation’ for anything, ever (not unless you’re in the military). There are other things too. The weapons on the car are Mario Kart-esque in terribleness. Oil slick? Really? (At least the spike strip is believable.) The script for minor actors/extras is horrifically bad, as evidenced in the sequence where all the businessmen get gassed. Also, the special effects don’t hold up anymore. Here we have possibly the most blatant use of blue-screening in a commercially successful film.

That doesn’t mean the film is all bad. Sean Connery is surprisingly good. In fact, he’s very good. All the women are great (performance-wise, and good looking). And the film is entertaining. The story is okay.

Goldfinger is very good for a Bond film. It’s good for a film made in the 60s. But with no qualifications, it’s merely ordinary.