Documentary Review: Goldenera The Legend of GoldenEye 007 Revealed 🎬🎮 @GoldenEraDoco #RetroGaming #007 #JamesBond

A full-length documentary about ‘the most important video game ever made’, Goldenera is a pretty robust documentary that covers the background, creation, release, and impact of Rare’s seminal 1997 title, Goldeneye.

A title that fuelled millions of hours of gaming upon its release, and for a lot of people, was the nucleus for some of their most treasured videogame memories.

With so many insanely deep dives into gaming topics littering the internet, it takes something special to pop its head up from the myriad YouTubers that have seemingly covered every aspect of the gaming spectrum in some form or other.

In my recent experiences, moving away from my YT’er of choice – Kim Justice – when it comes to gaming documentaries and looking to those that have seen a theatrical release of some sort, they always seem to feature endless, talking heads and dryly regurgitated facts.

Usually, by the forty-minute mark, my interest is waning. Goldenera distinguishes itself from these by being focused, kinetic and blending celebration with information, not getting mired in technical jargon, or bogged down with minutiae.

Cleanly and decisively directed by Drew Roller, Goldenera begins where all movies should – especially the Mission Impossible films - in Twycross. Covering the rise of Rare’s achievements through the 8- and 16-bit eras – it explains how a group of young, inexperienced, but incredibly driven colleagues grouped together in order to create the licenced videogame of 1995’s Goldeneye – the first outing of Pierce Brosnan as dapper superspy, James Bond. Led by David Doak – a man who appears to be slowly turning into Mick Fleetwood, good – the team would find themselves working 100+ hour weeks out of a pure passion to get the game released and into the Nintendo 64s of millions around the world.

8 million, to be exact.

I mentioned above that Goldenera is a kinetic documentary, and it really is – this is helped no end by the enthusiasm of those involved, David Doak is bright-eyed and completely on the ball when it comes to discussing Goldeneye’s inception and development, as are the rest of the original team interviewed, via a mix of in-person interviews as well as online calls.

There’s no dip in quality though, the sound mixing is crystal clear and intertitle sequences, incidental music and the visuals are shot through with Goldeneye-style goodness, giving the whole documentary a real sense of cohesion and clarity.

As the focus moves away from the dev team and outwards to those journalists, speed runners and fans that inhaled the game at the time (and still do), that sense of celebration never wavers, and it seems to come through to very editing and direction of the film, in how the vibe of everyone just having a good time bleeds into the whole production.

This is all helped by the fact that those watching will have their own memories and relationships tied to the game, as omnipresent as it seemed at the time. I remember having gaming sessions that seemingly went on for days around friends’ houses, as we slammed back Tizer and hoofed Taz Bars, trying to find every single secret in that grey cartridge, I know that my colleague Pixel Hunted will back me up on this.

A documentary that brims with joy at the subject matter it covers, filled with folks that not only love the game but also really know their stuff is mixed here with a high production value and deft editing that keeps the energy levels up.

Director – Drew Roller

Purchase Link - https://www.altitude.film