M’s speech to Bond in GoldenEye has to go down as one of the great monologues in the Bond movies. Pierce Brosnan was the new Bond, and we had a female M in Judi Dench, which people weren’t so sure about, but this one scene likely laid every concern to rest.
I especially love it when Bond says “point taken,” thinking that would defuse the situation, but M just goes right on to tell him how she’d be perfectly happy to “send a man out to die.” And this was after she deliver the now-classic, “sexist, misogynist dinosaur; a relic of the Cold War.” And let’s not forget the symbolism of when M summarily dismisses Bond’s suggestion about the bottle her “predecessor” kept in the office.
Bond’s responses are key to the exchange too. Beyond the dialog, he has some facial expressions and pauses that really sell the idea that he’s dealing with something completely new.
The scene is utterly brilliant, and it launched one of the greatest character portrayals in the Bond movie canon. I’d never say GoldenEye was one of the top-tier Bond films, but it was exactly the film that the series needed at the time it came it out, and Dench was exactly the supporting actor that Brosnan needed to land on his feet.