WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
I remember watching X-Men for the first time growing up and felt that Jean Grey was such a strong character, especially once she becomes the Phoenix in the last film (a part of the story I feel they messed up a little in latter films but that’s a discussion for a later article).
GoldenEye
I would say, that Famke’s character of Onnatop is the first ‘femme fatale’ Bond Girl. She mixes the danger and fighting of Grace Jones’ May Day with the beauty of many other Bond Girls before her. I’ll be honest, when we first meet her character – I didn’t 100% recognize her. My issue however, is when she speaks for the first time. In space of maybe 2 minutes, she drifts from a French accent, to American before finally settling on Russian – which is clearly what it was supposed to be in the first place! The most important thing about this for me, is that until we meet Janus, the audience are slightly fooled into believing that Onnatop is the villain of the film.
The Faculty
I’ll be honest, I probably could have written this paragraph without actually watching this film because I’ve seen it so many times. In the grand scheme of things, Famke’s role is pretty small, I make it she only has four scenes. The amazing thing is the difference between her in those two scenes. It’s amazing what a pair of glasses and a softly spoken voice can do to change a person’s demeanour. The altered Miss Burke actually remind me alot of the way Famke looks when she plays Jean Grey – just without the red hair. I also love the change in the interaction between herself and Josh Harnett’s character of Zeke, the fact that the change, made to her character by the alien creatures, changes the hierarchy in their conversation – she’s able to stand up for herself.
Celebrity
For a moment I thought we weren’t going to see much of Famke’s character of Bonnie other than her cutting a beautiful, statuesque figure next to Kenneth Branagh about 40 minutes into the film. However, it feels to me that the relationship between their characters is the only one that actually pushes him to do anything worthwhile with his writing. It’s Bonnie that asks Philip Datloff to help him get his novel out there. Of course what I’m about to say is specifically comparing Bonnie to Melanie Griffith’s and Charlize Theron’s characters, but she is a much stronger character emotionally as both of the other two, and I think this is on purpose, are quite two-dimensional and it seems Branagh’s character of Lee is only attracted to them sexually instead of the intellectual beauty he finds in Bonnie. It’s for this reason that Lee cheating on her with Nola annoys me so much! This is actually one of two films on this list that she stars in with Bebe Neuwirth, but at no point do they share the screen in either.
Honorary Mentions
Interestingly, Famke actually went on to do more acting after her first appearance as Jean Grey than beforehand. Having said that, she is actually in the remake of House on Haunted Hill, which I should be discussing in a future article. This also isn’t the only horror film she’s made as she also appeared in Lord of Illusions and Deep Rising. Additionally, not only did she star alongside some big names in Celebrity but in Rounders, she shared the screen with both Matt Damon and Ed Norton.
