The World Is Not Enough (1999) – A Review
A review of the 1999 James Bond movie The World Is Not Enough starring Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards and Judi Dench
Pierce Brosnan returns for his third performance as James Bond in 1999’s The World Is Not Enough directed by Michael Apted.
Her father murdered and after having survived a kidnapping nightmare, Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) a beautiful oil heiress, is once again targeted by her kidnapper the notorious terrorist Renard (Robert Carlyle).
A bullet lodged in his head has made Renard an especially dangerous threat that he now no longer feels any physical pain. Vowing to finish her fathers construction of her family’s oil pipeline, Elektra refuses to be intimidated and is determined to see it to its completion no matter what the risks. M (Judi Dench) has her own personal reasons to make sure Elektra is safe and assigns 007 to protect her.
Bond begins having his own feelings towards Elektra and soon stumbles into a world altering situation with submarines and nuclear warheads. He encounters one of the most unique casting decisions in the series with a nuclear physicist by the name of Christmas Jones (Denise Richards), the return of Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltran), one of the hottest women ever who will forever be known as the Cigar Girl (Maria Grazia Cucinotta), a new quatermaster being groomed with the name of R (John Cleese), plus a final good-bye to Desmond Llewelyn as Q.
The World Is Not Enough Review from HaphazardStuff on Vimeo.
Another great and entertaining video. The third Bond film starring a continuing actor is that iconic one, the one film that would define their Bond career. Connery had Goldfinger, Moore had The Spy Who Loved Me, and now Brosnan had The World Is Not Enough (TWINE) Goldfinger is a cinematic icon, whilst The Spy Who Loved Me is a fantastic, entertaining and bloated spy yarn.
After the growing pains of Goldeneye and the safe action bet of Tomorrow Never Dies, TWINE will be the film that would give Brosnan more to play with. Characterisation, depth, and memorable villains. Sadly TWINE suffers through contradictory storytelling, disappointing performances (more on that later) and potential that could have been explored, and exploited, to the highest depth.
Although to be fair, TWINE tries to shake things up a bit, with Bond trying to deal with personal feelings towards a professional case. And also with the exploration of Bond's psyche. Pretty heavy stuff, and if done well could turn out to be captivating viewing. Sadly instead it breaks down forty minutes in due to a lack of confrontation, and the introduction of the world's unlikely nuclear physicist.
Performance wise, the film is a mixed bag. Despite the second and third acts failing miserably, Brosnan give his best performance as James Bond in this film. Yet again, he tried to do achieve something more worthwhile, only to be thwarted by a terrible script, and a terrible co-star. Denise Richards is just awful, like you said, you have to have some suspension of disbelief in the world of Bond, but to get the 'It' girl from 1999 to play a nuclear physicist is just too much to swallow. Richards is dull, and terrible. In contrast for me the biggest tragedy of the film is Sophie Marceau. Marceau is both beautiful and a talented actress and in TWINE, she uses both these traits. Her performance in the beginning is fantastic, she leaves the audience on the edge and makes you keep guessing. However by the time of the big denouncement, her performance completely breaks down. Her performance becomes so bad that I found hard to believe it was the same actress, let alone the same character. If you have to play a sadistic, manipulative bitch, then please avoid doing cackling school girl impressions.
As I said above TWISNE was the film to cement Brosnan's Bond, and it did, by showing all the flaws in the formula. As you mentioned in your video, the film could have easily become Brosnan's best Bond film, and it had the potential to explore new ground, instead yet again the producers decided to play it safe. Surely the producers were prepared to cover new ground in the next Bond film?… Were they?!