Day 19 - The World Is Not Enough (1999) - Film Review

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle & Denise Richards

Screenplay: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade & Bruce Feirstein

Directed By: Michael Apted

Certificate: 12

Day 19 and we arrive at the first Bond movie to have been released during my lifetime. While Pierce Brosnan was making his third outing as 007, little ten-month old me was blissfully unaware of it. But now twenty-one years have passed and 'The World Is Not Enough' now has the displeasure of meeting me. The film begins with Bond retrieving the money of a British oil tycoon from a Swiss banker, but upon returning the money to MI6, they discover it's booby-trapped killing its owner in a violent explosion. MI6 track the assassin down and discover it to be an ex-KGB operative turned terrorist, known as Renard. Renard has history with MI6 and had previously kidnapped the murdered oil tycoon's daughter, Elektra. With her life in potential risk, M assigns Bond to protect her, but is there perhaps more to Elektra than meets the eye? 

As usual, we kick off with an action-heavy opening and I think it might be one of the longest pre-title sequences the franchise has seen so far. But hey it's a really good opening, and even features a speedboat chase (crikey, how long has it been since we last saw one of them?) along the Thames. This leads us into the eponymous theme provided by rock group, Garbage, and for me this is one of the more obscure Bond themes. I'd thought that I was familiar with nearly all the themes, but in this case I'd never even heard of this group before. It's a shame that it went under my radar too as I really liked this one. Unlike Sheryl Crow's theme in the previous film, it gets across a sultry tone far better before it shifts into a much more grandiose, symphonic chorus. It's not treading much new ground for a Bond theme, but it still manages to forge its own identity all the same.

However, once we're past this introduction, 'The World Is Not Enough' turned out to be almost the inverse of 'Tomorrow Never Dies'. Whereas the opening and the theme were probably the weakest parts of that one, in this case 'Tomorrow Never Dies' probably peaks with its opening. I'll make no secret of the fact that this was quite a comedown after how much I'd enjoyed Brosnan's last two films. Part of this comes from the more confused tone of the film - whereas the last two were played mostly seriously but with that vital dash of levity, this one doesn't quite get the ratio right. For instance, almost as though it had foreknowledge of Desmond Llewellyn's passing shortly after this was released, the film introduces Q's successor in training played by John Cleese, and his introduction felt downright bizarre. From trapping his coat in the door of the car to flailing about inside a jacket designed to shield its occupant, it feels overdone and reminded me of the kind of antics that had aged poorly from some of Roger Moore's films. Then of course there's the most common criticism whenever 'The World Is Not Enough' is discussed - Denise Richards as the world's least convincing nuclear physicist, Christmas Jones. To be fair to Richards, I wouldn't exactly lay all the blame for this at her door. Rather I'd question the casting director, 'cause I'm sure Richards could've played a decent character if she'd been cast in a different role. But to try and pass her off as a nuclear physicist, to put so little effort into her and then dress her in a tank top and shorts - it's all too clear that she's been put here as an object of sex appeal who just happens to be along with Bond for the ride for some reason.

Faring slightly better, we have Sophia Marceau as Elektra. For the first half of the film, I didn't really have much to say about her as she was basically just the plot McGuffin - someone Bond is sent out to protect and someone for him to end up having sex with. But come the second half of the film, where it's revealed there is indeed more to her than meets the eye, I suddenly found her a lot more compelling. Elektra and Renard make an interesting pairing of villains, with Bond even pointing out how Elektra appears to have developed Stockholm syndrome during her time as Renard's captive. It's a shame that a pairing with such potential doesn't really get its time to shine in a plot that feels this ordinary and played out by now. When Bond was first on his way to meet Elektra and we were inundated with shots of multiple oil pumps and helicopter saws deforesting the trees, I thought we might've been in for an ecological theme. Just as technology was the focus last time, maybe we'd be in for a villain who's an eco-terrorist or a power mad industrialist bent on ravaging an area of the planet for its natural resources. Instead the villains' plans are a lot more simple and they're only out to secure a monopoly on their oil pipeline. It's a bit underwhelming really, and like the prospect of bringing Judi Dench's M out into the field only to have her be captured and locked up most of that time, it's a waste of potential.

I'm trying my best not to sound too harsh to this film as there's stuff in here I did like. For example, Robert Carlyle becomes the third big-name actor in a row to turn his hand to a villainous role as Renard, and while I don't think he quite surpasses the previous two, he's still great. Carlyle is doing his best to cut an intimidating figure, which he mostly succeeds at, even if everything else about his character is absurdly exaggerated. He's got a shaved head, the first time we see him he's wearing a dark leather jacket and surrounded by fire, and above all, because of a bullet lodged in his brain disrupting his nerves, he's impervious to pain. It's trying so hard to be edgy, and if an actor not as strong as Carlyle were in the role it may not have worked. But as it stands I think Renard works in the old-fashioned villain kind of way. With the deformity being his inability to experience pain, he's something of a callback to the villains of years past when villainy was emphasized by physical defects. Yet with such a strong conceit for a villain, like a lot of things in this film, it does feel like Renard should've made more of an overall impression. 

'The World Is Not Enough' is the first of the Brosnan films where I can understand the general apathy towards it. With the exception of 'GoldenEye', his films have garnered lukewarm responses and while I thought that was very unfair for 'Tomorrow Never Dies', in this case I can totally see why. One common complaint is that the plot is convoluted, but rather than being convoluted I'd say it's more just standard Bond fare by now and it's lacking anything to help it stand out. It's not a bad film by any means and there are glimmers of something more interesting in here, but this is definitely Brosnan's weakest film so far.

6/10

NEXT TIME - Die Another Day