The World Is Not Enough (1999) - Michael Apted
The Plot
Any story involving Denise Richards should be taken with a grain of salt and a lot of ogling. Mmmmm ... Denise Richards. Ok, sorry. Back to the program. An oil magnate, Robert King, gets killed within MI-6 headquarters, and all signs point to a former KGB assassin who previously kidnapped King's daughter, Elektra. Bond then uncovers a plot to put the world's oil supply in the hands of one person, with a staged nuclear explosion obliterating Istanbul, and Elektra may or may not be so innocent after all. A trifle complicated story (just let the science stuff slide by), but one more on a personal level to the Bond mythos.
Grade: B+
Locales
Bilbao, London, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Istanbul
Grade: B+
The Man
Pierce Brosnan
Approaching the five zero line, Brosnan seems in good shape for a daredevil secret agent (note that Roger Moore played the role well into his 50s). It does the character a lot of good here, being off-balance and playing catch-up for most of the movie. Brosnan puts his acting chops to good use, because we have an angry man here.
Grade: A-
The Villain(s)
Renard (Victor Zokas) (Robert Carlyle, OBE) - ex-KGB assassin turned terrorist; another agent put a bullet in his brain, but not enough to kill him. However, it numbed his nerves and his ability to feel pain - that is until the bullet finally reaches his cerebral cortex and kills him. In short, a man already dead with nothing to lose. Kidnaps Elektra King, eventually becomes her lover and partner to remake the world. Carlyle, best known for his work in Trainspotting and The Full Monty, is a menacing villain, although I feel its a kind of understated menace.
Trivia note: By the way, we should always put the OBE after his name, because the dude's an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Brosnan has an honorary one too. Moore in the meantime, is a Knight, outranking them both.
"Give. Me. Back. My Video iPod!"
Gabor (John Seru) - Strongman/bodyguard for Elektra King.
Bull (Mr. Bullion) (Goldie) - a henchman for Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane, reprising the role) but secretly in Elektra King's payroll. Shot by Zukovsky himself. Goldie is UK electonica artist, specializing in drum n' bass.
Sasha Davidov (Ulrich Thomsen) - another King henchman tasked to impersonate a Russian Atomic Energy official, for Renard's ploy to steal plutonium from a decommissioned ICBM site. Bond takes his place instead.
Mr Lachaise (Patrick Malahide) - banker who kept Robert King's money and unwittingly retrieved by Bond, which was set up to explode upon close proximity to King's lapel pin.
Grade: B+
The Girl(s)
Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) - heiress to a billion dollar oil business, Elektra was stricken with Stockholm Syndrome during her kidnapping. Teaming up with her own captor Renard, she proceeds to a) kill off her father; b) kill off M for advising her father during her kidnapping; and c) destroy competing oil pipelines via a staged nuclear explosion in the Bosphorus using a hijacked Russian submarine, leaving her company as the sole provider of oil in Europe. Talk about a woman's wrath. I guess it was fitting that Bond kills a Bond girl, for the first time ever.
forget about the French surrendering ... you'd give yourself up for her
Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards) - I guess B-movies can attract some casting agent's attention. And just like Teri Hatcher before her, she snags a plum role - as a nuclear weapons expert cleaning up a Russian missile base where unfortunately, Renard was planning to steal enough plutonium for a nuclear blast. Of course, you'll have the sly Christmas jokes somewhere in the movie. And to be honest, this seems like the highlight of Denise's career - what with the ugly divorce with Charlie Sheen and this. As Luke Cage would say, "Christmas!"
if this is a nuclear physicist, then i'm an astronaut.
Dr. Molly Warmflash (Serena Scott Thomas) - I seriously doubt if there was anyone in London named Warmflash. Do you? Really? Anyway, she's the in-house MI-6 doctor who "clears" Bond for active duty, after sustaining injuries from falling on the then-unfinished Millennium Dome.
Julietta the Cigar Girl (Maria Grazia Cucinotta) - Cigar Girl? More like Kickass Girl. After nearly killing Bond at MI-6 HQ, leads him around the Thames in a high-speed powerboat chase, then commits suicide in a hot air balloon. One of the few that slipped through Bond's hands. Not bad for the village girl in Il Postino.
"you never called, you never wrote, you left me pregnant..."
Grade: A
Gadgets
In keeping up with the heavy ad-placement, Visa issues him a credit card lockpick (notice that he never uses the same gadget twice, even though the earlier versions may be much more efficient).
Early in the film, his Walther P99 handgun creates a stun flash and lets him overpower the "Swiss bankers" surrounding him.
Bond also gets to impress Christmas early with the grappling hook attached to his watch which allows him to leap over buildings in a single bound! - ok, no, just to get out of a silo in the ground.
X-Ray glasses probably can be bought at any science kit store. Of course, Bond uses them to check out who's packing heat; you know, he's not gonna uh, use them to check out women's underwear.
Bond gets to ride in two nifty vehicles this time around - a mini-speedboat used to chase Julietta around the Thames and some London streets (actually, Q's "fishing" boat - which puts the old guy in a foul mood) and a new BMW roadster (which only has limited screentime with its taking out an enemy helicopter with a rocket before being sliced in two - literally - which again, should've put Q in a foul mood).
Speaking of the Q branch, among its showcased goodies would be a bagpipe-cum-flame thrower, and the "safety ball" - a jacket that inflates into a protective rubber cage shaped like a ball (which he uses on the ski slopes to protect Elektra and himself from an explosion and a small avalanche).
Dadgum! So that's how they built Shirley Manson!
Grade: B+
Bond Moments
You have the requisite Bond stuff - car chases, boat chases, ski chases, escape from underwater, wanton destruction of property. Three stand out: the 15-minute opener where he chases Julietta around the Thames (in one sequence, his speedboat dives underwater and coolly fixes his tie before resurfacing), the destruction of Zukovsky's caviar factory with the use of helicopters that have tree-cutters (a vertical set of circular blades), and the high-speed pursuit of an explosive device through an empty oil pipeline (that would make a cool ride in a James Bond theme park someday ... c'mon make it happen, people!!).
Again, as a nod to past films, the ending has the MI-6 people looking for Bond in Istanbul, but thermal imaging shows him lying down alone - until a pair of legs appear underneath him.
think about it this way ... its good practice for the Winter Olympics
M gets to have some more substantial screentime than chewing out 007 by getting imprisoned, and taking a page from Bond himself, uses the batteries of a clock to power the homing device of the nuclear device that Renard stole.
Once again, Q steals Bond's thunder by hinting of his retirement (i guess if Bond's improvisational use of his speedboat wasn't enough, the wrecking of the BMW would convince it was enough stress to deal with Bond), and introducing his eventual replacement, R (perfectly done by the respected John Cleese). Desmond Llewelyn, son of a Welsh coal miner, a British Army 2nd Lieutenant in WWII, a real-life gadget-hater, and the only actor to work with all 5 James Bonds (to that date), died in an car accident in 1999 after the release of the movie.
Yeah, that even trumped Bond shooting Elektra dead.
Grade: A-
One Liners
Bond: ...A shadow operation?
M: ...Remember 007, shadows always remain in front or behind... never on top.
Bond: Construction isn't exactly my speciality.
M: Quite the opposite, in fact.
Bond: Let's skirt the subject, shall we...?
[Takes off Dr. Warmflash's lower garments]
Ms. Moneypenny: James! Have you brought me a souvenir from your trip? Chocolates? An engagement ring?
Bond: I thought you might enjoy one of these.
[gives Ms. Moneypenny a cigar tube]
Ms. Moneypenny: How romantic. I know exactly where to put that.
[throws the cigar tube in the garbage]
James Bond: Oh Moneypenny, the story of our relationship: close, but no cigar.
"Oh, James! Is that what I think it is?"
Bond: I've always wanted to have Christmas in Turkey.
Christmas: Was that a Christmas joke?
Bond: From me? Never.
Bond: [in bed with Jones] I was wrong about you.
Christmas: Yeah, how so?
Bond: I thought Christmas only comes once a year.
Zukovsky: Can't you just say "hello" like a normal person?
Bond: What's your plan for the bomb?
Renard: You first. Or could it be you don't have a plan?
Bond: That bomb will never leave this room.
Renard: Neither will you.
Bond: If you're Q, does that make him R?
R: Ah yes, the legendary 007 wit, or at least half of it.
Julietta: Would you like to check my figures?
Bond: Oh, I'm sure they're perfectly rounded.
trust me on this: the guy holding Denise Richards is still bragging about it today.
Bond: I suppose we all have to pay the piper sometime. Right, Q?
Q: Oh, pipe down, 007!
Bond: Was it something I said?
Q: No, something you destroyed. My fishing boat! For my retirement, away from you!
Q: I've always tried to teach you two things. First, never let them see you bleed.
Bond: And the second?
Q: Always have an escape plan.
Exit Stage Down.
Grade: A-
Overall
The World is Not Enough, with the title taken from the Bond family motto, strives to be a darker film than the past two, with seemingly everyone being damaged by the events around them - an unfeeling and dying Renard, a psychotic Elektra, and even Bond himself loses his trademark cool at times (and we all got retinal damage ogling Christmas Jones). Which probably makes Michael Apted, the 3rd different Bond director since John Glen and whose dramatic credits include Coal Miner's Daughter and Gorky Park, a suitable helmer for the project. It was the time of the Y2K hysteria and no one knew what would happen at the turn of the millennium - hence, the dark tone of the film. It would then quite a twist of fate - or maybe fittingly - that the beloved Desmond Llewelyn would also take his leave prior to the turning point.
Grade: A-
dedicated solemnly and gleefully to Mr. Desmond Llewelyn (1914-1999)
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