The World is Not Enough
One of the biggest criticisms about “The World is Not Enough,” James Bond’s 19th official big-screen adventure, is the performance by Denise Richards as nuclear physicist Dr. Christmas Jones. Admittedly, she’s not great, and the last line is still one of the great cringe pieces of dialogue in any Bond film, but rewatching it, I’m not sure she even rates as one of the biggest problems this movie has. My memory was way too kind to this film.
This was Pierce Brosnan’s third time out as 007, and I’m almost dreading revisiting “Tomorrow Never Dies” and “Die Another Day” after seeing this one. I still will (and I hope Michelle Yeoh will help “Tomorrow Never Dies” date better than this film does), but considering the buzz surrounding Brosnan finally being able to take up the mantle of the iconic spy after he had to turn down the opportunity earlier in his career, this was a pretty disappointing run for him as the character after he raced out of the gates with “Goldeneye.” I think a big part of the problem lies in how the mid-’90s blockbuster landscape shaped into big, effects-laden spectacles vs. character-driven action. The producers had to try and keep up, and the results are too big and silly for the type of adventure the Bond formula has typically thrived in. That’s part of why Daniel Craig’s run after this has been more relatively successful- they stripped down the stories in a way that fit the character better. “The World is Not Enough” cannot figure out how big (or small) it wants to be.
The film begins with Bond on assignment, retrieving money for an oil tycoon from a Swiss banker. He makes it out with the money, but not without leaving some bodies behind. When he makes it back to MI6, though, it turns out the money was booby-trapped, and it explodes in MI6, killing the oil tycoon, and leaving Bond on the chase of someone who might know who was responsible in a motorboat chase that gets too silly, and goes on too long, to be taken seriously. The film’s credits start after the longer-than-usual prologue, and, as soon as the title track performed by Garbage (which is generic, at best) ends, the rest of the story kicks into motion involving the daughter of the dead oil tycoon (played by Sophie Marceau), a terrorist whom has a bullet in his brain shutting down his nervous system’s ability to feel pain (Robert Carlyle), and pipelines and nuclear weapons in a plot that just gets silly before Christmas Jones takes off her hazmat suit to show she was wearing short shorts and a tanktop underneath. What did I like about this movie in 1999?
Kudos to director Michael Apted for keeping the film moving at a solid pace as it goes through the motions of a 007 adventure; unfortunately, he cannot make the screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein make a lick of sense in a way we are able to feel any suspense or tension for. The action scenes in this one are ridiculous, with nothing really memorable about them. The dialogue doesn’t have much weight to it, and everyone- from Brosnan to Judi Dench as M to Desmond Llewelyn as Q (and John Cleese as his replacement, R) to Robbie Coltrane and the rest of the main cast, seems to be going through the motions. There’s nothing overly terrifying about Carlyle’s Renard, and Richards is a dud in bringing this character to life. That leaves Marceau, the beauty who was the French princess in “Braveheart,” and here really made an impression as one of the better Bond girls I’d seen up to that point. I feel like, rewatching it, my memory was based solely on the scene late in the movie Elektra King, Marceau’s character, has with Bond and a torture chair. That is where the character really comes to life, and her and Brosnan have genuine heat in that moment. She’s not as consistently strong a presence in the film as I remembered; I was hoping she would still be the reason to give this movie a watch. It’s not worth the time.
