The World Is Not Enough

I get the feeling that the script meeting for The World Is Not Enough went something along these lines:

Neil Purvis (story): Errr...is Michael awake?

Michael G Wilson (producer): Yes I'm bloody awake.

NP: Have we actually filmed anything for this movie yet?

MGW: Nope.

Robert Wade (story): Any locations?

MGW: Errr...I like Spain.

RW: Spain sucks!

MGW: I *like* Spain.

NP: Pretitle sequence in Spain. Do we have a director yet?

MGW: Wha? No. Mmm...zzzzz

RW: I think he's asleep now.

NP: Well...You know what would be funny?

RW: What?

NP: If someone was called Christmas. Cause then, if you had sex with them twice, you could say...

RW: Christmas only comes once a year! That's brilliant!!!!

NP: Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

RW: Well, he's asleep so let's ask him quietly.

NP: Errr...Michael, would you disagree with us having the Bond girl called Christmas and ending on that cracking joke?

MGW: ZZzzzz.

RW: He didn't disagree.

NP: Man, I hope they get that cheerleader chick from Wild Things. She has great tits.

RW: Wet t-shirt..mmm...

Somewhere along the lines, The World Is Not Enough lost its way. Like Elliot Carver, chief villainess Elektra King has very bizarre motivations in this movie. Initially she wants to get revenge on "M" and her father by killing them because they didn't pay the ransome to free her from Claude Renard, who promptly shagged her. Or rather, she seduced and shagged him. Now she has inherited her father's millions and is building a pipeline that "M" informs us the Western World is dependent on. So when Elektra talks about how soon everything will be hers instead of her late father's one wonders exactly what she is talking about...after all, she already has it all. Then somewhere around the middle of the movie, King wants to nuke Istanbul because if she does, all the pipelines will be soured and everyone will have to use hers...except, "M"'s already said the Western world is dependent on hers anyway. So...why is she blowing up Istanbul again?

The pretitle sequence of this movie is the longest in the series history, primarily because all the stuff in Bilbao, Spain, was deemed to be not eventful enough and it's relatively short. Consequently, we get the boat race on the Thames to lead us into the title sequence (and let's make no bones about this, that boat chase is absolutely brilliant; featuring Bond launching himself out of MI6 - yes, the actual building - HQ, onto the Thames and then through the streets of London before Bond making a spectacular boat leap, as he jumps onto a hot air balloon launching). From this intriguing pre-title sequence we go into the title sequence, and this pretty much sets up the tone of the movie - meaningful, but ugly. The theme song is great (though in some ways it's just a retread of Surrender; Arnold finally being given the all clear to write the main song - and I'm still not convinced about David's gunbarrels), but the title sequence is just a mess of naked girls made out of oil spills, which fits the movie, but is not pretty to look at. From here on, most of the movie gets part of the element right, but the rest dead wrong.

Look at the principal characters. Finally, the right decision was made and Valentin Zukovsky was brought back. Robbie Coltrane is again in fine form, stealing every scene he graces. Sadly at the end of the movie he is shot dead. One out of two.

Elektra King is a beautiful woman who has a personal vendetta against MI6, and seduces Bond before betraying him. However, after a while it's pretty clear her motivations are completely all over the shop and no one actually knows what she is trying to achieve. She's also lacks any kind of fun at all. One out of two.

Claude Renard is basically a recycled Stamper, though this time his inability to feel pain is made explicit. He doesn't really do much except act as King's primary henchman, but cast in the part is the highly talented and now completely wasted Robert Carlslye. One out of two.

Denise Richards is one of the hottest actresses to walk the planet, and looks absolutely hot as in short shorts and a singlet. Dr Christmas Jones (dear God, the above conversation can be the only reason they chose that name) is completely unbelievable as a nuclear physicist because she dresses like Lara Croft and looks like she is barely past her teens. One out of two.

You can't help but begin to wonder what the point was.

Pierce Brosnan, meanwhile, continues to deliver us a sulky, adolsecent James Bond who delivers double entendres like they are the only thing he has the ability to say (his quip towards Maria Grazia Cuccinotti is greeted with the same look the audience is giving) and has now added irritation to his vocabulary - though this is portrayed by hissing. Brosnan's performance is pretty awful in this film all round; when he is sarcastic to Elektra it's difficult to imagine what was going through his mind. To be fair, the dialogue generally wavers between witty and juvenile. And Bond still calls "M" "M"!!!! In fact, even bloody Robinson is doing it! Show some respect peoples!

Judi Dench is actually the shining light of this movie, given considerably more to do than usual as her past is tied into Elektra's, she gets the chance to be involved in the plot like never before, and even needs rescuing by Bond towards the end (although after the chilling moment of Bond brutally killing Elektra, as he leans over to kiss her forehead, clearly "M" is thinking what we all are - he's not seriously going to shag her corpse is he?). She even gets the chance to deliver an almight smack to Elektra's face - and didn't we all cheer?

Desmond Llewellyn makes what was to be his swansong performance, killed in a car crash a few weeks after the release of the movie. His final scene is actually very sad when viewed in this context, and given he is introducing Bond to his successor, and his final line is "always have an escape route handy"; I'll bet every audience member was thinking the same thing when Bond asked him "you aren't retiring soon, are you Q?". It's actually quite a moving moment, and dear Desmond deserves a salute for the amazing character he created that will go down, not only in the Bond history books, but in the annals of cinema itself.

To complement this moving and tragic farewell, predictably we get a performance from John Cleese as "Q"'s assistant which is cringingly awful. You can't help but sit there just praying that he stops talking.

So the good bits:

The action sequences are great - particularly the boat chase, the paraski chase and the BMW vs helicopters scene. Absolutely marvellous.

MI6 HQ is quite exciting to see and it's brilliant to see not only Robinson, but the return of Tanner. The MI6 staff is finally becoming a nicely regular and effective crew.

In the Scottish HQ it's nice to see a portrait of Bernard Lee on the walls.And equally interesting to see that one of the 00 agents is a woman.

Moneypenny has some entertaining dialogue, particularly in reference to Dr Molly Warmflash's sudden approval of Bond's health status.

There is an interestingly oblique reference to Tracy's death when Bond avoids answering the question of whether he has lost someone close to him.

The James Bond Will Return tag is featured directly before the credits this time, and kicks off a fantastic version of the James Bond theme to close the movie. You almost can't help but leave excited...almost.

But...

Bond wearing glasses seems wrong, regardless of the fact that they are a gadget.

What was the point of the para-ski attack? If Elektra is the mastermind, and Bond only joined her at the last minute to go skiing, why was an attack even considered? Or are we expected to believe that Davidov overheard Bond say he would go skiing with Elektra, and in the space of an hour, called Arkhov, organised troops and equipment and then sent them to the slopes with strict instructions to kill Bond, but avoid Elektra if you could with those machine guns you're using...

David Arnold's music is usually very good, but at times it actually sounds like he's spoofing Austin Powers...which given the music there was specifically composed to spoof John Barry's James Bond scores...

The dialogue in the final few scenes - both in MI6 and with Bond and Christmas is embarrassingly terrible.

Brosnan's Bond movies are struggling to make an impact, mostly due to dodgy scripts it must be said, but TWINE actually sets the Bond movies back considerably. This is one of the worst films the series has seen.

Favourite Bond: 1. Timothy Dalton; 2. Roger Moore; 3. Sean Connery; 4. George Lazenby; 5. Pierce Brosnan

Favourite movie order: 1. The Living Daylights; 2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service; 3. Dr No; 4. Licence To Kill; 5. A View To A Kill; 6. Live And Let Die; 7. Thunderball; 8. For Your Eyes Only/Octopussy 10. The Spy Who Loved Me; 11. Tomorrow Never Dies; 12. GoldenEye; 13. From Russia, With Love; 14. Goldfinger; 15. You Only Live Twice; 16. Moonraker; 17. The World Is Not Enough; 18. The Man With The Golden Gun; 19. Diamonds Are Forever

Favourite Bond girl: 1. Carey Lowell/Pam; 2. Claudine Auger/Dominio; 3. Diana Rigg/Tracy; 4. Carole Bouquet/Melina; 5. Izabella Scorupco/Natalya; 6. Barbara Bach/Anya; 7. Maud Adams/Octopussy 8. Michelle Yeoh/Wai Lin; 9. Mie Hama/Kissy; 10. Daniela Bianchi/Tanya; 11. Ursula Andress/Honey; 12. Jane Seymour/Solitaire; 13. Maryam D'Abo/Kara; 14. Lois Chiles/Holly; 15. Honor Blackman/Pussy; 16. Tanya Roberts/Stacy; 17. Denise Richards/Christmas; 18. Britt Ekland/Mary; 19. Jill St John/Tiffany

Favourite Bond villain: 1. Robert Davi/Sanchez; 2. Donald Pleasance/Blofeld; 3. Gert Frobe/Goldfinger; 4. Christopher Lee/Scaramanga; 5. Jeroen Krabbe & Joe Don Baker/Koskov & Whittaker; 6. Christopher Walken/Zorin; 7. Louis Jordan & Steven Berkov/Kahn & Orlov 8. Jonathan Pryce/Carver; 9. Adolfo Celi/Largo; 10. Sean Bean/Trevelyan; 11. Michael Lonsdale/Drax; 12. Yaphet Kotto/Mr Big-Dr Kananga; 13. Julian Glover/Kristatos; 14. Joseph Wiseman/Dr No; 15. Lotte Lenya/Klebb; 16. Telly Savalas/Blofeld; 17. Charles Gray/Blofeld; 18. Sophie Marceau/Elektra; 19. Curt Jurgens/Stromberg