Review of The World Is Not Enough (1999) by Andrew G — 29 Mar 2010

"If you can't trust a Swiss Banker, then what has the world come to?" James Bond -- Pierce Brosnan.

The World Is Not Enough is the Nineteenth film in the James Bond franchise, and the third film to star Pierce Brosnan as the main character, following GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies. I'm not exactly the biggest fan of the James Bond films; I watch them all and think that some of the are ok, but I don't go crazy for them, once I've seen it once, it doesn't draw me back into watching again for anything but review purposes. I know roughly the order of supposed quality of the franchise, and the World Is Not Enough is not one of the ones that appears up on "Best of the Series" lists. It's certainly more action-based than it is story based, but even as a mindless action film it's still really bland and certainly one of the weaker Bond films.

In the World is Not Enough, an Oil Tycoon is murdered in MI6, so his daughter, Elektra King, needs protecting by 007. The villain, Renard, has a bullet lodged in his, and his plan to get back at MI6 is do destroy a Pipe Line. Meanwhile, Bond gets help from a Scientist named Christmas Jones, as 007 begins to become suspicious about Elektra, the leader of MI6, Agent M. goes missing. It doesn't sound too deep anyway, but if you actually watch the film, you see how mindless the film is. It's incredibly weak plotted, and you often find yourself bored. It's not gripping, which it makes it all the more annoying that it drags on for 2 hours. If you're going to drag on for a while, at least make sure you make it interesting to watch and have reason to make it so long.

Now we get to the acting. As I said, Pierce Brosnan is great as James Bond. He doesn't give any emotional depth or anything, he just comes off as a natural 007. The exact same can be said for Judi Dench who plays M. She doesn't do anything that makes you scream "that's incredible", but she naturally plays the role superbly. Robert Carlyle is decent as Renard, but he's not given much range to do. Robbie Coltrane and John Cleese were great when they were in the film, but their parts were very minor and I wondered what the point was in getting two great actors to do such little roles. The two bond girls in this were played by Sophie Marceau (Elektra King) and Denise Richards (as the Scientist name Christmas Jones). Neither of these actresses did a good job, but Richards is one of the worst actresses I've seen. Every line she gave lacked any level of understanding, the emotions she gave seemed forced and her part of the chemistry with Brosnan was awful and may as well have been non-existent. When they dress her in a tight tank top and short shorts, it's kind of obvious why they hired her, and if you thought it was Oscar-deserving acting then you're wrong. Marceau doesn't get let off. Although she was much better than Richards, she wasn't entirely tolerable. I'm not going to complain about her accent, as much as the chemistry she had with Brosnan as well. I never bought her as a strong-willed woman, and she did little to change my mind.

The action scenes in this film are actually decent. The first 15 minutes of the film are essentially one big action scene. There's plenty of explosions and good stunts, and I appreciated the mindless and sometimes stupid parts of it. They're really entertaining to watch and a major saving grace for the film.

The humour in this was god awful, it came off more as a James Bond parody at times rather than an actual film of the franchise. There were constant one-liners, and times in the action/stunt scenes where it would mock it essentially, leading to me thinking that it wasn't any good. It annoyed me that even in a serious James Bond film, the action scenes couldn't be taken seriously. I was willing to sit down and enjoy the film, but if they were going to introduce a lot of jokes, they should have made sure they were funny.

The World is Not Enough sucks. It's got a couple of decent action scenes which are entertaining for the short amount of time they're on, but they don't make up for the incredible lack of plot. Of the Pierce Brosnan Bond films, GoldenEye is the best because while it was mediocre, its plot was just as good as the action scenes.

Andrew's rating: 4.5 out of 10.