Review of The World Is Not Enough (1999) by Eric The E — 08 Feb 2016

Even with a title purloined from Bond classic On Her Majesty's Secret Service, such phrasing ultimately proves to be the most interesting thing about this often silly and miscast rote spy romp. The World is Not Enough in name refers to the Bond family's motto, bringing up thoughts of restlessness and a desire for intrigue and passion. The World is Not Enough in total, however, summons none of this save for making the audience restless. Sloppy all around, the franchise seems content to let the latest Bind adventure simply operate on cruise control, an easy-to-follow cake recipe starring a charismatic lead and explosions. For a series boasting Gold Standards such as From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, the aforementioned title bearer, and The Spy Who Loved Me, it's not enough for chapter nineteen to rest on the sum parts' laurels with a plot creakily by-the-book. The film needs to offer up some aspects that filmgoers have never seen before and, save for Judi Dench's M getting captured and bringing in John Cleese as Q, not enough happens to qualify.

In this PG-13-rated spy thriller, James Bond (Brosnan) uncovers a nuclear plot when he protects an oil heiress (Marceau) from her former kidnapper, an international terrorist (Robert Carlyle) who can't feel pain.

Even the actors seem to put their feet up in this tiring exercise. Brosnan's gives the worst performance of his run and Carlyle, though menacing and funny in Trainspottiing, is just one-half of that equation here: laughable. Even with a film featuring a lot of one-note acting, one particular character and performance pretty much sums up how sloppily this film got executed: Denise Richards gets plays a nuclear physicist, Dr. Christmas Jones. Unless you count the whiplash that results from laughing at such casting, the entertaining action scenes can't redeem this fair to middling adventure unlike its predecessor, Tomorrow Never Dies.

Bottom line: Christmas Blues.