Review of The World Is Not Enough (1999) by Ben L — 01 Oct 2013

Curses, I had such high hopes! This movie starts out promising. I enjoy the opening sequence, the rescue of Elektra, and the romantic connection that seems to form between her and Bond. If they would have spent more time selling the fact that Bond was potentially falling for her romantically, then the rest of the film would have so much emotional intensity. Particularly their final scene together would have had loads of interesting subtext. Instead we keep getting distracted by other annoying plots that appear to have no logical connection to one another (wait is Bond's job to protect Elektra, or investigate Renard?) I think this is the point where this movie let me down, because it wasn't a bad first half. So it set me up thinking I might have something special to look forward to but instead it devolved into a maze of confusing storylines, pointless characters, and improbable events. But I do have to give it one nod of approval, because my rating literally went up a half point simply because of how spectacular I found the line "I never miss" when delivered in context.

I enjoyed Sophie Marceau as Elektra. She has the acting chops to sell both the damaged former captive role, and the aggressive take-charge business woman role. As previously stated if the entire movie had revolved around her relationship with Bond I think she would have nailed it. Robert Carlyle is OK as the villain Renard, although somehow he kind of fades into the background when I think he should be larger than life. I was impressed with the farewell they scripted for Desmond Llewelyn, it felt perfect. On the flip side, while I appreciate John Cleese's acting ability, setting him up as Desmond's successor felt like a sign of just how ridiculous (almost comedic) the remainder of Brosnan's films would be. Speaking of ridiculous and comedic, that brings me to none other than Dr. Christmas Jones played by Denise Richards. I'm really struggling to think of another character in the history of Bond films that was more superfluous than Dr. Christmas Jones. It is as though the writers felt obligated to have a hot chick for Bond to make out with at the end, so they had to write a character in there somewhere. This is where the logical consistency of this movie completely falls apart. I watch as throughout the film the writers are hamstrung trying to invent stuff for her to do, and reasons for Bond not to leave her behind. "Oh, she needs a button to push here, or a door to close there." This is how you ruin a decent movie.

The entire film starts to enter the realm of farce, similar to the trap a number of the Moore films fell into. Strictly to keep her in the story Bond "needs" Christmas in order to defuse a bomb. Wait, I don't feel like going back and counting, but hasn't Bond single-handedly defused bombs multiple times in the past? Let's see, I remember one in Octopussy and one in Spy Who Loved Me, and that's just off the top of my head. Yet now he needs the latest Bond Babe in order to get the job done. Speaking of that implausible series of events, are we honestly supposed to believe they would survive inside a pipe while an explosion occured a few yards behind them? Then there's the scene in the casino where Bond has on his x-ray specs, easily one of the cheesiest gadgets I've seen. All the gadgets seem far-fetched, as if the writers wrote the situations Bond would get into and just came up with a gadget to save him on the spot. For instance the jacket that pops into a protective ball, did Q read the script to know in advance Bond would be skiing in an avalanche zone while battling criminals in flying snowmobiles. And if the bad guys never really wanted to kill Elektra, then why did they come so close to actually doing it?! OK, I'm just getting irritated as I write this. So much of this film is just loaded with stupid coincidences that they destroyed what could have been an emotionally strong story, and left us with a procedural Bond film that gets caught up in all the common traits of the genre instead of daring to be unique.