Review of The World Is Not Enough (1999) by Chardr69 — 22 May 2011

The nineteenth James Bond film, third for Pierce Brosnan as 007, and the only one directed my Michael Apted.

When Bond unknowingly retrieves a bomb hidden in a suitcase full of money, and returns it to its wealthy owner Sir Robert King, a construction billionaire whose company is building an eight-hundred-mile-long oil pipeline in Azerbaijan, and is a life long friend of "M"'s (Dame Judi Dench), at MI6 headquarters in London, the bomb explodes and kills King and blows a hole in the side of the building. After figuring out that the terrorist Renard (Robert Carlyle) is behind the bombing, Bond is sent to protect King's beautiful daughter Elektra (Sophie Marceau), who had been kidnapped by Renard several years earlier and held for ransom, but at "M"'s urging he never received the ransom money, and Elektra claims to have escaped on her own. 007 then finds out that Elektra suffers from Stockholm Syndrome, and is in love with Renard, and has plotted with him to kill her own father, and kidnap and kill "M". Then they will steal a nuclear device and plant it on a Russian sub and blow it up destroying three competing Russian oil pipelines, to which Elektra's family pipeline would profit exponentially. So 007 must chase after Elektra and Renard, to stop their plan and rescue "M", with the help of nuclear specialist Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards).

This is the worst of four Brosnan 007 films. Not that it is his fault, he is great as usual, but what a waste of a potentially great bad guy in Renard. He really isn't in that much of the film, and Elektra comes out actually being the top villain. And let's face it, Denise Richards as a nuclear specialist is a joke, because she is a horrible actress and probably can't even spell the word "nuclear" (she's only good to look at). Dame Judi Dench is wonderful as usual, plus we see Desmond Llewelyn's departure as "Q", and the introduction of his successor John Cleese as the "New Q". A scene that is very ironic, since Desmond Llewelyn died not long after the release of the film. We also see the return of Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane) from "GoldenEye". And one last note, Sophie Marceau is one of the most beautiful women to ever be in a James Bond film.