World Is Not Enough, The (1999)

There is on fact no moon involved

Bond: Pierce Brosnan (GoldenEye • Tomorrow Never Dies)

Bond Girl: Christmas Jones  Played By: Denise Richards (Starship Troopers • Valentine)
Bond Villain: Renard  Played By: Robert Carlyle (28 Weeks Later • Trainspotting)

Genre: Action Adventure Thriller (UK, USA)

Directed By: Michael Apted (Gorky Park • Class Action)

Overview: James is assigned to protecting an oil heiress while she completes her pipeline. Renard is a terminally ill terrorist bent on making the world suffer. Perhaps the twain shall meet?

If I had to describe The World Is Not Enough in one word, that word would be 'surprising'.

Surprising doesn't mean good or bad, and if it's anything I've learned from the ongoing Bond saga, it's that I usually have a dichotomy with James and his doings. The wonderful thing about escapist film however is how easy it is to forgive awkward moments and compartmentalize them away. What's so surprising about The World Is not Enough? Well let me tell you!

Most surprising is how cool these guys are.

And no the people driving them aren't handicapped

The parahawk has got to be one of the best vehicles in existence.  And when Bond wisely zips into the forest to evade them, well they cut their chutes loose and snowmobile their way to getting smoked by James.

Sadly though the biggest surprise is a bad one. What Bond films often suffer from is focus on the wrong character. We learn early on that the big bad guy is Renard, the French word for fox. We learn early on that Renard was shot in the head by another MI6 agent, yet has survived, though the bullet is still lodged in his brain and Renard is now terminal. His mission has a time limit, he doesn't care about the world and he feels no pain. Why would you not study this character more closely?! Sadly they focus on Elektra, the heir to the oil pipeline that Renard kidnapped prior to our story. Also impressive is that I found Robert Carlyle's performance to be the best of the film, including Pierce, who does a great job of being a colder more serious Bond.

Other surprising things include:

• A surprising lack of goons. Yes there's goons but they're random nameless ones.
• Garbage sings the title track and it's quite impressive.
• An equally impressive credit sequence, all with girls covered in oil, the crude kind not the hot kind.
• The twist, which is a pretty rare thing in 007 films. And it's not 'something far more sinister that is expected' but something genuinely twisty. 

And in the end, with such scenes as parahawks, boat chases and hot air balloons, it's not a film people will be deriding, even though 'Q' is replaced by one of the standard goofy characters of John Cleese. Nice knowing you Q!

Bond Cars:
The BMW Z8

Bond Gadgets:

A very poofy coat

An exploding pistol triggered by glasses

an 'all-access key' card

Look out! He's trying to kill us with a blue flamer!

Performance: 8 Cinematography: 9 Script: 8 Plot: 8 Mood: 8

Overall Rating: 82% (But It'll Do!)

SuperSpyStats

Personal bodycount: 11

Foiled Assassinations: 7

Near Misses: 1

Dames Bedded: 3

Martinis Drank: 1

What's all this?