THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (MGM) Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards, Judi Dench, Robbie Coltrane. Screenplay: Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein. Producers: Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli. Director: Michael Apted. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (violence, adult themes) Running Time: 128 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
After 40 years and 19 films, the James Bond series is a cinematic institution -- perhaps even the last cinematic institution. In a film industry climate where the object of big-budget movies is generally to show the audience something new and dazzling, the Bond series is all about structural stability. You know you'll get a show-stopping stunt sequence to kick things off. You know that stunt sequence will lead into opening credits filled with writhing female silhouettes. You the opening credits will lead into a visit with Q (Desmond Llewelyn). You know Bond will fire off a few ghastly puns aimed at Q's latest gadgets. Going to a Bond film is like going to a fast food restaurant. You attend because there's something comforting about knowing it will taste the same every time. It's a recipe you don't want to see shaken or stirred.
In a sense, there's little to say about THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH that hasn't already been said about the 18 installments that have preceded it. It goes without saying that Agent 007 (Pierce Brosnan) has a mission that involves a beautiful woman or two. One of them is Elektra King (Sophie Marceau), an oil heiress whose pipeline -- and life -- appear to be in danger; one of them is Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards), a nuclear weapons expert in a pin-up body. It similarly goes without saying that there's a villain bent on mass destruction. His name is Renard (Robert Carlyle), a terrorist-for-hire who has been rendered impervious to pain by a bullet to the medulla oblongata. And it goes without saying that the clock is ticking on a dastardly plan involving the very fate of the free world (or at least Istanbul), and that only Bond can save us.
It does bear mentioning that THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH turns out to be a frustrating combination of the all-too-common and the distractingly absent. The film does open with a rousing pre-credits chase sequence involving motorboats racing down the Thames. When Bond leaps from a boat sailing through the air, catching the dangling rope on a hot air balloon in the process, there's hope that director Michael Apted can maintain that sort of high-flying absurdity. Then the wearying deja vu begins to set in. How many times can we thrill to Bond fleeing gunmen while skiing? How many times can a shootout in a place where every inanimate object explodes be interesting? How many times can you wring excitement from getting caught underwater without air? To Apted's credit, he does find a slick new twist when he threatens Bond with a helicopter armed with a massive clearcutting saw. Far more often, the perfunctory thrice-hourly action sequences are just there to remind you that you're watching a Bond film.
Sometimes the reminder is necessary, because THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH is otherwise short on traditional Bond texture. The film may trot out locations in Spain, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkey, but it never does anything with them, denying us the welcome pleasure of Bond film as exotic travelogue. Sophie Marceau and Denise Richards, scrumptious though they may be, are a major come-down from the magnetism of TOMORROW NEVER DIES' Michelle Yeoh. Most disappointing of all is Renard, who may be the least commanding villain the series has ever seen. It's bad enough that he gets only a few scenes to develop any kind of personality; it's inexcusable that he turns out to be a self-pitying lap dog for the real villain pulling the strings. Mix in the absence of a suitably unstoppable nasty henchman (are the Oddjobs and Jaws's of the post-Cold War world so hard to come by?), and you've got a pretty vanilla thrilla.
It is enjoyable to watch Pierce Brosnan growing into the role of Bond so comfortably. Connery enthusiasts may cringe, but I believe Brosnan is the best all-around Bond yet -- no one else has combined such convincing licensed-to-kill menace with a bon vivant twinkle in the eye. He's still a presence worth watching, as are Dame Judi Dench (in a meatier-than-usual role for M) and John Cleese (bringing his exquisite comic timing to Q's maladroit assistant). But when the best thing about a Bond film is the acting, you know something isn't right. Perhaps I've reached a point in my movie-going life where a Bond film is a no-win proposition. THE WORLD is not enough -- not enough creativity, and not enough welcome nostalgia value. Even for fast food, the familiar tastes too familiar, and the unfamiliar just tastes wrong.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Bond issues: 5.
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