Monday, December 12, 2016

No Apologies: The World is Not Enough

by Rob DiCristino
Yup. I like the Bond movie with Denise Richards.

Pierce Brosnan’s turn as James Bond has always been a hard sell. Most Bond fans agree that his take is the most milquetoast, a kind of neutered mix of Sean Connery’s gruff brutality and Roger Moore’s distinguished charm. Brosnan himself admits that he never quite got a feel for the character, and the mostly-uninspired writing across his four outings certainly didn’t help. Still, GoldenEye pulled the franchise back from the brink of death long enough for the Craig era* to reinvigorate it (and then ruin it again), so we owe Brosnan’s films some consideration. That said, what do we really remember about them? We remember Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies. We remember the invisible car in Die Another Day. Perhaps least fondly, we remember nuclear physicist Christmas Jones in The World is Not Enough. And while it’s true that TWINE has its problems — its very own metric fuck-ton of problems — it benefits from some fun supporting performances, an unconventional Bond villain, and yes, Denise Richards in a tank top.
The World is Not Enough finds James Bond wrapped up in yet another convoluted world domination plot, this time putting him at odds with his momma bear, M (Dame Judy Dench). It seems that M’s college buddy, millionaire industrialist Sir Robert King (David Calder), whose daughter Elektra (Sophie Marceau) was the victim of a kidnapping, was killed over some stolen documents which led to the heist of a nuclear warhead. Keeping up? Good. Bond identifies the anarchist Renard (Robert Carlyle), Elektra’s kidnapper, as the brains behind the operation. Little does he know (but eventually does he figure out) that Elektra sports a massive lady boner for her kidnapper and has decided to rage against western democracy and screw over the people who left her to die at his hand. She and Renard boost a submarine and plan to trigger an explosion that would destabilize Turkish infrastructure and give Elektra a monopoly on local oil pipelines. Bond saunters into battle, flanked by scientist Christmas Jones (Richards) and his old KGB friend, Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane).

Look, this movie is dumb. Nothing anyone does makes any sense, and, to make matters worse, it’s one of the most shoddily-made Bonds of the modern era.* It’s lousy with obvious stunt doubling and weird continuity errors. There are times when the editing is actually bad enough to ruin a scene. It stretches credibility even more than the usual Bond film: 007 tears up his shoulder and then goes skiing, which is literally the most specifically-strenuous shoulder-related sport he could have engaged in short of pitching an inning of baseball. Did they do that on purpose, or was no one paying attention? Anyway, the film may be dumb, but it’s dumb in that great Bond fashion: it’s got a submarine plot that recalls The Spy Who Loved Me, a ski chase that evokes On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and a weird boat-on-land gag that invites comparisons to Moonraker. Whereas most '90s entries aggressively tried to push Bond into the mass-media-diamond-laser-digital-age, this one threw back to something a little more straightforward: a guy has a bomb and wants to blow things up with it.

That guy, Renard, is also one of the most interesting villains in the Bond canon. He took a bullet to the head and kept trudging along even after it lodged itself in his brain and cut off all sensory perception. He can’t taste, smell, or feel anything, including pain. He knows full well that the bullet will kill him and just wants to use his remaining time to make a better world for his lady. In a franchise built on the megalomaniacal plans of villains lusting for Unlimited Power (including, we discover, Elektra), a bad guy with a death wish is an interesting spin. Granted, he doesn’t really do anything with that power aside from punch glass and juggle volcanic rocks, but it makes his catchphrase, “You can’t kill me! I’m already dead!” more interesting. There’s also something really tragic and compelling about his love story with Sophie Marceau’s steamy femme fatale: they were both so shocked by her father’s refusal to pay her ransom that he decided to help her get revenge. It’s almost admirable, really. They’re both lost children cast off by the powers-that-be.
The film also features the last appearance of Desmond Llewelyn as Bond’s irascible tech genius, Q. The Q Scene has always been a important part of the Bond mythos; his rapport with 007 mixed the withheld affection of a father with the reckless abandon of the crazy uncle who lets you fire his gun. It never mattered that Llewelyn’s range as an actor was limited; he was always a reassuring bit of series continuity. He made it feel like home. TWINE finds the quartermaster on his last, wistful legs, grooming John Cleese’s “R” to take over. Cleese took the role a little too far toward parody in Die Another Day (a misstep that was thankfully rectified in the Craig era*), but his bumbling comic relief in this film creates a wonderful opportunity for Bond and Q to say goodbye and reaffirm their mutual respect. After four decades of bickering, Bond opens up enough to ask his mentor not to leave him. He does, but it’s a warm and graceful exit made especially poignant by the actor’s death just a few months later.
As for Bond himself, there’s an interesting (though underdeveloped) thread about his reluctance to kill in cold blood that pays off when he’s forced to murder an unarmed woman. Brosnan has neither the presence nor the material to pull it off as well as Connery did or Craig eventually would, but at least someone in the writers’ room remembered that the best Bond movies are the ones that give him some kind of arc. It’s also worth noting that Robbie Coltrane totally rules as Valentin Zukovsky, a recurring character who should have recurred a lot more often. Finally, there’s Denise Richards, who — it has to be said — really isn’t that bad. Her presence might feel ridiculous, but her actual performance is no worse than any of the others in the film. Christmas Jones is a shitty character with absolutely no emotional latitude. It’s not like they could have thrown Tilda Swindon in there and suddenly she would be a revelation. She’s like everything else in The World is Not Enough: sloppy, awkward, but somehow oddly satisfying.



  1. I can never remember which one is The World is Not Enough and which is Tomorrow Never Dies. I've only ever watched either of them once since seeing them in the theater and they really bleed together for me. About the most charitable thing I can say about either is that they aren't as outright terrible as Die Another Die, aren't as dull as Octopussy, and aren't a complete shell of former glory like Diamonds are Forever. Apparently The World is Not Enough is also the one with Robert Carlyle as you point out so there's that also I guess (I even sat through multiple seasons of Once Upon a Time largely due to him).

  2. i like all james bond to different degrees. even die another day with all its crazyness and nonsense.

    i don't like the new james bond (except casino royal)

  3. To me, the main undoing of TWINE is the leaden pacing. Even the cold open is tedious and over-stuffed. I agree that Denise Richards gets scapegoated for her nothing role - I think she's quite good in the pipeline chase scene (probably the best action scene in the film). I COMPLETELY agree that Robbie Coltrane was criminally under-utilized in the Bond series.

    And I have to hand it to you - it takes some serious stones to invoke "invites comparisons to Moonraker" as a positive.

    1. Agreed. TWINE wastes a lot of time on some of its weaker elements and fumbles the good ones quite a bit.

      I'm also a Moonraker apologist. It's hardly the worst Roger Moore entry, and I think it's another example of a film's reputation skewing things a bit.

      So what I'm saying is that I like Moonraker and Denise Richards. I'm awful.

    2. Not to get too far off the topic, but I actually love Moonraker - not so much for the movie it is, but rather the movie it could have been had the producers not elected to pander for Star Wars bucks. I've written before that Moonraker seems to take a perverse pleasure in sabotaging itself. How best to finish up a fantastic free-fall cold open? Have Jaws flapping his arms like a jackass, of course!

  4. I really do love all of the Bond films but I'm thankful for the Brosnan era in particular, for bringing us some of the best pain face acting only Brosnan could produce. The torture chair in World Is Not Enough is no exception.

    Shout out to the James Bonding podcast if you need a extra shot of 00 in your life.

  5. The first three Brosnans were A Ok in my book. Loved em all in the theater. By action movies now they're even better imo.