007 Journals: The World Is Not Enough

Okay so we are in the home stretch now. This is the first of the last five Bond films that I have left to review. The first of the last two Brosnan's. Honestly this is probably the Bond movie I have seen the most. It was the only one I owned on VHS when it came out (yeah that old) and I remember not loving it when I was younger but never hating it. This was my first time watching it in years and in my adult live with a more refined mind set and I have to say I love this movie a lot more now. Now like I said before, Brosnan hits a point with Bond where he hardly changes. Goldeneye gave us a very serious and slightly dark Bond. Tomorrow Never Dies had James cracking wise left and right. The World is Not Enough is kind of the middle road between those two. We still get quite a bit of quips but nowhere near as many as in Tomorrow Never Dies and the story does call for some serious Bond action.

So I think this film is easily the second best for Brosnan and might actually make my top five if I thought about my list but I'll be thinking about rankings after I finish Skyfall. Now there are a number of things to pick at with this movie. The biggest being Denise Richards, who is maybe the worst Bond girl in terms of acting. Especially when compared to the other actress in this film Sophie Marceau who is fantastic. Maybe a little too qualified for this movie but shes great and really helps cover up for the mistake of casting Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist. Not to mention her character name is Christmas Jones. Alright look, there are plenty of odd Bond girl names. I mean Pussy Galore, really? But Christmas Jones is one I just cannot get behind. Maybe if her performance was better we would all forgive it, and maybe if they didn't include THAT line (you know damn well which one I mean and how many times a year it comes!) but unfortunately this is the performance we got and we have to live with. One thing I did notice this time around is that she honestly doesn't have a lot of screen time and I wonder if that was a conscious choice by the director. Though the scenes she is featured in are pretty crucial so there's that to fault. I've spent too much time on her alone but I think the general consensus is shes bad. Thank you Sophie Marceau for being so wonderful and counter-balancing Denise Richards. I also want to point out that the dressing of Denise Richards to look like Lara Croft seems deliberate to me because that character was popular at the time.

As bad as Denise Richards is, everyone else is great. Brosnan of course continues to be great, I already mentioned my love for Sophie Marceau, Judi Dench get's a lot more screen time and even plays a part in the plot so already this film gets a boost from that, Valentine Zurkofsky returns and man that guy is my favorite character to appear in the Brosnan's. He was fun in Goldeneye and twice as much here. He's seen a big change in his life between the films, first having what looks like a run down club and now having a casino and his own caviar and just a dashing mustache. I was sad to see him shot at the end but I hold onto the fact that they never confirm his death and I choose to believe that he was just seriously injured and lived. Now the real person to talk about here is Robert Carlyle as Renard. I don't know exactly why, but Renard has always been one of my favorite Bond villains and I liked him even more this time around. I love the idea of the bullet slowly killing him so he has no fear, he literally feels no pain, he's a man who's already dead so nothing can get in his way. He plays the character so well and he's not a big guy, but something about him just seems so imposing and creepy. I love this character and he fits so well into this film.

The story here is actually really good. First off the cold open is pretty great despite some silliness. The scene in the bank is a good way to open and the boat chase is awesome even though Bond does drive it on land, to me it works and is just a great action scene. There's a good amount of twists and the fact that Elektra turns out to be the real villain and in a way Renard is more of a henchman is a nice spin on things. I'm a big fan of how M gets involved and it's nice to see Dench get more screen time. We even get Bond figuring everything out and Elektra casting that doubt on him and questioning himself. There's a lot going on but honestly the plot is pretty tight,especially compared to Tomorrow Never Dies, This is surprisingly the first time a Bond film has dealt with oil as a main thread and this is something, like the media aspect of the last movie, that might be more relateable today. The idea of causing a meltdown to re-route oil pipelines to Elektra's, while excessive and insane, makes sense. Honestly the insanity of the plan works for me too because as you may have noticed, I love my bond villains to be as insane as possible. The end of the film where Elektra is so cocky about her influence over men that she assumes Bond wouldn't kill her is a highlight of her performance for me and really helps flesh out her character, you know right before they kill her.Though before her death she has her best scene torturing Bond with that chair which is just a great scene in general.

While Tomorrow Never Dies was action heavy, this time they tone it down but it still has quite a bit of great action. There's also a decent amount of gadgetry in the movie and for the most part it is some good stuff. HOWEVER I will never like that grappling hook watch and those X-Ray glasses are a little much but I'll buy those a little more. I liked the watch when it was just a twist on light and not a tiny grappling hook that works wonders. That jacket also just feels like the most reverse engineered thing in the whole movie. One thing I notice about this entire series is that Bond goes skiing so many times. I feel like every third film Bond has to put on some skis. The skiing scene is fine, the parachuting snowmobiles are kind of crazy but it's actually a good ski chase. There are some kind of hard to swallow vehicle moments between the parachuting snowmobiles (or whatever those things are) to the helicopters with saw blades but all of the action scenes with them are great. I actually really love the scene at the docks with the helicopters slicing everything up (that car getting cut in half is pretty good) might actually be my favorite action scene in the movie. The gunfight with Renards men when the bomb is being stolen is another highlight for me, right along with the bomb defusal (or lack thereof) in the pipe. Really every action scene in this movie is very well done and entertaining. There are also a lot of scenes within Mi6 which I really like. We've never gotten a lot of the Mi6 building outside of M's office or Q's lab but this time we get to move around a little more and it's welcome. Speaking of Q's lab we have to mention this being Q's last film. He gets a great exit by lowering into the pool table and it was sad to know that he was killed in car accident before the film premiered. We miss you Desmond Llewelyn. You were the best! John Cleese was the perfect person to bring in to replace him and it's kind of a bummer he onl'y got two movies under his belt. I would have liked to see what he could do.

Surprisingly this is the first Bond movie where the score really jumped out at me. I love the entire score through the film, especially the action scenes, and the movie's theme is incorporated very well. This is another theme song that I love and feels very Bond. I know there are a lot of people that voice their love for this movie but I feel like it always gets overshadowed by people talking about how terrible Christmas Jones is. While they are completely right I feel like this is an underrated Bond film and is definitely worth watching. I give it a four out of five and admit that Denise Richards drags the film down, but it's worth watching and having in your collection.