The World Is Not Enough

Revenge is not hard to fathom for a man who believes in nothing.

The World is Not Enough is directed by Michael Apted and adapted to screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein, using characters created by Ian Fleming. Music is scored by David Arnold and cinematography by Adrian Biddle.

Bond 19 and 007 is required to protect a female oil magnate from potential assassination, but it soon becomes apparent that something far bigger and sinister is around the corner.

Pierce Brosnan returns for his third turn as super suave secret agent James Bond and all the crucial elements for the franchise are firmly in place. From the exhilarating pre-credit sequence down the river Thames (14 minutes worth) to the glorious over the...

The oil pipeline in central Asia episode

After a British oil tycoon is assassinated, agent 007 (Pierce Brosnan) traces the hit to a crazy ex-KGB terrorist (Robert Carlyle) and travels to the Caspian Sea/Black Sea area to protect a sultry oil heiress, the daughter of the murdered mogul (Sophie Marceau). Denise Richards is on hand as a nuclear physicist working at a Russian ICBM base in Kazakhstan while Robbie Coltrane returns from Goldeneye (1995) as Valentin Zukovsky, the former KGB agent turned gangster.

The World Is Not Enough (1999) is Brosnans third installment in the series with the opening featuring an absurd-but-fun boat chase on the River Thames in London and a great title song performed by Shirley Manson & Garbage. Othe...

I am afraid I struggled with this film right from the get-go. Not that Pierce Brosnan doesn't turn in a decent enough effort as "007", it's the supporting cast that are pretty average and the story - it is just so weak. Arch-baddie "Renard" (Robert Carlyle) has been shot in the head so gets stronger every day until he dies (any physicians please explain how a bullet near your brain can make you nigh-on immortal?). Robbie Coltrane is ordinarily excellent as a comic actor, but somehow his performance here as Russian hard-man "Zukovsky" is the wrong kind of funny and we see way too much of "M" (Dame Judi Dench) and the woefully cast John Cleese as "R" - luckily because Desmond Llewellyn was still round to amiably, and briefly, fill the role of...

Love Brosnan as Bond but man was he straddled with a bad script and even worse casting with Denise Richards playing a nuclear scientist. I get pre-Craig Bonds always had a tongue-in-cheek streak to them and ridiculous scenes (the opening boat chase was laughable once it went to the street) but this was a bridge too far (only to be outdone in a scene in Die Another Day). That said, there are some decent action set pieces and Brosnan still has the charm. 3.0/5

One of my favorite Bond films with surprising villains, more profound character development, great action, and a fitting farewell to a beloved character.

The World Is Not Enough's massive box office success resulted from its excellent villains, beautiful filming locations, great characters, and endearing send-off of Desmond Llewelyn. This Bond film surprised with a masterminding, manipulative, and powerful female antagonist (the first in the Bond franchise since From Russia with Love in 1963). Sophie Marceau's portrayal of Electra King was innocent and vulnerable while cunning and ruthless - one of the best Bond villains of the last 30 years. The World Is Not Enough develops its female characters much more than a typical Bond movie b...

So Goldeneye wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either and it was a solid entry into the 007 franchise. Tomorrow Never Dies was fan-freaking-tastic....

... and then this.

Yay, it's 007.

What the heck happened? I'm thinking Goldeneye (N64) happened. I'm thinking that they made close to as much money off the FPS as they did off the film and wanted to emulate it by making a movie that would transfer well into that genre of video game, but didn't realize that Bond (N64) was only legendary because it was the first time that four of your friends could gather around a television and kill each other.

And then... the Bond Girl, as much as I love the final joke about her name, she did NOT come across as a believable nuclear scientist. John C...

This begins the total collapse of Bond films. We have the usual formula of beautiful women and lots of action, but here the action is very unmotivated. Bond finds himself a body guard to a spoiled beauty queen, and we figure out early that the real heroine is the more matter of fact educated woman. That's fair enough. Still, everything that happens just looks contrived to make it end a certain way, with as depressing an ending as is allowed. That's the Hollywood formula, to make the world depressing for young men, and that's all they set out to do in this movie.