The World is Not Enough in Review

Makeshift Python wrote:

On the contrary, I'd say it's quite embarrassing.

The Moneypenny scene in the pre-title sequence of this film marks the first time I was embarrassed enough to hide in my own seat in a movie theater. And by this point in the film the banker's office sequence had already happened, so it was all downhill from there.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Amen to that, Khanners - and (back in '99) 37 years and 19 films into the series, what reviewer worth their salt still thought that Bond worked for MI5?

Stilicho Bias wrote:

Well at least she got the first two letters right.

It's a common mistake. I can't recall the number of times I've seen Bond fans justify a female head (Dench) because of Stella Rimington at MI5. Tell them that MI6 has always been headed by a man and they'll tell you ''it's Flemeing-esque'" or some other double-speak bollocks.

Quote :

and they'll tell you ''it's Flemeing-esque'" or some other double-speak bollocks.

I can't tell you many times I've used that phrase myself, but I regret it sincerely. BaBy should have a punishment system introduced just for that, nothing else.

2/22

1. Goldeneye
2. Twine
3. Tomorrow Never Dies
4. For Your Eyes Only

8/10 - 8.5/10

Highlights:

My first dvd.
Plot. (Partly based on FYEO)
Gunbarrel scene: The Money. With amezing score of David Arnold. The scene with the glasses is one of my favorite parts of the money scene..
Gunbarrel opening. In the cinema also seen with the United Artist logo.
My favorite maintitle
The best dvd menu
The Best score til QOS of David Arnold
All ally's in specialy Dench as M and Desmond as Q.
Brosnan best as Bond
Renard
Elektra
Robert King
Denise Richards as Dr. Christmas Jones
The Humor / Drama
Plot.
Goldeneye Chacter driven actor/dialogue. (Davidov. Twine be example for Cr what GE for Twine.)
Return of Valetine

And a lot of other things.

Desmond visit The Netherlands with Denise Richards
Best promotion if we don't count TMND from the last 4 movies (Twine til QOS) thanks to Michael Apted too with one of the best trailers of the Brosnan era and with releasing the moost posters and in 100x70. I wish the CR take this over from Twine too.

Michael Apted as directer and also thinks about the Promotion. A couple of years a go i saw some talk about a teaser trailer, delete scene's and he changed a scene where Renard be seen earlier and the Themes scene be part of the gunbarrel. Also Apted removed a scene with again Astin Martin DB5 and a For England line.

Les like:

Bullion
David Arnold over yuse part of the music and in specialy the end credits and techno music in DAD, CR and for a part also in QOS. With Twine i don't have complanes, but it is time for something difrent. This also count in connection with P&W there Boat mark we now there love boat and airplanes, but please no boat chase aka Twine in Bond 24 or airplanes aka TMND/DAD/CR.

Not like / ??:

Desmond death
United Artist quite as partner and already not be credit for the dvd.
Like the other 18, dvd shared with France/Italy. no Dutch subtitle option with bonus material.
One of my moost expensive dvd's. But fin 2000 i think it whas worth it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHJVulAk9RA

Brilliant!

Louis Armstrong wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHJVulAk9RA

NuBond in a nutshell.

Quote :

Clipped
Tuesday, November 30,1999
By Armond White


A villain asks, "What’s your concern, Mr. Bond, the preservation of capital?" As the terrific title The World Is Not Enough makes clear, the James Bond series has devolved into a nakedly commercial enterprise. Now there’s only a semi-critical attitude toward swank, greed and nationalist aggression, though at its 60s high point, the series was somewhat satirical with then-naive innuendo and popular fascination with automobiles and luxe–the latter cleverly parodied in Ken Adam’s ingenious, toylike set designs. (In my neighborhood the sets were as sexy as the cars and girls.)

In World (Bond XIX), Pierce Brosnan goes from Bilbao to London, Azerbaijan to Baku tracking a terrorist’s plot on a Eurasian oil pipeline. After David O. Russell’s Three Kings proved entertainment could carry global political commentary, World’s plot seems promising. It is self-conscious enough to chide penurious Swiss Banks; there’s even a Russell-worthy line debunking the "bright, starry, oil-driven future of the West." Yet none of this deepens or intensifies the action as happens in Three Kings. Director Michael Apted and the team of screenwriters cannot make the Bond franchise (itself a preserve of Western capitalism) do anything more than placate the capitalist audience.

Does this work out some guilt complex? The last Bond film parodied Rupert Murdoch-Robert Maxwell empires, this one pits Bond and his institution of Western interests against an international oil tycoon’s vengeful daughter, Elektra (Sophie Marceau), and a cartoon Russian terrorist (Robert Carlyle)–a plain, if superficial, political standoff. But this may, actually, be more Anglocentric and xenophobic than earlier installments. Unlike George Clooney’s rabble-rousing speech in Three Kings, World doesn’t clarify how acquisitiveness genuinely replaces politics in contemporary ideology. Elektra’s cry "To the glory of my people"–a hollow concern with national pride and ethnic indignation–could be shouted by the filmmakers themselves. M (Judi Dench, better in the two previous films for her suggestion of a dykey Margaret Thatcher) watches Bond in a moment of heartless murder. But adding this self-consciousness to the series doesn’t add enough. Three Kings, The Peacekeeper and the last Indiana Jones movie were smarter about the wages of fun in global economics. World gets no better than offering an Uzi-toting caviar importer who quips, "I’m a slave to the free-market economy." This is a series by people who should know better, designed with minimal imagination for audiences who should know better.

http://www.nypress.com/print-article-561-print.html

You asked for it.

^ God has spoken. AMEN.

'M (Judi Dench, better in the two previous films for her suggestion of a dykey Margaret Thatcher)'.

Erm ... OK, Armond old son. Whatever you say.

Richard Hannay wrote:

The World Is Not Enough was, at one point, a beautiful seed from which to grow a complete film. The story and the central characters in it are those of a global-scale neo-noir. Elektra King is a true femme fatale—a seductress who keeps her cards very close to the low-cut vest—its Renard is the classic, head-over-heels-in-love schmuck wrapped in the guise of a terrorist. Its unfortunately-named supporting girl Christmas Jones is a character reminiscent of Fleming—a cold woman who's professional circumstances have caused her to swear off those of the male persuasion, only to have her resolve broken down by our experienced, but ultimately suckered detective, James Bond.

This is a wonderful little summary of The World Is Not Enough. It's a shame you don't think so, but I may just quote you on that one day. This is essentially how I view TWINE. And it is, like you said, a global neo noir. Which is why I don't get the melodramatic criticisms. I find it's as dramatic as a Bond film (or a Bond novel) should be, and I think that it's all acted well, save for Christmas, though I think she's a great Bond girl anyway (not top 10 material, but a miles better than Pam, Jinx, Rosie, Magda and Goodhead to name a few). Elektra is a true femme fatale and wonderfully played by Sophie Marceau who owns the part. The story is one of the best of the series and most of the dialogue is actually quite excellent, unlike in DAD ("Yeah, I think I got the thrust of it"; "And what do predators do when the sun goes down" / "They feast. Like there is no tomorrow.").

Elektra's a sulky bitch - femme fatale my ass.

FieldsMan wrote:

most of the dialogue is actually quite excellent

"What's the time?" / "Time for you to die"
*Bond fondles woman's skirt* "Let's just skirt the usual, shall we?"
*Renard fondle's Bond's shoulder* "I knew you couldn't shoulder the responsibility*
"I'm looking for a submarine. It's big, black and full of seamen"

Louis Armstrong wrote:

FieldsMan wrote:

most of the dialogue is actually quite excellent

"What's the time?" / "Time for you to die"

I still can't believe that line made the final cut.

Alright, maybe not that line, but many others like:

"I usually hate killing an unarmed man. Cold blooded murder is a filthy business"
"How sad, to be threatened by a man who can't grasp what he's involved in"
(pretty much that whole interrogation scene)

"There's no point in living if you can't feel alive"

The entire banker scene.

"Construction's not my speciality" / "quite the opposite in fact"

Q's scene.

Etc...

"ONE... LAHST.... SCRREEEWW."

FASTAH!

Honestly though, I don't find TWINE all that horrendous; I find it a passable Bond adventure...but these TWINE bash posts have made me tear up from laughing so hard

I CAHN PROTECT YOU!

Ebert's TWINE review. The last part is quite humorous.

Quote :

"The World Is Not Enough" is a splendid comic thriller, exciting and graceful, endlessly inventive. Because it is also the 19th James Bond movie, it comes with so much history that one reviews it like wine, comparing it to earlier famous vintages; I guess that's part of the fun. This is a good one.

Instead of summarizing the plot, let's tick off the Bond trademarks and see how they measure up: 1. Bond himself. Pierce Brosnan. The best except for Sean Connery. He knows that even the most outrageous double entendres are pronounced with a straight face. He is proud that a generation has grown up knowing the term "double entendre" only because of Bond movies.

2. Regulars. There's real poignancy this time, because Q, the inventor of all of Bond's gizmos, is retiring. Desmond Llewelyn has played the character in every single Bond film since "From Russia With Love" in 1963 (with the exception of "Live and Let Die" in 1973, when the producers dropped Q after an insane decision that the series needed less gimmicks). Llewelyn is now 85, and after demonstrating a few nice touches on his latest inventions, he sinks from sight in an appropriate and, darn it, touching way.

3. Guest stars. Who could replace Q? John Cleese, of course. "Does this make you . . . R?" asks Bond, after Cleese demonstrates a BMW speedster with titanium armor "and six cup holders." 4. M. Judi Dench is back for the third time as Bond's boss M, with the same regal self-confidence she displayed as queens Elizabeth ("Shakespeare in Love") and Victoria ("Mrs. Brown"). She does not condescend to the role, but plays it fiercely, creating an intelligence chief who actually seems focused and serious, even in the uproar of a Bond plot.

5. Sex bombs. Usually two major ones, a good girl who seems bad, and a bad girl who seems good. Both first-rate this time. Sophie Marceau plays Elektra King, daughter of a tycoon behind an oil pipeline linking the old Soviet oil fields to Europe. Denise Richards plays Christmas Jones, a nuclear scientist whose knowledge can save or doom the world. I will not reveal who is bad-good or good-bad.

6. Chase sequences. Lots of them. By powerboat on the Thames (and across dry land, and back on the Thames) and then into a hot-air balloon. By skis down a mountain, pursued by hang-gliding, bomb-throwing para-sailers whose devices convert into snowmobiles. By land, in the BMW. Under the sea, as Bond breaks into a submarine and later pursues a villain by popping outside the sub and then in again.

7. Megalomaniacal villains. There is a terrific early appearance of the arch-terrorist Renard (Robert Carlyle). His oversized skull rises from the floor in a hologram, and then takes on flesh. M explains that a bullet in his brain is gradually robbing him of his senses, but that "he'll grow stronger every day until he dies." Bond walks around the hologram and reaches inside Renard's head to trace the path of the bullet. Another villain is played by Robbie Coltrane, who gets mileage out of always seeming like he'd really prefer to be a nice guy.

8. Locations. Not simply the oil field of Azerbaijan, but Frank Gehry's new Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, which figures in a nifty opening sequence, and the Millennium Dome on the banks of the Thames, which becomes a landing pad after a balloon explodes. Also a Hindu holy place with flames that never die.

9. Weird ways to die. How about vivisection by helicopter-borne rotary tree-trimming blades? Or garroting in an antique torture chair? 10. Sensational escapes. There is nothing like a Bond picture to make you believe a man can safely bungee-jump from a tall building, after tying one end of a window shade cord to his belt and the other end to an unconscious body.

All of these elements are assembled by director Michael Apted and writers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein into a Bond picture that for once doesn't seem like set pieces uneasily glued together, but proceeds in a more or less logical way to explain what the problem and solution might be. Bond's one-liners seem more part of his character this time, and Carlyle's villain emerges as more three-dimensional and motivated, less of a caricature, than the evildoers in some of the Bond films.

My favorite moment? A small one, almost a throwaway. The movie answers one question I've had for a long time: How do the bad guys always manage to find all their equipment spontaneously, on remote locations where they could not have planned ahead? After the snow chase sequence, a villain complains morosely that the para-sails were rented, and "were supposed to be returned."

Maybe he's forgotten about Drax's call to 'Henchmen 'R' Us'

Should have been more like.

One can only imagine what Bernard Lee thought of his successor.

More...



M 2.0 would have said, "Spare me this sentimental rubbish!"

You mean until he read his cue cards written in big black letter, two words a page, stuck on the chest of the actor in front of him.