The James Bond Rewatch: Current Movie - SPECTRE

[Doc755]

The World is Not Enough is one of only two modern Bond films that I didn’t see in the theatre. And that was not a conscious choice. I thoroughly enjoyed GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies and Brosnan was a great Bond. Real life just took precedence. So I went out and bought the VHS (really!) sight unseen. And fell asleep before Bond makes it to Azerbaijan. The film just felt so lackluster and did not engage me at all. And sadly I think that’s a sentiment that’s carried over into subsequent watches. I don’t think this film is bad. It’s just so bland. Tomorrow Never Dies had moments that made me smile while still being a flawed film. This just kind of washes over you for two plus hours.

I was going to say there are some interesting elements that could have been done better but as I reflect on the plot I’m not even sure if that’s true. Having the Bond Girl turn into the villain is certainly a bold concept but its execution is pretty lacking. The problem is Bond and Elektra just do not spend enough time together to cause real drama at the betrayal. He suspects her almost immediately following their night together. She claimed he loved her but has she met Bond? Sex does not equal love. Unless she meant specifically sex. But again, this is Bond. And I’m sure there’s some conflict there but he does not hesitate to execute her and after a brief mourning has already moved on to the next woman.

Speaking of, Denise Richards is almost an afterthought because the real story was supposed to be Bond and Elektra. I think if you excised Christmas Jones completely, maybe you could have salvaged the Elektra storyline but we have a formula we need to follow. Perhaps for the best because it’s done so much better in Casino Royale. She’s given some awful lines and reads them completely flat but she’s certainly attractive and I guess the writers thought that was enough.

The real disservice I think was done to M. I get that they wanted to tell a more personal story and having Bond’s boss be a woman I guess provided that opportunity. I don’t see Bernard “This department is not concerned with your personal problems” Lee or Robert “Spare me the sentimental rubbish” Brown racing off to be captured over a guilt trip. Bond would never question either of them in front of their staff like he does to her. And when the head of MI6 goes missing along with a nuke the reaction from the world is . . . crickets. Bond and the woman he met along the way run their investigation with some Russian gangsters he happens to know. Makes perfect sense.

I actually felt better about this film before I started to break it down so I guess my waffling over the final score at least gets some benefit. Unlike previous Bond films, the action scenes seem tacked on and don’t really grow from the plot. The paraglider sequence is completely extraneous and given the storyline, what was the point? Were they supposed to kill Bond? Was it all for show so he would trust Elektra? The same with the buzz saw helicopter attacking the caviar factory. I thought that came much earlier in the film, not a half hour to the end.

The set design of the underground Russian testing facility was quite excellent. It was reminiscent of classic Ken Adams in prior films. The rotated submarine sets in the finale were also good even if the final battle between Bond and Renard is pretty low energy and repetitive. And of course the best part of the film, Desmond Llewelyn’s exit from the series. Tragically he would be killed in a car accident shortly after the film premiered. He stated his intention was to keep appearing until the producers didn’t want him anymore. I’m glad they did write this scene for him so we could give him a proper goodbye but his absence was definitely felt when I first saw Die Another Day.

Final score for The World is Not Enough is going to be 5/10. I was debating on whether to rate it a 6 because that’s what I gave to You Only Live Twice and I couldn’t decide if this film was worse than that. But breaking down the film for the review helped in that regard. Brosnan is still good as Bond, it’s just he’s given some bad scripts and his films (I feel safe saying this) only get worse. This film is more forgettable than anything else as the new Bond films focus too much on the action set pieces than the connective tissue that holds it all together. Sadly, their attempt to go bigger and flashier in the next one ends even worse.

Current Rankings:
1) On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
2) From Russia with Love
3) Goldfinger
4) For Your Eyes Only
5) The Living Daylights
6) The Spy Who Loved Me
7) GoldenEye
8) Thunderball
9) Dr. No
10) Licence to Kill
11) Octopussy
12) Live and Let Die
13) Tomorrow Never Dies
14) You Only Live Twice
15) The World is Not Enough
16) The Man with the Golden Gun
17) A View to a Kill
18) Moonraker
19) Diamonds are Forever