{"id":3926,"date":"2024-09-10T20:52:22","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T20:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3926"},"modified":"2024-10-12T21:29:45","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T21:29:45","slug":"the-world-is-not-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/10\/the-world-is-not-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"The World Is Not Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The World Is Not Enough <\/strong>(1999)\u00a0 \u00a0 MGM\/Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 128 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (language, strong violence, sexual situations and innuendo)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Apted\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Arnold\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Adrian Biddle\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 19, 1999 (US)\/November 26, 1999 (UK)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards, Robbie Coltrane, Desmond Llewelyn, Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Samantha Bond, Michael Kitchen, Colin Salmon Serena Scott Thomas, Ulrich Thomsen, Goldie, John Seru, Claude-Oliver Rudolph, Patrick Malahide, John Cleese, David Calder, Judi Dench.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Opening Song: \u201cThe World Is Not Enough\u201d by Garbage\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $126.9M (US)\/$361.8M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong> ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0The World Is Not Enough<\/strong> is a tragedy on a major level. It marks Desmond Llewelyn’s final appearance as Q, the inventor of all those cool gadgets that have gotten James Bond out of many hairy situations. The actor died in a car accident shortly after the premiere of the 19th installment of the popular spy series based on the stories of Ian Fleming. The good news is Monty Python vet John Cleese (A Fish Called Wanda) steps into the role of Q’s replacement, appropriately called R.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Another tragic aspect of The World Is Not Enough <\/strong>is that its opening 15 minutes is the best part of the whole movie. Everything after that just seems like an anticlimax. It goes down like this. Bond (Brosnan) is sent to Spain to retrieve some money that belongs to British oil tycoon Sir Robert King (Calder, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor), a personal friend of MI6 head M (Dench), from a Swiss banker (Malahide, The Long Kiss Goodnight) who might have information about the murder of a fellow agent. Before he can talk, he\u2019s murdered by his secretary (Cucinotta, Il Postino). At the same time, somebody saves Bond from taking a bullet.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It turns out to be a big set-up. The money is rigged to explode which it does, killing Sir Robert and destroying a portion of MI6 HQ. Bond spots the assassin, the banker\u2019s secretary, and gives chase in a Q-created speedboat on the Thames. It\u2019s one of those wild chases where the boats crash through everything in their paths and even drive on dry land. The chase ends when the female assassin hops on a hot air balloon and makes it explode before she can reveal who\u2019s behind the assassination. That\u2019s when the opening credits start. Sadly, the rest of the movie doesn\u2019t live up to its awesome pre-credits sequence.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Bond traces the money to Renard (Carlyle, The Full Monty), a former KGB agent-turned-terrorist incapable of feeling pain due to a bullet lodged in his brain courtesy of MI6. He was behind the kidnapping of Sir Robert\u2019s daughter Elektra (Marceau, Braveheart). Things didn\u2019t go his way; that\u2019s how he ended up with a delayed death sentence instead of the $5M ransom. It looks like he wants revenge against everybody involved. Bond is sent to protect Elektra in Azerbaijan where she\u2019s overseeing construction of an oil pipeline. Naturally, somebody tries to kill them moments after 007\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Michael Apted (Coal Miner\u2019s Daughter), The World Is Not Enough<\/strong> is yet another convoluted affair, one that involves Renard stealing plutonium from a Russian missile base in Kazakhstan. Bond goes there in the guise of a Russian scientist after a meeting with his old foe Zukovsky (Coltrane, the Harry Potter movies), a one-time mob boss who now owns a casino in Baku. On the base, he meets the film\u2019s other Bond Girl, nuclear physicist Dr. Christmas Jones (Richards, Wild Things). An added wrinkle to the already messy plot is the abduction of M due to the role she played in the failed kidnapping scheme. She\u2019s held prisoner by the villain(s) while Bond tries to stop Renard and his secret accomplice from carrying out their evil plan. I haven\u2019t named Renard\u2019s accomplice nor do I intend to. I\u2019ll only say it\u2019s obvious who\u2019s working in collusion with him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Brosnan is a good James Bond, that\u2019s not the problem with The World Is Not Enough<\/strong>. It\u2019s the script by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein. The movies just haven\u2019t been the same since they used up all of Ian Fleming\u2019s novels. The plots aren\u2019t all that interesting and neither are the villains. Carlyle does a fine job, but his Renard is one of the more forgettable Bond baddies. He\u2019s not the worst thing about The World Is Not Enough<\/strong> however. That would be Denise Richards. She\u2019s beautiful, no question about it, but she can\u2019t act to save her life. She is grievously miscast as a nuclear physicist. It\u2019s like casting John Travolta to play Albert Einstein. She\u2019s easily the worst Bond Girl since Tanya Roberts in A View to a Kill (1985). Marceau fares a little better as Elektra, a rich girl who\u2019s anything but pampered. She\u2019s pretty tough, likely the result of her kidnapping ordeal. Dench, who shows M is more than just somebody who sits at a desk and hands out assignments, is outstanding.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The World Is Not Enough<\/strong> is not really a bad movie, it’s just not that good. It\u2019s definitely one of the lesser Bond outings despite the well-mounted action scenes, one of which involves large tree-trimming buzzsaws hanging from helicopters. None of them measure up to the opening which set the bar too high. The movie is a disappointment, but at least it’s never boring.\"\"<\/p>\n

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The World Is Not Enough (1999)\u00a0 \u00a0 MGM\/Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 128 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (language, strong violence, sexual situations and innuendo)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Apted\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Arnold\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Adrian Biddle\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 19, 1999 (US)\/November 26, 1999 (UK)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-james-bond-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/The-World-Is-Not-Enough-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3926"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5619,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3926\/revisions\/5619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}