1999 - The World Is Not Enough
Alternate Title - A Pipeline Is Apparently Too Much
PG13 - 128 minutes
Director - Michael Apted
Stars - Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards, Judi Dench, John Cleese
This one opens up with Bond beating up some bankers and retrieving a briefcase of money. Once back at the home base, Bond hands the money over to a man who is then blown the fuck up which is the first time we see the MI6 building being attacked. Usually the scenes at the building are briefings, sarcasm, gadget show-and-tell and reckless sexual harassment between Bond and Moneypenny. We see that a girl on a small boat in the river is the one that blew him up and since this is a Bond movie it can only lead to a boat chase. Boat chases are ALWAYS fucking boring to me. I’ve shared my hatred for movies on water but this one isn’t horrible UNTIL it goes on land. That’s right, the high-tech boat that he drives and also drive fairly well on land. Once back on water Bond uses missiles to blow up her boat but not before she jumps on land and immediately boards a hot air balloon which made me literally laugh out loud. Bond ramps her boat and flies out of the driver’s seat and grabs the rope and pleads for her to give up. He tells her that he can keep her save. She says, “Not from him,” and shoots the tanks, causing the balloon to blow up. It’s perfect Bond because it was a great sequence ruined by over-the-top attempts at humor.
After dropping from the hot air balloon, Bond is told that he can’t return to work until he is cleared by the doctor; who is, a hot blonde. Seriously? Why does MI6 keep surrounding Bond with women that he can bone? Isn’t that pretty much all he does on the field? He fucks the doctor for a clean bill of health. M didn’t see this happening? She hires a sexy-ass blonde doctor. She hired Bond and his penis. Put the two together in a room and guess what will happen.
This movie officially introduces R whom will be replacing Q for the next couple of movies. This is because the actor that has played Q since 1963 must have known that he would be dying and agreed to an on-screen replacement. R is played by John Cleese which is strange to see. When Q says goodbye to Bond he literally lowers himself out of the screen on a mini-elevator while staring up at Bond. It’s hilarious. At least, it is until you remember that he dies in real life shortly after the movie.
We are introduced to the villain; Renard. Rather, a floating 3-D hologram of his head in which you can see that a bullet is lodged in his head. Everyone in the room explains to Bond that the bullet will slowly kill him but in the meantime it’s basically making him immortal. He is losing emotions and feels no pain.
While following the daughter of the man that blew up, Elektra King, Bond gets involved in something else he loves to do; get shot at whilst downhill skiing. This time they are in weird planes with detachable parachutes so once they get sick of flying they simply become snowmobiles. As you would expect, they explode to hell if they even touch a tree. This is the first time in a Bond movie where one of the women reacts the way a normal person would after a ton of gunfire and explosions, she panics and freaks out. Not in an annoying way but in a realistic way that the series has completely ignored until now.
When we are finally introduced to Renard; he comes out of a cave surrounded by fire and his only act to show his power is the ability to hold on to burning hot rocks.
Here’s something that isn’t possible. Denise Richards plays a physicist. Her name is Christmas Jones. All of this is incredibly stupid. A man tells Bond that she’s totally a lesbian, however knowing Bond’s history with lesbians; she’s not safe. Hopefully she doesn’t wander into any barns later.
After Renard steals a nuclear bomb, he puts it in King’s pipeline so that it will blow up both the pipeline and the oil reserve. Bond reveals to M that he thinks King is working with Renard. After some terrible acting by Denise Richards, they decide that the best option is to send Christmas and Bond in after it. They discover that it isn’t nuclear after all and decide to let it blow up so that King thinks that they are both dead. Then, for seemingly no reason King reveals to M that she is evil and wanted Bond dead. I don’t know why she didn’t continue playing both sides at this point but whatever, hopefully it pays off. Wait, it immediately didn’t pay off. She kidnapped M as a gift for Renard. Fucking weak.
While visiting Valentin, to ask why he’s working for King, out of nowhere they are attacked by a helicopter that carries long saw blades that they previously showed cutting down trees so that they can build the pipeline. This time the blades slice the shit out of Valentin’s factory. It’s a really well done sequence as the stacked blades chase Bond down the piers, slicing them apart behind him.
Well, they almost made it a whole Bond movie without a submarine. However, 1 hour and 37 minutes in they show the obligatory mechanical sea-creature. Bond gets on the submarine so that he can stop Renard from blowing shit up. This results in a fist fight in which Renard clearly shows pain when he is punched. Both Renard and King are killed in such unsatisfying ways that they aren’t even worth mentioning. Basically the entire ending was conceived to get Denise Richards soaking wet in a white cotton shirt. After getting to safety, Bond and Christmas fuck. She’s a lesbian. She has stated it clearly yet whilst fucking Bond gets off the quip, “I thought Christmas only came once a year.” That’s the last line of a Bond movie. I shit you not. What’s the point of making the character a lesbian if she’s going to bang him anyway. That’s just horribly insulting to lesbians and unnecessary as a plot point.
Overall, it’s okay. Nothing special. The first half was way better than the second half. Renard could have been an awesome villain but he really had nothing to do in this movie. It felt like he was in about 5 scenes and had maybe 12 lines of dialogue. Such little attention is given to his freakish nature when fighting with Bond. When they stated that a bullet was lodged in his head, and it would inevitably follow a certain path that would lead to his death, I was hoping that his death would consist of Bond setting up a high powered magnet behind him so that the bullet was pulled through his brain quickly. Sort of like the ending of X-Men: First Class with the coin. This movie just didn’t stay together enough for me.