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James Bond is assigned to protect Elektra King, an oil
heiress who could be the next target of her one-time kidnapper,
Renard - a ruthless terrorist who is impervious to pain...
Having
firmly established Bond as an action hero for the 1990s in
Tomorrow Never Dies, the creative team strive to give
us more for the new millennium in The World is Not Enough.
The action is still up-front (the opening boat chase on the
Thames ranks among the finest examples ever) as is the sly
innuendo (from Samantha Bond's Moneypenny telling Bond "I
know exactly where to put that" to Brosnan's inevitable but
no less hilarious "I thought Christmas only comes once a year").
However, Brosnan and director Michael Apted ensure that their
film also offers depth, human interest plus a few surprises,
the likes of which we haven't seen since the Dalton movies.
Brosnan displays a meaner streak, from his opening confrontation
with Swiss banker Lachaise (Patrick Malahide) to his shocking
showdown with Elektra (Sophie Marceau), and also develops
Bond's humanity. Not only is 007 vulnerable to injury, something
that proves pivotal to the plot, but he is also susceptible
to Elektra's charms - unlike most of his previous, more casual
conquests, Bond is unable to shrug off her betrayal.
The
surprises provided by scriptwriters Neal Purvis, Robert Wade
and Bruce Feirstein include the very nature of Elektra (or
rather, this would have been surprising, had the movie's pre-publicity
not spilled the beans). Thanks to a splendid two-faced performance
by Marceau, Elektra defies Bond-movie convention by being
both a Bond girl and a villain on equal par with Robert Carlyle's
sadistic yet almost sympathetic Renard. The heavy involvement
of M (the dependable Judy Dench) is also extremely welcome,
and the danger in which she is placed quite unexpected, though
it does owe a debt to Kingsley Amis' Bond novel Colonel
Sun. The writers also find inspiration for Elektra as
villain/love interest in John Gardner's For Special Services.
Nor is the work of Ian Fleming overlooked. Aside from the
title (the Bond family motto first mentioned in On Her
Majesty's Secret Service) the torture chair used on 007
is very Fleming, being a more brutal and less fantastical
instrument than the usual Bond-movie devices, such as Goldfinger's
laser or the centrifuge in Moonraker.
On
the subject of the title, The World is Not Enough is
about as relevant to the plot as A View to a Kill's
title was back in 1985, justified only by a single name check
in the dialogue! And while I'm splitting hairs, if Renard
has no sense of touch, how is he able to climb without constantly
looking to check the positions of his hands and feet? It would
be like climbing a ladder with numb limbs.
TWINE
is also note-worthy for the touching swansong of Desmond Llewelyn
as Q. It is eerily uncanny that he died in a road accident
so soon after completing this movie. The region 2 special
edition DVD includes a tribute to Llewelyn, with a medley
of Q's greatest moments.
Making
his first appearance as Q's successor, R, John Cleese provides
an amusing couple of scenes. It's also great to see the return
of Robbie Coltrane as GoldenEye's Valentin Zukovsky,
in a significantly larger role this time - larger in terms
of screen time, I mean! And Denise Richards provides glamour,
conviction and witty repartee as Bond's ultimate love interest,
Dr Christmas Jones, who is also deeply involved in the thick
of the action.
Composer
David Arnold develops the deliberately traditional style of
his action music in Tomorrow Never Dies, adding punchy
layers of synthesised dance rhythms, a similar but more intricate
approach to that taken by John Barry in The Living Daylights.
The
special edition DVD is absolutely packed with features, including
two audio commentaries, three documentaries, two trailers
and the video to Garbage's title song (one of the better examples
of recent years). In addition, The Secrets of 007 dissects
nine stunt or effects-based sequences, revealing storyboard
excerpts, various views of the filming, and individual elements
that went into creating the finished product. A gadget worthy
of Q himself, the weekend will not be enough to fully explore
the joys contained on this DVD.
Richard
McGinlay
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