NO TIME TO DIE Countdown: THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH

In the No Time To Die Countdown, Jake Tropila takes a look back at every Bond film – official and unofficial – in anticipation of the release of the latest entry.

Historically, the third Bond film has been hailed as a triumph, should a Bond actor be so fortunate to get one. 1964’s Goldfinger is widely recognized as the quintessential Bond, perfecting the formula and delivering a richly satisfying film. 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me found Moore coming into his own, with a rousing, globetrotting blockbuster. And 2012’s Skyfall would break further boundaries, becoming the first Bond film to gross a billion dollars in worldwide box office receipts. So, what of The World is Not Enough, Pierce Brosnan’s third film?

“Secretly great” is what I have jotted down in the middle of my notes, and that’s no lie: while revisiting the film for this column, I couldn’t help but notice how truly excellent it is, and wonder why it was not more warmly received. Consensus deems GoldenEye to be the best, Die Another Day the worst, and Tomorrow Never Dies had its fair share of supporters as wells. Each has their place, but when people think of this one, all they can say is “Christmas Jones” and move on.

But the film is so much more than that! A pair of remarkable villains, a sizable role for M, a bittersweet goodbye for Q, a return of a formidable ally, a killer song, a competent director, and a showcase for what is arguably Brosnan’s best performance as 007 — The World is Not Enough certainly has a lot going for it.

That’s not to say the film is without its problems. The film runs a tad overlong, with plotting stretched to the breaking point, action scenes that impede rather than service the story, and Christmas Jones is a distraction (but not for the reason viewers think). We’ve got all this and more to discuss, so let’s not waste any time getting into it. Climb aboard my militarized Q Branch fishing boat, friends. It’s 1999; time to find out if there’s no point in living if you can’t feel alive.

Never Let Them See You Bleed

The World is Not Enough commences with our longest pre-title sequence yet, nearing fifteen minutes in length. Bond drops by Bilbao, Spain to retrieve ransom money belonging to British oil tycoon Sir Robert King, before returning it to MI6. Once the money has been received, it mysteriously detonates, killing King and destroying a considerable section of MI6 in the process. Bond chases the assassin down on the Thames river, before the assassin kills herself in a hot air balloon.

I’m curious to know if the length of this sequence was originally planned this way. If it wasn’t, the change is understandable: Bond’s excursion to Bilbao, while nifty, is too brief, too slight to pack any real punch. The boat chase feels more like the proper opening, with the bank sequence being a prologue to that. I do enjoy seeing London heavily incorporated in this chase; there’s a real sense of “They are actually there!” that is more satisfying to watch than if it were on some backlot. The chase should have never reached land, though. Bond driving the boat through city streets, fish markets, and a crowded restaurant is too silly, even by Brosnan’s standards. Excising them would lose nothing. Anyways, the assassin blows up and Bond injures his shoulder. Onto the credits.

All hail Garbage — the band, not the refuse. Coming in hot with a stellar title song, they may rival Sheryl Crow for my favorite Brosnan song. It’s just flat-out great; Shirley Manson sings the pants off of it, especially once the chorus kicks in. All of this is played over images of oil dripping over the bodies of dancers to form our usual title sequence silhouettes (the oil is thematic, you see). Also performing admirable duty is composer David Arnold, who contributes more fine work to the soundtrack. The James Bond Theme makes a triumphant return here.

Before we go any further, we must say goodbye to our series’ longest stalwart. At seventeen films and thirty-six years, Desmond Llewelyn’s tenure as Q is longer than anyone else’s in the franchise. Since his first appearance in From Russia With Love, you could always count on Q to pop up and demand that 007 pay attention, lest he miss any important details about his endless supply of gadgetry. Even if he showed up for only one scene, it was always a memorable one. The sad part about his departure is that it was not planned; Llewelyn passed shortly after the film was released. There’s a melancholic feeling to seeing Q sink into the floor via his secret elevator compartment. That lovably avuncular quartermaster will be forever missed. Farewell, Q.

King’s ransom money was initially to be used to arrange the safe return of his kidnapped daughter, Elektra King (Sophie Marceau). Elektra was kidnapped by a KGB agent turned deadly anarchist known as Renard. Renard has a curious physical ailment: he cannot feel pain. 009 had been previously ordered to kill Renard and safely retrieve Elektra. Trouble is, the mission cost 009 his life, and the bullet he put in Renard’s brain only disrupted his senses, allowing him to operate at a superhuman capacity that no other man would be capable of (“He’ll grow stronger every day until the day he dies”).

Bond circumvents medical orders to remain a field operative in order to protect Elektra, all while investigating why someone would want her father killed, and also to see just how much danger she really is in. John Cleese pops up as “R” to comically issue Bond a jacket best suited for surviving avalanches, something Bond would not need unless he was to go to the mountains. Oh, right: the next scene sees him skiing with Elektra. A handy thing, these reverse-engineered gadgets.

Ski time is cut short by the arrival of the parahawks (ski mobiles outfitted with parachutes). Bond handily dispatches them, despite being unarmed, and R’s ski jacket protects him and Elektra from an oncoming avalanche. His devotion to protecting her allows them to consummate their relationship. How sweet.

Robert Carlyle is typically reliable as portraying unhinged individuals, but he smartly scales back Renard’s powers, allowing him to see more human than his condition allows. As we learn, Elektra is initially set up as our Bond Girl but is actually our main Bond Villain, surreptitiously pulling the strings and utilizing Renard to steal a nuclear bomb (her ultimate goal is to destroy a rival company pipeline in Istanbul; she being an oil heiress, her own pipeline’s value would increase

The damaged relationship between Elektra and Renard is one of the strongest aspects of The World is Not Enough. Renard is useful to her because he can’t feel pain, but he’s also effectively impotent and incapable of making Elektra truly happy. She’s even more complex: a hostage betrayed by her country (MI6 advised her father against paying her ransom), she fell in love with her captor and orchestrated her return, which involved the murder of her father, the dismantling of MI6, and the attack on a rival pipeline. Contrary to the usual brand of Bond villainy, these are not power-hungry monsters; they’re vulnerable, wounded, sensitive people, struggling to feel something in a world that has let them down. Pretty compelling stuff, if you ask me.

Always Have an Escape Plan

Valentin Zukovsky makes a grand return after his initial appearance in GoldenEye, and his presence is all the more welcome. Channeling the great Ali Kerim Bey, Robbie Coltrane is a delight, all charismatic and gregarious as the powerful caviar baron. His stay is more extended this time around, secretly selling land to Elektra right under Bond’s nose in the form of a high-stakes card game. Unfortunately for them, Bond’s a bid more astute than that.

Onward to Kazakhstan — time to meet Christmas. “Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist named Christmas Jones” has provoked the ire of many Bond fans. Rest assured: you’ll get no hate from me. For one, I see no problem with a young woman dominating a field that is made up of middle-aged men – pretty progressive if you ask me. And the role is certainly not the fault of Richards, who does everything asked of her. No, the problem is that the character’s ultimate function is to exist as a punchline. Silly names are a dime a dozen, but hers is such a ridiculously easy layup for the final line of the movie (I won’t even write it), especially when it exists in a film that shows an uncommon level of intelligence.

Bond’s first encounter with Renard is uncharacteristically vicious — arguably the closest Brosnan ever gets to feeling like Dalton. No pleasantries exchanged here: Bond has the madman dead to rights, threatening him in a tightly coiled snarl. Hell, Bond even pistol whips the unarmed man before they are discovered. Unfortunately (and rather conveniently), Bond is unable to murder Renard at this time, and he and Christmas must escape the exploding underground nuclear bomb silo.

Dench has proven herself to be a steely and no-nonsense M — Bernard Lee’s only real equivalent — and her kidnapping at the hand of Elektra provides her with not just more screentime, but it gives M something to actually do besides issue orders from behind a desk. Like Q and Moneypenny, M has traditionally only been a “single scene” character: Bond shows up at the office, gets a case file, the mission begins. Sometimes there’s a coda involving M, usually along the lines of M catching Bond in some tryst, but The World is Not Enough offers M her true first supporting role to the narrative. This certainly won’t be the last time this happens, either. Kudos to the Bond producers for seeing value in Dench and figuring out how to include more of her.

Bond and Christmas circle back to Zukovsky, whom they suspect is involved in Elektra’s scheme. Before they can get much information, they are interrupted by a fleet of King helicopters outfitted with dangling buzzsaws. One of my biggest problems with Tomorrow Never Dies was the action; namely, the execution of the action. My main critique was the over-utilization of cuts to disguise incompetence for excitement. And at a certain point, that film becomes wall-to-wall action, which really exacerbates the problem.

The World is Not Enough was directed by Michael Apted, who is perhaps best known as the filmmaker behind the Seven Up! film series. Unlike Roger Spottiswoode, Apted has a rather keen eye for action, and stages everything relatively cleanly. However, my issue here concerns the necessity of action. The World is Not Enough largely progresses like a traditional spy film, and every now and then it has to stop for an action setpiece as if it were contractually obligated to do so.

Case in point: the attack on Zukovsky’s caviar facility. At the end of it all, Bond literally says “Now, where were we” after dispatching all incoming attackers. We were so close to getting this information anyways, but Apted holds it back another five minutes just to demolish some flimsy wooden buildings. Now, I’ll admit that it is a fun setpiece – the look of glee on Zukovsky’s face when Bond’s car gets buzz-sawed in half is priceless – but I find myself patiently waiting for it to end before we move on to Istanbul.

Elektra’s torture of Bond in that bizarre neck-breaking chair drags a bit much for my liking, especially since we have to endure more of Brosnan’s cringeworthy pain-acting (see my previous entry for more on that), but Apted saves it with one of the best moments in Brosnan’s oeuvre: the killing of Elektra. She proudly boasts that he won’t kill her in cold blood; he swiftly proves her wrong. Brosnan brought a tremendous amount of balance to his years of Bond; audiences could certainly appreciate the familiarity of what he brought to the table, knowing he wouldn’t venture too far out in murky waters. But every so often, The World is Not Enough teases a darker Brosnan that felt somewhat enticing, even if it never came to fruition. I would have loved to see him pull off his own Licence to Kill. It would have been a secret masterpiece (and a certified box office flop).

The submarine finale underwhelms. For one, it just goes on far too long, and little in the way of excitement happens (think T.U.S. – Thunderball Underwater Syndrome). It’s got a lot of moving parts – Bond enters one compartment, moves into a central compartment, swims outside of the sub and re-enters through yet another compartment, catches Renard in a new compartment, stops to rescue Christmas from a flooding compartment – but the end result of Renard getting impaled on the golden nuclear rod lacks bite, especially for a seemingly indestructible man. I do appreciate that Bond’s final send off line – “She’s waiting for you!” – has soulful meaning, and is not a pun. Small miracles.

Conclusion: The World is Not Enough

“Better than I remembered” is the last note I had jotted down, even after that final Christmas Jones kiss-off line. The World is Not Enough was Brosnan’s last grasp at greatness. GoldenEye may win the popularity context, but this film granted Pierce the opportunity to flex his Bond muscles in new and interesting ways. Considering where the next film takes us, that’s more than any of us could hope for.

Coming up next: we bid farewell to Pierce Brosnan, as he rides one last wave into the sunset. Literally. The No Time To Die Countdown will return with Die Another Day.

What do you think? Does The World is Not Enough vie for GoldenEye as the best Brosnan Bond? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Watch The World is Not Enough