James Bond has been played by many different men. Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton,
Roger Moore, and perhaps one or two others before the present Pierce Brosnan.
Now, I've never really seen a James Bond movie. All that I've been privy to are
The Living Daylights, Goldeneye, and Tomorrow Never Dies. As you can see, I have
yet to see any of the classic Sean Connery Bond movies, so I currently don't know
what I'm missing. All I have to say, though, is that I have to be impressed by
our friend Pierce Brosnan.
To begin, Goldeneye was just stupid. It had some excitement, but overall it didn't
live up to any of the potential which I knew it had. Tomorrow Never Dies was much
better. It had more of a spy-like feel to it, and Bond seemed less Americanized and
more British. It was still lacking a certain something, and I have yet to able to
put my finger on it.
And now we have the third Brosnan Bond flick, and it's about as good as, if not a little
bit better than, the second. But there's still something missing. Let's take a look at
this movie, then, shall we? Perhaps, after an indepth look at The World Is Not Enough we
may be able to find out exactly why that is.
The movie opens up well enough. Bond is making a transaction with some Swiss bankers,
trying to get back some money for a colleague of his. I won't say much more than this
except for the fact that we are made privy to some very nice action and after twenty
minutes the opening credits decide to show up.
I must excuse myself at this moment. I'm starting to sound quite a bit cynical, and I'll
be the first to admit that I am a true cynic at heart. And nothing brings out my cynicism
than a sequel. As well, aside from The Living Daylights, I have yet to see a Bond movie
which was actually interesting and which I could not see it in my heart to mock. This one,
however, was in no way unmockable.
The entire plot revolves around a woman whose father is dead. She's developping a pipe-line
to bring goods across the Eastern continent (we're talking Russia, the Middle East, all
those places). This pipe-line was her father's idea, but now that he was killed by an
international terrorist, she has decided to continue his hard work and finish the pipe-line.
Enter said terrorist, who had kidnapped this woman a few years earlier. He wants to kill her
and sabotage the pipe-line. Enter Bond, who has been sent in by his boss, M, to keep the
woman safe.
Are you riveted yet? Does it sound like an amazing Bond plot-line yet?
It gets better. Plot-twists are abound, and things are not as simple as they seem. There's
a revenge plot, a conspiracy, and more.
What made this movie so... well... unimpressive was a mixture of things. To begin, Bond was
not much of an indestructible being in this thing. As he falls from an exploding hot-air
balloon, he hits a tarp which breaks his fall. As he hits it, he grunts, and continues to
grunt until his fall is ended. This is right before the opening credits. The entire theatre
was lucky that I have such good self control, because if I didn't have it, I swear I would
have shouted something along the lines of: "Wimp! No self-respecting action hero would let
that phase them! Oh, come on! That shouldn't hurt you! You're James Bond!" And so on and
so forth. The entirety of this movie was full of such moments, seeing as good ol' James was
burdened with a weak shoulder, induced by this fall.
Other than this, the fact remains that those who write the Bond series can't seem to stay
away from the Russians. Could someone please tell me why the Russians must always be the
bad guys? It's like the Klingons in the old Star Trek. It was always the Klingons, they
never touched the Romulans. In the Bond series any other terrorist organization is ignored.
Let's see Bond tackle the IRA, or some Middle-East terrorists. Why must he always fight
the Russians? Tell me that? There are other bad guys in the world, now. Let's see him
try and tackle them.
Another thing wrong with this movie is that there isn't enough espionage. Bond is a spy,
pure and simple. So... well... why isn't he spying? He's sent on all of these missions,
but why are they "Go and protect her," or "Go and fetch his money"? There's only one point
in this movie where he goes out and actually does some spying, but it's cut short and doesn't
take up much of the movie.
Where's the danger? Where's the suspense? There wasn't much of it, I'll tell you this.
It's not that this is a bad movie, it's just that there's more wrong with it than there is right.
The action sequences are well done, and the sequence where Bond is skiing while fighting
villains is quite nice to watch (and Bond's face as it goes from happy to disappointed when
he sees a bad guy he had thought was as good as dead actually isn't... well... that was
priceless), and there sequence where Bond goes undercover to investigate some nuclear arms
stuff (again with the nuclear weapons!) is also fun to watch. The movie's not bad, it's an
okay action movie and all, but overall it's not really a good Bond movie. I'd say that if
you want to see it, rent it or wait for a matinee or cheap night. Or let someone else buy
you the ticket. A good action movie, but nothing that will stick with you once the closing
credits roll.
The Bond theme, however, sounds great this time around!