Oh The World Is Not Enough, how much do I hate thee? Tremendously so. Let me count thy ways. Or least I would were there enough time to, but there isn't. Not enough time in the whole universe, not enough digits on the calculator, not enough beads on the abacus, to make measuring my disgust for this apocalyptically disastrous train-wreck of a film a possible feat. So let me just state that The World is Not Enough's standing as far an away the most dismal entry into the Bond canon doesn't stem from one particular thing, or a couple of things. It's everything. Everything about this film sucks harder than a vacuum cleaner on steroids. The reason I despise it so is that it goes completely against what a Bond film is supposed to be, in every single department. It had to have been deliberate, no one could accidentally make a Bond film this bad. So depressingly far off target. While other Bond films on the lower end of spectrum could at least claim, despite whatever shortcoming it possessed and however evident those shortcoming were, to be a high quality, professionally made production. The World is Not Enough, horrible in idea and horrible in execution, can't even claim that. It is the mother-in-law of all travesties that this abomination is not only allowed to exist, but allowed to exist with the Bond brand name on it. The film achieves the rare double of being both pretentious and cretentious in tone, with a soggy, utterly stupid story (M getting herself kidnapped is the dumbest thing I've ever, ever seen (also why is M handling a case involving a friend? Surely, if she possessed any sort of professionalism at all, she had it over to her deputy)), an unsexy title sequence, a forgettable score, and drab, dreary, grey cinematography (all those thing completely unBondesque). No style, no panache, and totally joyless, save for the odd terrible pun, with no sense of spectacle or thrill or understanding of what a James Bond film is supposed to be. It has the most heavy-handed, cliché-ridden, melodramatic dialogue / drivel trying unsuccessfully to pass itself off as dialogue that you've you've ever come across but wish you hadn't. "This is a game I can't afford to play". WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?!! Let's be honest, it doesn't mean anything, it's just made to sound like does. The script is built on this crass, grating, pretentious twaddle spouted out of the mouths of under-talented over-payed actors an attempt to conceal the terrible, terrible plot and appallingly bad written and acted characters, and dupe slow-witted folk into believing that they are actually watching something with substance (the "Stockholm syndrome" speech is particularly embarrassing). Bond films used to have wit, they used to mostly fun but with a little bit of understated, subtle depth for adults. While The World is Not Enough Has ambitions about being the “deep”, “thinking mans” Bond, but tries way to hard and fails so miserably, bringing everything to surface, taking what should be internal and making it external, Ironically, it's actually the least “thinking mans” Bond of the lot, because it (crassly) does all the thinking for you. And let's not forget (no matter how hard we might try to) the God awful puns, like "I thought Christmas only comes once a year" and that millennium bug crack (yeah, a millennium bug joke, way to instantly date the film). The film tries to be a character piece, but gets the character of James Bond so terribly, terribly wrong. One particularly dismal scene has Bond wiping a tear off the computer screen. All this "this is a game I can't afford to play" piffle. This isn't James Bond. Bond's supposed to be a cold ruthless killer (at least the outside). Acting ruthless isn't translation for "pout a little" Mr. Brosnan. And what's with Bond's initial reluctance to do Electra? Bond's supposed to be a predator, not a wimp. A wolf in sheep's clothing, not a sheep in sheep in sheep's clothing. This just isn't James Bond. Pierce Brosnan has had the character not tweaked, but completely re-written to suit his own persona. True Roger Moore (from The Spy Who Loved Me onwards, not so much before then) did too, but while his Bond is charming and witty and had remarkable judo chop abilities and was even at this very worst still entertaining to watch, Brosnan's Bond isn't. He's a blithering idiot, too overtly emotional. While he does his little Bond poses and moments, he never is Bond. It's just an imitaion. You can see him thinking "must look cool, must look cool", but never actually being cool. The scene most representative of this film (i.e. the most pitiful) is where Bond guns down Electra (Sophie Marceau). This could have been good, if underplayed just nicely, but of course it's stage in a hammy and melodramatic way. Electra goes all hysterical, and Brosnan-Bond hesitates, and worse of all he loses his cool and yells at her to stop with desperation in his voice (one “I won't ask again” followed by an icy stare is what we really needed), and, of course, pouts a little (Brosnan's equivalent of acting). He does shoot her down, but then follows it up with a cheesy dramatic line “I never miss” and then dwells on it afterwards, before going in to kiss her, the necrophilic bastard. The real James Bond (sadly not present in this film) would have squelched any emotion he had about the situation. He would have looked at her dead body, called her a “bitch” and then just shrugged it off and got on with business. As Sophie Marceau and Pierce Brosnan trundle their way through though the film inflicting their acting “talents” on us, the innocent viewer, I can't help but wonder just what did we do to deserve such severe punishment. Sure, I give tourists false directions, urinate in stranger's backyards, and last week I took the parking ticket off a car and stuck it on another car, but even I don't deserve this. This, this God awful, suicide-inducing pile of excrement. I know what your thinking, because I'm really cool and I can read peoples minds (I can also juggle toasters). While the visuals, story, acting, music, writing, directing, assistant directing and second assistant directing may be complete and utter rubbish, this is still a Bond film we're talking about here so there must be some decent action, some thrilling stunts. Right. Right? RIGHT!? Wrong! The action sequences are boring and thrilless. Sluggish, lazy “efforts”, with loads of explosions and running about but not really very much happening. There are no close misses, no thrilling stunts, no genuinely dangerous moments, no ingenuity or inventiveness on anyone's part. No innocent bystanders throwing themselves out of the way. Just half a dozen actors running around a caviar factory like headless chickens, and it's a real sorry sight. It's like watching paint grow. And they're not even blended into the film. It's sort of like the Bond theme starts playing and everyone drops what they're doing and goes "Here we go. Time for another action scene", an action scene is about to start. You could completely remove them from the film and it would make a difference. Look at the amazing ski-chase in For Your Eyes Only, which starts off with Bond cornered into ski-jumping contest and then moves onto him getting pursued snipers and motorbikes with spikes on their wheels, etc, over a lunch table, a bob sled track, a farm, etc, while losing his gun and one of skis, etc. Now look at the ski chase in this rotting corpse. Bond skis. Parahawks blow up. That's about it. About Interesting as cutting your toenails (and by that I don't mean after you've let them grow for a week and half and they've started to curl over and you have to sort of dig in there. I mean cutting your toenails after having already cut them earlier that day). Geez, they used to put effort into these things. It's depressing. I really, really tried to like this movie, whenever I see it I try to like it, but it just defies my every attempt to do so. It's the spawn of something gruesome and unholy. The eleventh level of hell. A blemish on an otherwise fine film series. My contempt for this stems mostly from the fact that it is a Bond film, and Bond films should be so, so, so much better than this. It's my dream to become mega rich one day, so that I can buy up every copy of this film. I'd stick it in a vault never to be released, then, just to be safe, I'd blow up the vault and send the ashes to the four corners of the world. It really is that bad. |
