James Bond is beginning to look a lot like Austin Powers. Just as Austin is frozen in the 1960s, poor James is trapped in the 1970s. While his gadgets get biennial updates, no one bothers to contemporize the Hefneresque lifestyle of the superannuated British spy.
But the clarion call of the familiar Bond theme music still stirs the blood. While expectations are nearly always dashed by slavish devotion to a tired formula, Bond producers have learned that cutting-edge stunts will continue to sell the series successfully. Like Jules Verne novels, Bond movies are both antique and futuristic, and there is something charming about these willful contradictions.
Unfortunately, MGM's "The World Is Not Enough" marks a retrograde step, even for Bond. While that may not impact worldwide grosses for agent 007's 19th cinematic adventure -- which should be considerable -- it might prove detrimental to Bond's future. His producers need to spend less time mired in convoluted plots no one cares about and more time reinvigorating the character and formula for the 21st century.
Pierce Brosnan, looking distractingly thin in his third outing as Bond, finds himself embroiled in murder, mayhem and double-crosses involving oil pipelines and nuclear terrorists in Central Asia, none of which one audience member in 100 could possibly explain. This happens despite a screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Bruce Fierstein that spends an unconscionable amount of time on exposition and back stories.
But the film delivers the goods in terms of explosions, firefights and pursuits. Bond chases or gets chased in sequences employing speedboats, parachuting snowmobiles, pipeline racers and a helicopter with a huge chainsaw suspended beneath it. He survives an avalanche, a plunge from a high-rise building, a fireball in an underground tunnel and a struggle aboard a nuclear sub as it nose-dives toward the ocean floor.
The Bond girls include a dangerously curved Maria Grazia Cucinotta ("Il Postino"); Sophie Marceau, a beautiful, talented actress who manages nuances where none exist; and the pouty though scenic Denise Richards, playing a nuclear physicist dressed in a tight tank top and shorts, making her less a rocket scientist than a scientist with rockets.
Bond's nemesis is Robert Carlyle, a villain with a bullet in his brain that renders him impervious to pain (but, curiously enough, not to pleasure).
The filmmakers have altered Bond's dynamics with two continuing characters with mixed results. John Cleese is introduced as R, the new associate of (Desmond Llewelyn), the querulous inventor of 007's famed gadgets. Cleese is signed up for three more films, which should greatly enhance the comedy in Bond's future.
However, Bond's nominal boss, M, played by the regal Judi Dench, gets much more heavily involved, turning her into something of a misguided assistant to Bond -- a curious, wrong-headed way to go with this character.
What "World" lacks most is the wit that once ran rampant throughout Bond movies. There are endless puns -- mostly shameless groaners -- but everyone is very grim and serious here without the leavening influence of humor. Nobody seems to be having fun.
Brosnan is especially guilty. In "Tomorrow Never Dies", action star Michelle Yeoh, more of a female sidekick than a Bond girl, managed to loosen him up. But this time, in a mistaken effort to play a more serious Bond, Brosnan rarely smiles and appears to need an anti-depressant.
Michael Apted, who can be an astute filmmaker, makes a disappointing debut as a Bond director, unable to interject personality or idiosyncratic moments into the formulaic proceedings.
Now, about that formula. There is nothing wrong with cookie-cutter movies as long as different ingredients and tastes are added to each new batch. But this Bond outing repeats too many past gimmicks -- a remote-controlled car and the theft of a nuclear device -- to satisfy die-hard Bond fans.
And the filmmakers seem afraid to tinker in the slightest with procedures that got set in stone when Roger Moore played Bond during the 1970s and have since ossified.
Bond is clearly in a slump, and it's going to take more than Q's gadgets and Bond's girls to snap him out of it.
THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
MGM
Ion Productions Ltd.
Producers:Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli
Director:Michael Apted
Screenwriters:Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Bruce Fierstein
Story:Neal Purvis, Robert Wade
Director of photography:Adrian Biddle
Production designer:Peter Lamont
Music:Danny Arnold
Costume designer:Lindy Hemming
Editor:Jim Clark
Color/stereo
Cast:
James Bond:Pierce Brosnan
Elektra King:Sophie Marceau
Renard:Robert Carlyle
Dr. Christmas Jones:Denise Richards
Valentin Zukovsky:Robbie Coltrane
M:Judi Dench
Q:Desmond Llewelyn
R:John Cleese
Cigar girl:Maria Grazia Cucinotta
Running time -- 128 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
But the clarion call of the familiar Bond theme music still stirs the blood. While expectations are nearly always dashed by slavish devotion to a tired formula, Bond producers have learned that cutting-edge stunts will continue to sell the series successfully. Like Jules Verne novels, Bond movies are both antique and futuristic, and there is something charming about these willful contradictions.
Unfortunately, MGM's "The World Is Not Enough" marks a retrograde step, even for Bond. While that may not impact worldwide grosses for agent 007's 19th cinematic adventure -- which should be considerable -- it might prove detrimental to Bond's future. His producers need to spend less time mired in convoluted plots no one cares about and more time reinvigorating the character and formula for the 21st century.
Pierce Brosnan, looking distractingly thin in his third outing as Bond, finds himself embroiled in murder, mayhem and double-crosses involving oil pipelines and nuclear terrorists in Central Asia, none of which one audience member in 100 could possibly explain. This happens despite a screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Bruce Fierstein that spends an unconscionable amount of time on exposition and back stories.
But the film delivers the goods in terms of explosions, firefights and pursuits. Bond chases or gets chased in sequences employing speedboats, parachuting snowmobiles, pipeline racers and a helicopter with a huge chainsaw suspended beneath it. He survives an avalanche, a plunge from a high-rise building, a fireball in an underground tunnel and a struggle aboard a nuclear sub as it nose-dives toward the ocean floor.
The Bond girls include a dangerously curved Maria Grazia Cucinotta ("Il Postino"); Sophie Marceau, a beautiful, talented actress who manages nuances where none exist; and the pouty though scenic Denise Richards, playing a nuclear physicist dressed in a tight tank top and shorts, making her less a rocket scientist than a scientist with rockets.
Bond's nemesis is Robert Carlyle, a villain with a bullet in his brain that renders him impervious to pain (but, curiously enough, not to pleasure).
The filmmakers have altered Bond's dynamics with two continuing characters with mixed results. John Cleese is introduced as R, the new associate of (Desmond Llewelyn), the querulous inventor of 007's famed gadgets. Cleese is signed up for three more films, which should greatly enhance the comedy in Bond's future.
However, Bond's nominal boss, M, played by the regal Judi Dench, gets much more heavily involved, turning her into something of a misguided assistant to Bond -- a curious, wrong-headed way to go with this character.
What "World" lacks most is the wit that once ran rampant throughout Bond movies. There are endless puns -- mostly shameless groaners -- but everyone is very grim and serious here without the leavening influence of humor. Nobody seems to be having fun.
Brosnan is especially guilty. In "Tomorrow Never Dies", action star Michelle Yeoh, more of a female sidekick than a Bond girl, managed to loosen him up. But this time, in a mistaken effort to play a more serious Bond, Brosnan rarely smiles and appears to need an anti-depressant.
Michael Apted, who can be an astute filmmaker, makes a disappointing debut as a Bond director, unable to interject personality or idiosyncratic moments into the formulaic proceedings.
Now, about that formula. There is nothing wrong with cookie-cutter movies as long as different ingredients and tastes are added to each new batch. But this Bond outing repeats too many past gimmicks -- a remote-controlled car and the theft of a nuclear device -- to satisfy die-hard Bond fans.
And the filmmakers seem afraid to tinker in the slightest with procedures that got set in stone when Roger Moore played Bond during the 1970s and have since ossified.
Bond is clearly in a slump, and it's going to take more than Q's gadgets and Bond's girls to snap him out of it.
THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
MGM
Ion Productions Ltd.
Producers:Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli
Director:Michael Apted
Screenwriters:Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Bruce Fierstein
Story:Neal Purvis, Robert Wade
Director of photography:Adrian Biddle
Production designer:Peter Lamont
Music:Danny Arnold
Costume designer:Lindy Hemming
Editor:Jim Clark
Color/stereo
Cast:
James Bond:Pierce Brosnan
Elektra King:Sophie Marceau
Renard:Robert Carlyle
Dr. Christmas Jones:Denise Richards
Valentin Zukovsky:Robbie Coltrane
M:Judi Dench
Q:Desmond Llewelyn
R:John Cleese
Cigar girl:Maria Grazia Cucinotta
Running time -- 128 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 11/15/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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