The World is Not Enough presents some difficulty for someone attempting to prove the proposition that the series has had its day. You can see the dilemma. How can this entry be so much more enjoyable than the last while simultaneously being as derivative of other instalments? What separates TWINE as we're all loath to call it, from its predecessor is that it stands on the other side of that fine line that segregates total self-parody from a fresh reworking of old material. The shift in tone may be slight and the film itself only a notch more concerned with the mechanism of a story and slightly meatier drama but it's enough to make it watchable and entertaining as opposed to cringe worthy. Credit for this should probably go to Michael Apted whose injects the whole enterprise with a bit of gravitas and character. There's not THAT much to chew here in that respect but it makes a critical difference. If the film is more assured and less pantomime than before then it still has problems in the script department. This is still a story culled from the series back catalogue. Renard, the villain of the week is largely wasted after an intriguing introduction that promises much then falls back onto familiar ground. Pervis and Wade could have run with the idea of a villain who can't feel pain and is close to death and so arguably more dangerous but revert to type and employ it as a mere gimmick. You also have to wonder whether it was necessary for Renard to look SO much like Blofeld from You Only Live Twice and if this is symptomatic of a general failure of imagination that plagues the film somewhat. One scene that should be singled out is Q's farewell which highlights what the Bond producers need to get away from, particularly in light of this movie's follow up. It makes the mistake of the basic confusion between two things - audience expectation and the established world of the characters. An uninitiated audience may imagine that Bond and Q have a relationship akin to teacher and student/Father and Son but anyone watching the movies regularly rather than casually over the years knows this to be cine-bowel content. Q is a civil servant who, and I hope your paying attention, does NOT make gadgets himself, he presents them to field operatives and is part of a wider division that R and D's equipment. This is made clear throughout the series and viewers should note the difference in tone between Q's scenes before the 1989 hiatus and afterwards in which the character as constructed in the audience imagination supplanted the character as written up to that point. Its a bit of post-modern reinvention typical of Pervis and Wade. Q bows out talking about the tenets of wisdom he's passed on to Bond and the gadgets he's particularly proud of. Lovely for the fans but utter nonsense. If TWINE has problems its in reconciling this fan boy fluff with the stories more serious pretencions. Its sometimes an uneasy alliance that doesn't allow the material to gel. That said, overall TWINE is entertaining stuff - a great opening sequence, good title (always important), some nice visual flourishes and a real groaner of a closing line that makes you laugh like you did at the end of Roger Moore's outings. A confusing entry then, as it pulls back from the precipice of being total fluff without really filling you with confidence that the series is recovering. There was a feeling here that if Brosan's Bonds kept moving in the direction of more considered plotting, better characterisation and less recycling that the next one may be really rather good. Unfortunately team Bond did the opposite and made TWINE the exception rather than the rule of Brosnan's period in the role. The most well rounded of his era.
Review of The World Is Not Enough
