Movie Notes-
With the Bond film franchise newly rejuvenated, United Artists has once again started the cycle of releasing a Bond film every two years. With the financial success of 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough was released on November 19, 1999.
In his third outing as James Bond, Pierce Brosnan turns out another riveting performance as British agent 007. This time he is assigned to protect the daughter of a murdered oil tycoon. What he comes to learn, however, is that his daughter, Elektra, is the mastermind behind his death and a devious plot to contaminate the oil fields of Turkey. She enlists the aide of Renard, a madman that feels no pain due to a bullet lodged in his brain. With much of the world's oil contaminated, King enterprises corners the market on oil.
This film is a hard-edged return to the classic Bond mould. With Tomorrow Never Dies's hard action sequences and overtly simple storyline, the producers sought to make a more complex plot while keeping the body count at bay. The pre-credits sequence is fantastic as King is murdered at MI6 headquarters in London. This leads Bond into a chase after the cigar girl (who took a shot at Bond) in a high speed boat chase down the Thames River. In the longest opening sequence in Bond history, at approximately 15 minutes, the chase takes place down the river and culminates with the cigar girl escaping in a hot air baloon with Bond hanging on one of the ropes. As the baloon explodes, Bond falls onto the roof of the brand new Millenium Dome in Greenwich, England. Definately one of the series' best openers.
The plot may be a little difficult to figure at first, but this film is entertaining from start to finish. The fantastic cast of Brosnan, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle, the beautiful Denise Richards, and a great addition of John Cleese as Q's replacement "R" are a definite plus. The plot is dangerously close to Goldfinger, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The musical score by Arnold is great once again. The locations are fantastic (especially the ski sequence reminiscent of Lazenby's Bond of On Her Majesty's Secret Service). And Brosnan turns out his best performance as James Bond yet. All in all, The World Is Not Enough is a high-caliber entertainer and one of the best Bond films...ever.
Overall Rating: A-
The ski-para hawk attack scene was inspired by the ski chase in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). Filmmakers wanted to connect the film with the one which its title is derived from.
The sequence at Zukovsky's caviar factory, where Bond and Christmas Jones are being chased by helicopters carrying razor-sharp sawblades, was originally scripted in GoldenEye (1995). However, the film was running a bit long and filmmakers dropped it from the script and it was never filmed.