World is Not Enough, The Review

After the assassination of an oil tycoon in the bowels of the British Foreign Office James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) feels partly responsible and gives death-defying chase to one of the perpetrators in a pre-credit sequence that is one of the most thrilling on screen in recent memory. Post credits Bond finds himself in Azerbaijan, protecting the tycoon`s daughter, Electra (Sophie Marceau) who`s determined to forge ahead with her father`s plans to build an alternative pipeline across the Caucasus. She was once the victim of a kidnapper, Renard (Robert Carlyle) and it`s thought that he somehow was responsible for her father`s death... Well Bond is back to babedom as his old martini-sipping, smooth-talking self - leaving the more austere Timothy Dalton version way behind. Some of the action sequences in The World is Not Enough are just splendid, the opening one I mentioned, but as well there`s the snow sequence and the finale. Sophie Marceau makes an interesting Bond babe as does Denise Richards as an unbelievably young nuclear scientist. And Robert Carlyle`s villain has some poignant depth - rather surprisingly. Director Michael Apted, better known for films like Gorillas in the Mist, Nell and the & Up documentaries, does a really intelligent job with this film. It`s exciting, it`s funny, it`s too long, but hey, isn`t everything these days and it has some really corny sexist puns, but I enjoyed it more than I have other Bond films of recent years. David`s comments:A sexier than usual, tougher than usual Bond, with some great sequences - the pre-credit boat chase down the Thames being only one. An interesting cast, with Sophie Marceau impressive as the alluringly enigmatic oil magnate - a pity more wan`t made of her before Bond goes off after Denise Richards, a pretty but unlikely oil expert in her shorts and t-shirt. Good to see Judi Dench`s is given a bit more to do (there could have been even more), and fun to find John Cleese in this company. It runs out of puff (and narrative coherence) a bit in the middle, but it`s all eminently watchable - the formula still works after 37 years !