The World is Not Enough
Dovy
Posts: 206MI6 Agent
Why am I get increasingly frustrated at the fact that so many scenes in this film and even previous ones had to take place at night or in the dark? Sometimes you can hardly see what's going on.
It's too bad the writers had to fill up so much time with so many chases and flights. After more and more Bond films like that it gets increasingly boring. The writers repeating the same scenario formula in each film.
And why does it have to be increasingly campy? I get tired of the predictability of the psychopathic billionaires with a setup of a young female hanging onto Bond in each film. I guess it has to do with attracting a viewer base. Alas, sabotaging Renard (French for Fox) with young Christmas. But that scenario was better than that with Elektra.
Comments
'Tomorrow Is Not Enough' is a great proposition for a Brosnan mash-up! Christmas could rattle Carver, Paris could slap Renard and Wai Lin and Elektra could have a cat fight!
Tomorrow is not enough, oh my! You've created the perfect title for a Brosnan Era Bond film, better than the original title that we've got (Tomorrow Never Dies), much much better!
It could be used as a future Bond title!
I love that title!
I'm going to contact Barbara and Michael for this.
I STAND CORRECTED. THE THREAD TITLE IS CORRECTED.
from an episode of the Simpsons (in which Lenny and Carl also critique the new CraigBond films: "I like that James Bond is ugly now!")
All four of these Brosnan films actually have good original ideas for plots that more or less got buried under the formulaic set-pieces and extended action sequences. I think World is Not Enough is the one where the original idea for a plot is most coherent, and Tomorrow Never Dies the one where it got most deeply buried (Paris is never mentioned again after her death scene and Bond goes straight into laughing like a kid as he works his BMW by remote control)
Paris is never mentioned again after her death scene and Bond goes straight into laughing like a kid as he works his BMW by remote control
Well, how many times does Bond tends to move on to the other after a bond girl dies?
He did that many times.....
In DAF, Tracy was never even mentioned and goes like, "okay, back to mission, just came from vacation", then in FYEO, the way Bond treated Blofeld "Oh, it's Blofeld, and he's playing with me, I'll play with him too, hahaha, alright, keep your hair on!".
Same for Countess Lisl's death (FYEO), he just kinda moved on and had a great drink with Columbo like nothing happened, and her name was also not that mentioned when he killed Locque, just Ferrara, so I suppose, that revenge was only for Ferrara.
Heck even in the Craig Era, there's some bits of this, granted he avenged Vesper in QoS, but the way he uttered the line when Severine got killed in Skyfall? "What a waste of good scotch"!
So, it's not that new to me, Bond never carried any emotional attachments, he just kinda moves on.
Unless, it's Felix Leiter or any of his male allies, or Vesper.
Diamonds are Forever pretends the previous film didnt happen, so thats its excuse. Several later films do show Bond is sensisitve about Tracy's death.
SkyFall is just plain bad writing. No previous version of Bond wouldve made that "waste of good Scotch" joke
and Lisl just wasnt that important to Bond, though Colombo shouldve been a bit more upset than he was.
thing is in Tomorrow Never Dies theres a lot of buildup in the mission briefing scenes, where M specifically assigns Bond to seduce an old flame knowing it will probably cost the woman her life, and in these scenes we do see Bond resenting the assignment. In Bond and Paris's scenes together we see his conflicted emotions and she knows she's being exploited. But the dialog is lousy and they dont seem to be good enough actors to make it believable. In later scenes with Carver, both Bond and the villain shoudve at least mentioned her, Bond for vengeance and Carver to taunt Bond (he did kill his own wife to punish Bond). It is very strange they both have completely forgotten there was once this other character in the first act.
Had the action setpieces been rolled back, and the Paris plot been given more space, this couldve been a genuinely original BondFilm plot.
In my opinion Bond seducing Paris didn't make her death probable. There was a risk it could result in her death, but it wasn't probable.
A reflection, on the first Bond movie I saw.
The Good:
We couldn’t have gotten a better farewell for Q.
Robert Carlyle is underrated as an overall actor. He did well with the material he was given.
Sophie Marceau is a high standard for female villains in James Bond in general. In movies, books and video games. Ironically, she can say that she’s been in all three, herself. Like Michael Apted said, she is the true villain. She would have the one who would have lived to benefit from getting the oil for her pipeline. Plus, she used her beauty and her body to get men to fall for her. Renard was unique in this instance. Also, she was the one who truly killed her dad for profits and her mom’s name. Yeah, she knew what she was doing, as a villain.
The Nintendo 64 game. The first Bond product that I got addicted to. A true successor to Goldeneye 007. It’s often overlooked. And like GE007, it’s better than the movie it’s based on.
It takes some creative risks. It does foreshadow some of the issues and story arcs that DC’s era would eventually. TWINE walked so SF in particular, (and to a degree SP and NTTD) could run. While also giving us ideas of where TD’s adventures could have gone.
Pierce Brosnan always nailed Bond, no matter the material he was given. No film proves this better than TWINE.
Valentin Zukovsky has more than one scene in the movie. He came back with more of a purpose than in GE.
The bank escape and the Thames boat chase is pure Bond action. And that’s a good thing.
The title sequence visuals are some of my favorites in the series.
A diverse cast of henchmen. Minor characters, but memorable.
The Bad:
M gets overused in the series starting here. She was also just as bad as the villains for not helping save Elektra from the start. Basically, the film revolves around her bad decisions. And we’re supposed to view her as a good person? Please!
Denise Richards isn’t to blame for her role. The writing did her no favors. She’s fine as she is. Not many actresses could pull off Dr. Christmas Jones any better. Doctors can be attractive as well. She should have more writing to her character.
TWINE has an identity crisis in terms of tone and story beats. It feels like a mix of Moore cheesiness, Dalton seriousness and Craig character development. All done a bit poorly. It wants to respect Bond tradition, while trying new story ideas. It just doesn’t know what it wants, in terms of writing and direction. This is why I think that Dana Stevens deserved screenwriting credit. It feels like she truly helped out.
The submarine feels too unbelievable. Namely in the drowning department. Even with all his training, there’s no way Bond could stay underwater that long! It’s ironically called too small scale for a Bond finale.
Some of the deleted scenes in Raymond Benson’s novel should have been in the movie. Namely, that Elektra’s mother’s side of the family started the oil pipeline. Also, Elektra singing as she dies. These could have made her more sympathetic, in a way, more of a tragic figure.
So in conclusion:
I still rank TWINE in my upper half of Bond movies. I’m biased as it was the first Bond I saw fully. As Carte Blanche was my first Bond novel I see a few similarities between the two. A female villain, who would arguably get to see the end result of their plan. A duo of villains. A long time character says goodbye (Q). While an old favorite returns (Mary Goodnight). Bond shares a bit of family history. Disfigured villains, Renard with Bell’s Palsy, Severan Hydt with his long fingernails. There are a few more, but I’ll let you decide what they are. I see the criticisms of both for fans. However, they both tried something different, and I have to give them both credit for that. So while not perfect, TWINE is an enjoyable Bond adventure that blends tradition and creative risks in one. As an artist, TWINE is the ultimate lesson in turning something old into new. Lessons have been learned at EON, because of the movie, it seems. My dad said that he said TWINE was one of his least favorite Bond movies. I see now that his viewpoints were not just a generational thing. He was just telling the truth. For that, I will be forever grateful.
Thanks for that personal and clearly heartfelt assessment. While I may disagree on some of your positives, I certainly agree the film lacks narrative "pull". I enjoyed reading this.
Thanks @DrMaxMGold - for some reason The World Is Not Enough gets overlooked, it seems to be easily dismissed by fans, often unfairly due to Denise Richards - who I happen to like. I recommend Calvin Dyson's recent review of the film on YouTube, it tallies with my own take.
It's the only Brosnan film that I enjoyed unreservedly at the cinema, all the others I sort of sat there nitpicking, I couldn't believe in what was going on, or it didn't seem terribly exciting or groundbreaking.
TWINE's pre-credits - though long - was 'out there' at the time - an attack on the MI6 building, though of course 9/11 came along subsequently and the audacity and visuals of that real-life terrorist attack outstripped any movie.
What I like about TWINE is the dialogue, the little witticisms suggest the script was finessed, and that they didn't spend a year on a plot only to ditch it, that they weren't rewriting as they went or at the last minute, which applied to all the other Brosnan films and a couple of Craig ones.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I think it's mad to open a Bond film with a close-up of Bond crossing a boring street, and then have the first scene in a tiny little boring office in a boring city (I'm sure Bilbao is lovely, but it looks bang average in the film). I think it shows the slightly askew thinking behind the film, why it feels a bit baggy and dull in places rather than punchy and eye-catching. Apted was an excellent director, but he possibly wasn't suited to Bond.