The World Is Not Enough wants to be the smartest Bond film ever made. It wants to be the one that talks about oil prices and political power instead of just blowing things up. It mostly fails at both.
Pierce Brosnan returns for his third outing as 007, and this time he’s chasing a terrorist named Renard across Azerbaijan, Turkey, and the waters of Istanbul. The setup is simple: Renard murders Sir Robert King, a British oil baron, and Bond is assigned to protect King’s daughter, Elektra. That protection mission turns into a hunt for a scheme that could trigger a nuclear meltdown in the Black Sea, sending oil prices soaring.
The film is built on a clever idea. Oil is the weapon, not just the setting. But the script spends too much time explaining its own logic. The bad guy’s plan is clear from the first act, and the movie doesn’t find a way to surprise you after that.
Trailer, via James Bond 007.
Bond’s New Assignment
Bond starts the film in Bilbao, meeting a Swiss banker named Lachaise to retrieve money for Sir Robert King. The banker knows something about the murder of an MI6 agent, but he’s killed before he can talk. Bond escapes with the money, which turns out to be laced with explosives. The bomb kills King.
That scene is meant to set up the threat. Instead, it plays like a clumsy way to get the plot moving. The death of Sir Robert feels rushed, almost accidental, when the film needed it to land.
Brosnan plays Bond with the usual cool detachment. He’s a professional doing a job, and he doesn’t spend much time worrying about the people he protects. That works in the action scenes, where his calm under fire is the point. It doesn’t work in the quieter moments, where the film tries to build tension between Bond and Elektra.
Elektra is the film’s biggest problem. Sophie Marceau plays her as a beautiful British oil heiress who was previously abducted and held for ransom by Renard. She’s supposed to be the innocent caught in the middle, but the script keeps undercutting that reading. Bond suspects she’s hiding something, and the film never quite decides whether she’s the victim or the villain.
The casting of Marceau is a genuine highlight. Sharon Stone and Vera Farmiga were considered for the role before Broccoli saw her performance in Firelight. Marceau brings a cold intelligence to Elektra that fits the film’s ambitions. But the writing doesn’t give her enough to do. She’s a hostage, a love interest, and a potential traitor, all at once, and none of those roles are fully realized.
Renard’s Bullet
Robert Carlyle plays Renard, a former KGB agent turned anarchist terrorist. He has a bullet lodged in his brain, which makes him impervious to pain but slowly kills him. That’s a neat twist, and the film leans on it throughout. Before Carlyle got the part, the role was offered to Javier Bardem (who would later play the Bond villain in Skyfall) and Jean Reno.
Carlyle is good in the role. His performance is understated, which suits a man who doesn’t feel pain. But the script doesn’t give him much to do either. He spends most of the film as a shadowy presence, a threat that Bond is chasing rather than a person Bond is facing.
The film’s central chase takes Bond to Azerbaijan, where Elektra oversees the construction of an oil pipeline. A tour of the mountain route is interrupted by an attack from a hit squad on snowmobiles. Bond visits Valentin Zukovsky at a casino to gather information. Zukovsky is a former Russian mafia boss and Baku casino owner, played by Robbie Coltrane.
Coltrane’s Zukovsky is a better character than the script gives him credit for. He’s loyal to Bond when his nephew falls into Renard’s captivity, and that subplot adds some warmth to a film that’s otherwise cold. But the relationship between Zukovsky and Bond is underwritten. They’re friends, but we never see why.
Christmas Jones and the Science Problem
Denise Richards plays Dr. Christmas Jones, an American nuclear physicist helping Bond dismantle a Soviet ICBM base in Kazakhstan. Richards stated that she liked the role because it was “brainy,” “athletic,” and had “depth of character, in contrast to Bond girls from previous decades.” She also noted that viewers “made fun of” the character’s attire but that “these Bond girls are so outrageous and if I did really look like a scientist, the Bond fans would have been disappointed.”
Jones was originally written as a French-Polynesian insurance investigator before the studio insisted on changing her nationality after Marceau was cast.
Richards’ performance is fine, but the character is a mess. She’s a scientist who dresses like a Bond girl, and the film can’t decide whether to treat her seriously or as a joke. Her scenes with Bond are meant to be romantic, but the chemistry isn’t there. The film keeps reminding you that she’s a doctor, and then it keeps dressing her in tight outfits.
The science in the film is a bigger problem. Bond poses as a Russian scientist at the ICBM base, and the plot revolves around a nuclear meltdown in the Black Sea. But the film doesn’t explain how the meltdown would affect oil prices, or why anyone would want to trigger it. The logic is there, but it’s never made clear.
The Millennium Dome Scene
One sequence stands out as the film’s best. Bond chases the woman who killed Lachaise to the Millennium Dome in London. She attempts to escape via hot air balloon, and Bond offers her protection. She refuses, fearing he won’t be able to keep her safe, and blows up the balloon at the cost of her life.
It’s a tense scene, well staged. But it’s also a missed opportunity. The woman’s death feels hollow next to the larger stakes of the oil plot. The film doesn’t let you grieve for her, because it’s moving on to the next action set piece.
The Millennium Dome itself is a curious choice. It’s a symbol of the new millennium, and the film’s tagline promises “As the countdown begins for the new millennium there is still one number you can always count on.” But the scene doesn’t deliver on that promise. The dome is just a location, not a meaning.
The Submarine Showdown
The climax is a dramatic submarine showdown in the Black Sea. Bond dives underwater to stop Renard from launching the missile that would trigger the meltdown. The sequence is well choreographed, and it’s the most exciting part of the film. But it’s also the most predictable.
You know how it ends before it starts. Bond wins, Renard dies, and the world’s oil supply is saved. The film doesn’t earn that ending. It just gets there.
A Mixed Reception
The World Is Not Enough earned over $361 million worldwide, becoming the eighth highest-grossing film of 1999. It was also the highest-grossing James Bond film at the time. That success was built on name recognition more than on quality.
Critics were mixed. The plot was frequently targeted for criticism, along with Denise Richards’ casting. The film’s attempt to be a thriller about global politics fell flat, and the humor that worked in the Brosnan era was absent here.
The film’s production is solid. Filming locations included Spain, France, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and the UK, with interiors shot at Pinewood Studios. But the polish doesn’t hide the script’s weaknesses.
What Works
- The Millennium Dome chase, particularly the hot air balloon sequence
- The submarine showdown in the Black Sea
- Robert Carlyle’s performance as Renard
- Sophie Marceau’s presence as Elektra
What Doesn’t Work
- The plot is too easy to guess from the first act
- Denise Richards’ character is a mess of contradictions
- Elektra is underwritten and underexplored
- The science behind the oil plot is never explained
The World Is Not Enough is a competent Bond film, not a great one. It’s smarter than most of its predecessors in terms of theme, but dumber in terms of storytelling. The film is a failure of ambition, a movie that tried to be more than a summer blockbuster and ended up being less than a good one.
It’s worth seeing for the Millennium Dome chase and the submarine showdown. Beyond that, it’s a film that’s best left behind. Brosnan’s third outing is a step down from the films that came before it, and a step toward the more straightforward action of later entries.
The film is a cautionary tale about ambition. It’s a film that tried to be the thinking man’s Bond and ended up being the same old Bond with a slightly more serious face. The submarine showdown is thrilling, but the film around it is hollow. It’s a movie that you watch and forget, not a movie that you remember fondly.
Score: 5.7.
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