The World Is Not Enough

With a slightly typical but nonetheless immensely entertaining opening sequence, The World Is Not Enough promises to adhere to Bond formula from the very start. And adhere to formula it does. However, it does manage to stay entertaining enough, and just barely unique enough that it holds your attention.

As the film goes on, it seems to become more and more unremarkable. Brosnan’s Bond films were never known for their originality, and this one is certainly no exception. The plot is typical, the villain is rather typical, and the quips and puns follow in regular fashion. Ultimately, it just feels like everything we’ve seen before. So am I saying I hated it? No, surprisingly enough. (Spoilers will follow, for those of you who haven’t seen the movie.)

The film manages to stay afloat, largely due to the charisma of Brosnan in the starring role. Additionally, Elektra being a villain was something rather new, especially to the Bond franchise. The main villain’s motivations were a bit more grounded this time around, even if he himself was rather cliché. The action is very well done, and still holds up, even by today’s standards. And now we come to the performances. Pierce Brosnan, as always, plays Bond to perfection. Sophie Marceau does a perfectly acceptable job of playing Elektra. And while Denise Richards certainly doesn’t give an Oscar-worthy performance as Christmas Jones, I didn’t find myself regularly cringing whenever she was on screen. I seem to be the only person who wasn’t, however, so perhaps I just missed something. The score, composed by David Arnold, is good, but certainly not his best.

So, what’s the final consensus? To me, the film was simply unremarkable, and I think that’s mostly how it’s remembered. While it’s not an absolute train wreck of a movie, it feels like the writers phoned this one in. Nearly everything in it is something we’ve seen before, and the unique parts about it seem to get lost in all of the clichés. It’s nearly 100% formula, pure and simple. If that’s what you want from a Bond film, then this is the one for you. If you want originality, that’s here in small quantities, and may ultimately make the movie worth watching for you. So, do I recommend it? Sure. It’s not the best Bond movie, or even remotely close to being such, or even one of the better action movies in (somewhat) recent memory. But if you’re in the mood for a formulaic Bond movie, or just want to have a fun time, give it a shot. You might like it. I’m giving it 3 out of 5 stars.

Comments

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Oh, The Force Awakens, you really thought you could show up on the scene and not be polarizing. You were so wrong. Spoiler alert for anyone who, by some magic, hasn’t seen this movie yet, because I’m about to dissect the heck out of this film and also The Phantom Menace’s plot. Let’s jump right into the story. The evil First Order has tracked a map containing the coordinates of the location of Luke Skywalker to a planet, where the Resistance races against time to get the map first. The Resistance pilot going after the plans, Poe Dameron, is captured; his droid, however, escapes with the map. Sound familiar? Well buckle up, kids. Familiarity is about to slap us in the face. Repeatedly. From there, the pilot is rescued by a dude in stormtrooper armor (to be fair, he is a stormtrooper), Finn. He’s a traitor to the First Order, and together they escape. The droid with the map, meanwhile, has made his way to a young adult female (why ...

Tomorrow Never Dies

Tomorrow Never Dies boasts what may be the most absurd plot of any Bond film. The head of a media outlet tries to start wars in order to have a monopoly on the media coverage of them. If you can’t comprehend the absurdity of that, let me try to give another example. CNN starts World War 3 and has journalists in place to report these events before anyone else can, and no one on the face of the earth thinks that’s shady in any way, shape, or form except for MI6. The question we should all be asking ourselves is how the heck this movie managed to actually be kind of good with a plot like this. The opening sequence is not quite as exhilarating as we’ve come to expect from Brosnan Bond movies, but it’s competent enough. From there, we’re plunged directly into the story. The first act takes its time, explaining delicately in a detailed manner exactly what the media mogul’s plan is, and how he’s going to carry it out. His plot may be absolu...

Dunkirk

Let’s be honest. It doesn’t matter what a Christopher Nolan movie is about; if he directed it, we’re going to watch it. Dunkirk focuses on an actual historic event, a first for Nolan. He executes it beautifully. Also, this is spoiler-free. Dunkirk, like many (or maybe all?) of Nolan’s films, places emphasis on time. In Dunkirk, three story threads are followed, each occurring over a different duration of time, but all converging in the end. This can make for a slightly confusing or even frustrating (in parts) narrative, but most of the time it’s all relatively easy to follow. I’ve thought about it for quite some time, and I’m quite certain that is done both for the sake of heightened realism and tonal consistency. The three interweaving plot threads help greatly in keeping the story interesting, and all three’s contributions to growing intensity make for one of the most claustrophobic and uneasy films I’ve ever seen. Because o...

SkyWorld

Search This Blog