Number on Countdown: 12

Title: The World Is Not Enough

Year: 1999

Short Synopsis:

In Spain, Bond meets with some Swiss banker to retrieve some money for Sir Robert King, who was buying a report from an MI6 agent. The report was stolen and the agent killed, so Bond goes in asking questions. Before the banker can give details, he is sniped, causing much chaos in the room. Bond grabs the money, but learns nothing as to who killed the agent.

Bond returns to MI6 with the money and meets King, oil pipeline dude and old friend of M. Due to some chemical reaction caused between the chemicals on the money and King’s (secretly switched) lapel pin, the money fucking explodes. Bond is shot at by some lady on boat outside Q’s new boat out to chase her on the Thames. The boats finally reaches the Millennium Dome, where the suspect de-boats and jumps into a hot air balloon. Bond grabs the ropes and tries to convince her to come and talk. Her gun speaks instead, shooting some canister and the whole thing up. Bond falls down to the Dome and dislocates his shoulder.

Later, Bond attends the funeral and sees there Elektra King, Sir Robert’s only daughter. In the local MI6 base, Bond and Co. figure out that the money is linked to Renard, a terrorist who kidnapped Elektra long ago. Oh, and due to a bullet in his head, he can feel no pain. Thinking Elektra is the next target, M sends Bond to go protect her.

Bond arrives in Azerbaijan and after a “cold reception” from Elektra, they decide to go skiing and go check out the pipeline. It is here they are attacked by flying snowmobiles or whatever. After Bond thwarts them, he meets with Valentin Zukovsky (the same from Goldeneye) at his casino to get info about the attackers. Zukovsky tells Bond that Davidov, Elektra’s head of security, is secretly in league with Renard. Before they can get chatty, Elektra comes down to gamble. She’s not one for Bond’s overprotective style, and tells him “There’s no point in living if you can’t feel alive.” Elektra then promptly blows her dad’s $1,000,000 credit line with the casino.

Bond leaves Elektra and kills Davidov, then boarding a plane to a a nuclear physics place in Kazakhstan. Posing as a physicist, he meets Doctor Christmas Jones, a super sexay American physicist with an affinity for short shorts. Bond goes down in the silo to check shit out, and finds Renard and his cronies about to steal a bomb. Bond is taken aback when Renard says “there’s no point in living if you can’t feel alive”, but can’t do much question-asking, as Doctor Jones comes in and blows his cover. After gunshots and lots of steam, Renard gets off with the bomb.

Bond accuses Elektra of being in league with Renard and she slaps him. He later shares his thoughts with M, giving her some bomb locator signal. Right then, the pipeline comes under attack from the stolen bomb. Bond goes along with Christmas to stop it. They realize the bomb has been tampered with and half the plutonium is missing. Bond decides to let the bomb explode and give Elektra the impression they are dead. Thinking Bond dead, Elektra reveals herself to be in league with Renard and that she killed her dad. She kidnaps M, but not before M slaps her.

Renard and Elektra visit M and says she’s gonna die and shit. M then realizes she has the locator card from Bond, but can’t activate it without wires and stuff. Bond comes to Zukovsky’s caviar place to ask him questions, but the interrogation is cut short by a helicopter weilding massive saw blades. After two destroyed helicopters and a destroyed car, Bond finally gets to ask Zukovsky what Elektra’s mysterious gamble was about. Bond suspects she wasn’t gambling at all, instead paying Zukovsky for something. Zukovsky reveals that Elektra was paying for the use of a submarine commanded by his nephew in Istanbul.

Bond, Christmas, and Zukovsky go to some Instanbul base and look at some maps. It is here they realize the reactor from the submarine and the plutonium can be used to make a nuclear bomb. If Istanbul were to disappear, all the oil peeps in the area would have to use the King pipeline. M finally reaches her clock, and connects the locator card. Turns out she’s on some island-tower in the middle of the bay. Bond and Christmas try and go save M, but they are once again kidnapped and brought to the same tower.

Christmas is sent to die on the sub, and Bond gets tortured by Elektra in some torture device to which he is handcuffed. Before he can be killed, Zukovsky arrives with guns blazing, killing traitorous henchman and baddie alike, eventually reaching Bond. Elektra shoots Zukovsky and he falls to the ground. Before he dies, though, he points his concealed-in-his-cane gun at Bond and shoots his handcuff open, freeing him. Zukovsky dies. Bond escapes then, runs up the tower, frees M from her little cell, and encounters Elektra at the top. He kills Elektra when she refuses to call off the submarine.

Bond then jumps out the window to the sea (and submarine) below and finds a way inside. Bond finds Christmas and tracks down Renard just when he’s about ready to blow up the reactor. Upon news of Elektra’s death, Renard goes berserk and fights even harder, but not even captor-victim love can save him from a golden-rod-through-the-stomach death. Bond and Christmas escape the submarine, which mimi-explodes underwater, and are saved by some tourists on a boat.

M returns to MI6, where people are using the best technology to locate the MIA Bond. They find him by means of a heat signal, his body getting redder and redder. Under Bond, another set of legs wrap ’round him. M is surprised with her agent’s behavior, but no one else is. Inside the room, Bond and Christmas enjoy sex and bad puns.

Things I like:

While my complaints for The World Is Not Enough are numerous, I do still enjoy the film and several of its aspects. To be honest, I think the movie starts off a little boring, and don’t think it gets going until Elektra reveals herself to be a villain (when the movie’s plot kind of starts to make sense). Once it’s revealed Elektra and Renard want to blast the Bosphorous, the movie gets REALLY GOOD, and the climax is pretty damn thrilling. For this reason, I appreciate The World Is Not Enough most when I can watch it all the way through, for the last hour is the entree to the large, lame-ass appetizer. In snippets, not so good. All together, pretty good.

In addition to being a Bond fan, I am a fan of castles, and armour, and other medieval things, which makes MI6’s Scottish-castle base, to me, the fucking coolest MI6 base ever. Bond see-through glasses are pretty spiffy as well, and the Moneypenny flirt scene is classic.

Now, I’m going to disagree with most Bond fans and say that I don’t mind in the slightest that Denise Richards is a nuclear physicist. While her lines and delivery might make her seem like a stupid person, everyone seems to be opposed to the mere idea that such a fine-looking lady could be such a smart scientist. Which is absolutely crazy. Physicists Amy Mainzer, Sarah Kavassalis, and Lisa Randall are all 1) beautiful women and 2) smarter than either you or me will ever be. So what is the big deal with having a hot scientist? Is the problem that she’s a woman, or that she’ s Denise Richards? I’ll admit that her delivery of lines isn’t the best, but that doesn’t make her unbelievable as a brainy physicist.

And everyone seems to have a problem with her Tomb Raider-esque short shorts and tank top. While I probably wouldn’t wear such scant clothes when dealing with nuclear substances, who says a physicist can’t wear that? I don’t get it. Do the male Bond fans just have trouble accepting a hot woman is incredibly smart? This is probably a discussion for a wider venue, but I thought I’d bring this up because I seem to be the ONLY one who doesn’t mind her.

Oh, and I really love this shot, too. So great.

Things I didn’t like:

For as much as I like this movie, I sure have a lot of gripes about (as I do with everything).

It’s no surprise that if you space out during the expository scenes of Bond films (or any film), you’ll be completely lost. This happened to me a couple times when I was younger, and I wasn’t fully able to appreciate them until I became an adult and, y’know, developed an attention span. That being said, the plot of The World is Not Enough STILL confuses me. So, Robert King buys a report from an MI6 agent about some terrorists attacking his oil pipeline. The report was stolen from said MI6 agent who was then killed. Bond wants to know who killed the agent, so he goes to the Swiss Banker handling King’s money to ask who killed him (OK so far. . .). The banker is shot before he can deliver a name and Bond escapes with the money.

But why is the banker returning the money? Is it because the report was stolen? But in the scene with M, the report is there on her desk. So, how did they get the report? And if King did get it, then why would he need to be paid back? And how would the banker know who killed the agent anyway? And why would King have to buy the report at all if he was such good friends with M? I don’t get it.

So King goes to see his tampered-with money and blows up. After the death, Bond finds out about Elektra’s past captivity and learns her ransom was a hefty 5,000,000 U.S. dollars. Bond reads the financial statement from King’s money and notes that the pounds amount translates exactly to five million USD (It’s something like 3, 313, 313.13 pounds). Bond goes to M and tells him this is a sign from her past captor, but couldn’t the prices being the same be a coincidence? What was the price of the original report? Wouldn’t the MI6 agent have set the price? Wasn’t King buying it from him? And if it wasn’t, then why would Renard return money back that wasn’t the same price as the report? I don’t get it!

So as I understand it, Renard killed this MI6 agent and decided to give Robert King his money back. Then Elektra switched his lapel pin so that when he next saw the money, the money would explode, killing him and possibly M, who she hates for advising King on paying her ransom the last time she was kidnapped…

Wait, y’know what, there’s no point in trying to figure this shit out. The fact is that all this captivity/report/money backstory shit is just FAR TOO MUCH for a backstory. And looking at it from a logical point, why the fuck would Renard and Elektra go through so much damn trouble just to kill her father? Now, I know Bond villains often do things a bit elaborately, but this plan is so ridiculously complicated that it hinders itself. Why didn’t Elektra and Renard just kill her dad somewhere and blame it on an accident? That wouldn’t involve Bond or MI6 at all, which would keep eyes off them as they steal some plutonium and blow up Istanbul (which also would have been disguised as an accident). Accidental death and accidental city-blow-up leads to getting off scott free, so why would Renard and Elektra send a message right to MI6? Most of the time, when you’re trying to get away with something, you don’t BRING ATTENTION TO YOURSELF. Stupid idiots.

While this makes me want to bang my head against the wall, my biggest complaint doesn’t have to do with the plot at all, but rather this movie’s references to the new Millennium. I mean, I get it, it was 1999, and the year TWO THOUSAND was coming along, which meant we would enter into a new era of technology and knowledge (right?). In preparation, we stored gallons of water in our basements and saw fit to label products in futuristic packaging. “The Guinness Book of World Records” saw it’s “Millennium Edition” and was all shiny silver. The 16th Wrestlemania dropped its roman numeral schtick and went by the name “Wrestlemania 2000”. Pokemon: The Movie 2000 and Dracula 2000 were released. Everything had a fuckin’ 2000 or a Millennium attached to it.

With such hype for the Millennium, it’s a surprise this movie wasn’t called “James Bond 2000” or some shitty-ass Millennium title, like The 2000 Is Not Millennium. And thank goodness the plot didn’t deal with some sort of plot that had to do with New Year’s and all the world’s computers freaking out. But even though it doesn’t do any of this shit, it still reeks with the dated-ness of Millennium anticipation. Even the trailer for the movie said “As the countdown begins to the 21st century begins, it’s good to know you can always count on 007” (or something to that effect). Oh, and how could we forget John Cleese’s “Y2K” joke at the end of the film?

Additionally, the score is underscored by techno-y beats (futuristic music!), and while this was somewhat present in the previous film, Tomorrow Never Dies, it’s done as much as it is here (we wouldn’t get a shitty dance track for a Bond song until the next movie). I’m talking mostly about the opening boat chase, which features some tech-y beats behind the classic Bond brass. A boat chase which inevitably ends at the fucking Millennium Dome, some stupid ass shit they built in London to celebrate the new Millennium. In addition to the Millennium Dome and the more electronic sound, electronic music artist Goldie was ACTUALLY A HENCHMAN in the movie. And his name was Bullion because he has gold teeth. Like, seriously?

I don’t know why this bugs me so much, but it does. That’d be like if the newest Bond film featured Twitter references, dubstep and Skrillex as a henchman. Could you imagine that? And could image how lame that would be fourteen years later? Can you imagine how lame that would be NOW?

All that aside, I already said before that I can buy Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist, but the it’s a wonder they named her Christmas Jones and not Christmas Saystheobviousallthetime. For example, when she and Bond try and diffuse a bomb, he says “Look at this, someone’s stripped the screw-heads,” to which she replies “Someone’s tampered with the bomb!” Uh…DUH. Such on-the-nose dialogue is given throughout. Like, yea, we got it, Christmas.

And why does Valentin Zukovsky look so fucking different? I didn’t even recognize him from Goldeneye. Fucking A.

The Song:

Finally, composer David Arnold is given the opportunity to compose the main track (after losing the race for Tomorrow Never Dies to Sheryl Crow’s song), and it’s fantastic. Shirley Manson’s voice is simply perfect for the haunting, underscored-evil lyrics written by Don Black. With the chorus of “The world is not enough, but it is such a perfect place to start. And if you’re strong enough, together we can take the world apart, my love,” the song is passively sinister, which is damn awesome. One of the my favorite Bond themes, actually.

Favorite Scene:

While The World Is Not Enough features some unique action scenes, the absolute best scene is the one featuring Q and his new protege (played perfectly by John Cleese), who Bond quips as being named “R”. Banter flies between all three of them, brimming with under-the-radar jokes and comedic subtext. In addition to great conversations, this is the first Q scene to mention Q’s retirement (Desmond Llewellyn was pretty old by this point), and shows Bond’s care for his long-time colleague. I always love the Bond-Q relationship and how, despite them always being annoyed with each other, they really seemed to care about each other. Desmond Llewellyn also makes a fitting exit to his character. Llywellyn’s last briefing as Q is an absolute perfect send-off.

Favorite Line:

While I should probably choose something deeper, my favorite line comes when Bond (posing as some Russian guy) meets Christmas Jones. She says “Doctor Jones. Christmas Jones, and tell me any jokes. I’ve heard them all,” to which Bond replies “I don’t know any doctor jokes.” Clever!

Extra Tidbit:

The film’s title is actually the English translation of the Bond family motto (first shown to us in the 1969 Bond flick On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) The original Latin is Orbis non-sufficit.

The James Bond Countdown will return…

Previous posts in the countdown:

James Bond Countdown: #13: Dr. No (10.25.12)
James Bond Countdown: #14: You Only Live Twice (08.26.12)
James Bond Countdown: #15: Quantum of Solace (08.21.12)
James Bond Countdown: #16: The Living Daylights (o8.17.12)
James Bond Countdown: #17: Thunderball (08.12.12)
James Bond Countdown: #18: From Russia with Love (08.07.12)
James Bond Countdown: #19: Diamonds Are Forever (07.30.12)
James Bond Countdown: #20: Die Another Day (07.27.12)
James Bond Countdown: #21: A View to a Kill (07.25.12)
James Bond Countdown: #22: Moonraker (o7.25.12)