This begins the total collapse of Bond films.
We have the usual formula of beautiful women and lots of action, but here the action is very unmotivated.
Bond finds himself a body guard to a spoiled beauty queen, and we figure out early that the real heroine is the more matter of fact educated woman.
That's fair enough.
Still, everything that happens just looks contrived to make it end a certain way, with as depressing an ending as is allowed. That's the Hollywood formula, to make the world depressing for young men, and that's all they set out to do in this movie.

Well, they just cannot stop from shooting themselves in the foot can they...? Bond producers are so bloody infuriating!

One fo the best franchises in movie history and they are unable to forge their own destiny - choosing to tread the same old worn path time and time again.

If Goldeneye was a modern Connery, then this Moore the whole way. It has the skiing, the underwater, the boat chasing, the hot air balloon, the nuclear bomb diffusal.

It hasn't aged as badly as I thought it would. Christmas Jones is still a poor Bond girl but not as bad as some of the others from the dodgy 60s and 70s films. Carlyle is okay but not great - yet it is Sophie Marceau who deserves all the credit.

I like the little bits that Brosnan clearly adds in himself. The aftermath of the killing shows that Bond is an assassin and that should never be forgotten.

There is a significant chunk of nonsense though that I'd like to have had removed or replaced which I'd hope a director's cut would have done. But seemingly the 160 minute press cut isn't worthy of a re-edit now that that Bond producers got their cheque...

If the stupidity didn't escalate with each movie, I'd be looking forward to rewatching Die Another Day. I've braced myself...


7/10

Love Brosnan as Bond but man was he straddled with a bad script and even worse casting with Denise Richards playing a nuclear scientist. I get pre-Craig Bonds always had a tongue-in-cheek streak to them and ridiculous scenes (the opening boat chase was laughable once it went to the street) but this was a bridge too far (only to be outdone in a scene in Die Another Day). That said, there are some decent action set pieces and Brosnan still has the charm. **3.0/5**

_**The oil pipeline in central Asia episode**_

After a British oil tycoon is assassinated, agent 007 (Pierce Brosnan) traces the hit to a crazy ex-KGB terrorist (Robert Carlyle) and travels to the Caspian Sea/Black Sea area to protect a sultry oil heiress, the daughter of the murdered mogul (Sophie Marceau). Denise Richards is on hand as a nuclear physicist working at a Russian ICBM base in Kazakhstan while Robbie Coltrane returns from “Goldeneye” (1995) as Valentin Zukovsky, the former KGB agent turned gangster.

“The World Is Not Enough” (1999) is Brosnan’s third installment in the series with the opening featuring an absurd-but-fun boat chase on the River Thames in London and a great title song performed by Shirley Manson & Garbage. Other highlights include a paraglider-snowmobile assault in the snowy mountains, underground mayhem at the ICBM base in Kazakhstan, a wild sequence inside a pipeline to deactivate a bomb and a thrilling climax in the Bosphorus strait near Istanbul.

Many complain about Denise Richards as the nuclear physicist, Dr. Christmas Jones, but she does a fine job and looks great, especially in those short shorts at the ICBM base in the high desert. Meanwhile Sophie Marceau as Elektra King is alluring in a classy way. Also on hand in the feminine department are Maria Grazia Cucinotta as the opening femme fatale, Serena Scott Thomas as Dr. Molly Warmflash and Samantha Bond as Moneypenny. Judi Dench of course returns as ‘M.’

This is a competent Bond flick with all the requisite staples; it’s just kinda unmemorable in the grand scheme of the franchise. Like the previous “Tomorrow Never Dies” (1997), the colors are muted, which casts a grey pall over the proceedings, although not as pronounced.

The film runs 2 hours, 8 minutes, and was shot in Bilbao, Vizcaya, País Vasco, Spain (opening scene); London, England, & areas nearby; Baku, Azerbaijan, & the Azerbaijan Oil Rocks; Chamonix, Haute-Savoie, France (ski scenes); Bosphorus River, Istanbul, Turkey; and Eilean Donan Castle, Scotland (new MI6 headquarters).

GRADE: B-

So Goldeneye wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either and it was a solid entry into the 007 franchise. Tomorrow Never Dies was fan-freaking-tastic....

... and then this.

Yay, it's 007.

What the heck happened? I'm thinking Goldeneye (N64) happened. I'm thinking that they made close to as much money off the FPS as they did off the film and wanted to emulate it by making a movie that would transfer well into that genre of video game, but didn't realize that Bond (N64) was only legendary because it was the first time that four of your friends could gather around a television and kill each other.

And then... the Bond Girl, as much as I love the final joke about her name, she did NOT come across as a believable nuclear scientist. John Cleese was fun, but a horrible replacement Q.

We started to see more Moore style silliness come back in a Brosnan Era Bond who was getting pretty close to Flemming and Connery and that just didn't work.

Moore style silliness with a Connery style plot.

It just didn't fit well together and, though it is not totally unwatchable, it's also not a good example of a Bond film