The World Is Not Enough
February 27, 2012 1 Comment
Title: The World Is Not Enough
Year: 1999. Way back in 1982, The Artist Who Will Now and Forever Be Known As Prince (TAWWN&FBKAP) declared that 1999 would be the year the planet Earth would throw a worldwide party to end all parties. Who knew Prince was a profit? The dawn of the millennium was indeed a perfect occasion to celebrate the end an era and beginning of something new. Why not party? After all, the stakes couldn’t have been lower. True, we didn’t live in George Jetson houses with robot servants but it sure felt that way. The 90’s produced unprecedented growth in America and those under 30 viewed “work” as something their parents did. The Internet made it possible to make millions by not working; simply have an idea, the implementation of that idea be damned. For those poor souls who did have a job type job, “going to work” often meant showing up to the office in sandals to conduct meetings around a foosball table. I know more then a hand full of guys, and I swear this is the truth, who worked at dot com start-ups in the late 90’s who would charge a night of coke and hookers in Vegas on the company credit card. And why not? Capitalism won. With the evil U.S.S.R. long gone some pundits were going as far as calling war obsolete. Sure, we had impeached The President but not over something as sinister as Watergate, just a simple romp in the oval office. Yes, some dude named Newt Gingrich was shutting down the government because of his bruised ego but after he left DC in disgrace we knew we would never have to hear that guys name again. Everything was coming up roses. Mayor Giuliani turned Times Sq. into a mall for tourist from Nebraska. Who were we to ask where all the homeless people went? Sluggers the size of Paul Bunyan were smacking balls into stadium parking lots left and right. Why were they bigger, stronger, and faster then ever before? Why ask why? Drink Bud Dry. Just giggle through life like Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz on SNL. Join Cher and “Believe” in auto-tune. What could possibly go wrong? Yes, yes, some good hearted, God fearing folks thought the world was going to end when the calendar clicked over to 2K, but we laughed at them just like we do the jack-asses who assign meaning to the Mayan’s lack of planning past November of 2012. There were some dire warnings that the “Millennium Bug” would blast us back to the stone-age but this was mostly fodder for jokes, like the one Q’s assistant makes at the close of this film. It was a time when men’s fashion said hell with it! Sure you can wear that electric blue dress shirt with a pink tie and beige kakis, as Pierce so nicely displays in the third act. It was a time to make crass jokes at our President’s expense like when Bond hands Moneypenny a cigar and she replies “I know exactly where to stick this.” After two years of X rated headlines we knew exactly what she was referring to as we smugly giggled in the theater. It was out with the old and in with new so a young up and comer like John Cleese could replace the aging Desmond Llewelyn. It was time to look forward to the 2000’s with grand projects like London’s Millennium Dome, featured in the fantastic opening of this film.
2000 the dream
The fact that the stadium turned out to be such a colossal money suck it was renamed the 02 Arena in the hopes of erasing all memory of the boondoggle is not so much ironic as it is prolific. Indeed, in 1999 we were all at the dawn of a great new age and the world was not enough; we already had the world and we had it now with no inconvenient truths or pain in the ass consequences. But back to profit Prince who warned “two thousand zero – zero party over, Opps out of time.” In the first 20 months of the aughts we would see a presidential election stolen by an oil man’s son and experience unprecedented terrorist attacks, both of which would shake the very foundation of our democracy for at least the following decade. These two events in turn would result in two wars that would cost untold thousands of innocent lives. They would destroy our moral standing as the world learned of places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Our economy would collapse due in no small part to military spending and the unchecked brand of “capitalism” that was cheered on by the White House. And our environment would be pushed to the brink of destruction. To this day all of the above casts a cloud of doom that hangs over our country like the think, black smoke that hung over lower Manhattan and Brooklyn in the fall of 2001. And without taking any huge leaps, all of this can be traced back, in one way or another, to what one wise man called “our addiction to oil.” In 1999 Bond foresaw the killing, the terror, and the torture behind our addiction to oil and made an action thriller for the New Millennium. Rather forward thinking for a nearly 40 year old popcorn franchise don’t ya think? But all that stuff is a drag. And besides, look! Denise Richards in a tank top! “If you didn’t come to party, don’t bother knocking on my door.”
21st Century Rock Star
Film Length: 2 hours and 8 minutes
Bond Actor: Pierce Brosnan. “I feel we got a good one on our hands,” announced a reenergized Brosnan at a The World Is Not Enough press event. Sporting a more closely cropped quaff, Pierce had the look of an older and wiser man. Having done two Bonds; one one of the best and the other one of the worst, he knew what both sides of the Bond coin looked like. I’m sure he was also aware that two duds in a row could prove to be disastrous, what with the budgets for these films now equaling the GNP of a small country. Brosnan knew Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) was a bummer on the first day of shooting and in saying his third film was a “good one” his instincts are again proven correct. Yes, as I pointed out in my rather piffy rant above, 1999 was all gloss on the surface, the Backstreet Boys were selling millions of records for Christ sake, but for those willing to ignore the new coat of paint, the ominous writing was right there on the wall. This movie looked ahead and saw that world dependence on a product that came largely from the world’s most unstable regions was a ticking time bomb. The filmmakers took this potential for worldwide catastrophe and expertly wrapped it in a Bond adventure. Terrorism and torture are at the forefront of this film and indeed those topics would be at the forefront of our national conversation in the decade to come. There are a lot of shades of gray in this film and Pierce is given room to explore them. But these ideas, as well as other dark elements, are so stealthy introduced that they very easily could be missed. While a lot of that has to do with the expert writing, I think Brosnan’s natural charm keeps everything from getting to heavy. Bond kicks ass a plenty but he must also use his head in this one, playing to another one of Brosnan’s strengths. 007 connects the dots before we as an audience do, so when the twist comes, it’s a genuine surprise. The entire enterprise is made even stronger by the fact there are no cheats (until the very end, and that one is almost forgivable.) Bond uses the same information the audience has to put the bigger picture together. And while I’m sure all these smart elements are what had Pierce so excited, let us not over look the action which is absolutely first rate. Without it, this may have been a heavy slog but all of the weighty ideas spin like balanced plates as just one act in this extremely entertaining three-ring circus. I thought I was past the point of being surprised by a Bond film and in his 19th go around, Bond proved me wrong. Oh and I did I mention Pierce’s hair? Perfection.
Director: Michael Apted. The concept of linking international terror as related to the world’s oil supply and economy is rather forward thinking and I would wager Mr. Apted, one of the most forward thinking directors I can think of, saw this plot point as something could hang his hat on. Not known for blockbuster action, most Americans would be familiar with Apted’s successful dramas like Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980) (Ed. Note: I love Loretta Lynn) and Gorillas in the Mist (1988) and his terrible comedies staring big name comedians like John Belushi in Continental Divide (1981) and Richard Pryor in Critical Condition (1987). But to think of Apted as the guy who made the Jennifer Lopez vehicle Enough (2002) would be like thinking of David Bowie as “that guy who puts on make up.” Indeed, Apted has been president of the DGA (Directors Guild of America) since 2003 but his crowning achievement is what is commonly referred to as “The ‘Up’ series,” a series of documentary films that are not only unique but are ongoing this very day. In 1964, a 24 year-old Apted interviewed a group of seven-year-old English children, learning who they were and what they wanted to be, for a Granada Television program. He has revisited these same subjects every seven years, checking in to see how things have progressed in Seven Plus Seven (1970), 21 Up (1977), 28 Up (1985), 35 Up (1991), 42 Up (1998), and 49 Up (2005). Will 2012 see 56 Up? We can only hope. “This is not reality TV with its contrivances and absurdities, but a meditation on lifetimes” Roger Ebert points out. Watching these people grow-up and have children and grand-children of their own makes for riveting viewing. We also, in a way, watch film grow up as the footage goes from black and white to color to digital. Additionally, we see Apted mature as a storyteller making these documents all more fascinating. Perhaps the idea of following characters as they move through time intrigued Apted when it came to Bond, a character who has changed, while not changing, with the times. The title of this film has nothing to do with the plot and everything to do with James as a man. “The World is not Enough” was reviled as the Bond family motto in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) and I think Apted was eager for the opportunity to play in a world with a character so firmly established over time. First things first, for a guy not know for action films, the set pieces in this movie are off the charts. 
From skiing away form flying snowmobiles (known as Para Hawks) to diving between docks that are being destroyed whirling blades to literally flying though the air while being chased by a fireball, this film ups the ante on stunts and action in a series that has made its name on both. Locations, another Bond staple, manage to be both magically exotic and lived in at the same time. With simple singular moments, like the masterful establishing shots of the Caspian Sea at dusk featuring industrial stacks climbing out of the water and belching smoke, Apted puts Spottiswoode’s Bond picture to shame. The image of the sleek, speedy, BMW knifing its way thought the baron, dead oil fields of Azerbaijan is an image I’ll never forget. Ditto a man in a white suit drowning in a tub of caviar. And was that Kuntz’s “Puppy” in the background? Indeed it was. And the open…. Oh the open. The entire film is directed with such confidence that only in the final battle did I loose my perspective, and then I would bet it was done on purpose for effect. Apted hits all the classic Bond notes and tastefully adds a few of his own. He even manages to take the stale tried cliché of a sinking sub and spin it, by putting the boat on a 90 angle to the ocean floor, and get true suspense, by having Bond swim outside the craft to reach another section. The sterile removal we felt from the last film vanishes and we are planted back in the exciting and exotic world Bond inhabits. And did I mention the open? Ohhh dear gods of cinema the open…
Reported Budget: $135,000,000 estimated. 1989’s Licence To Kill coast $32,000,000. What a difference 10 years makes. Bond budgets have entered what the Occupy Wall Street crowed would refer to as the 1% to be sure.
Reported Box-office: $126,930,660 USA and $352,000,000 worldwide. The American take wasn’t even enough to pay for the film but was good enough for #14. A quick look at 1999 shows a few cheaper films made more; the $33 million Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me made $206 (#4), the $63 million Matrix made $171 (#5), and the produced for the same price as a corn beef on rye at Katz deli Blair Witch Project made $140 million (#10). (OK OK it cost $60,000 or the same as a dozen cupcakes from Magnolia.) But this is the 21st century (almost) and it’s all about that international gross. Based on that number, EON claimed Bond 19 was “the most successful Bond yet.” One more box office footnote, Pierce Brosnan’s The Thomas Crown Affair remake came in at #31 and made $69 million which I would wager is the most successful “Bond actor side-project” to date as well.
Theme Song: “The World Is Not Enough” performed by Garbage. The jokes are just too easy with a band name like that so I’ll refrain. Truth is, I know next to nothing about rubbish, I was a little too old and set in my musical snobbery to take them seriously when they began making noise. In my eyes they were always one of those post-grunge poacher bands, which may or may not be fair but there you go. After doing a little research I guess Butch Vin and some other producers got together and tried to be Sonic Youth meets My Bloody Valentine which is exactly what producer types trying to be hip in 1995, the year of Garbage’s self titled debut, would say. Indeed, I hear none of either of those bands in this Bond theme. Too bad. It got me thinking about what a Sonic Youth/Bond theme would sounds like and I think they would have killed it. Alas, I will say lead singer Shirley Manson has some pipes and the song itself manages to avoid embarrassment even when including the films title.
Opening Titles: You know those oil rainbows you see sometimes on the street after it rains? They are odd things, both beautiful and sickening. Those colorful pools of pollution are the inspiration for these opening credits. Using a color pallet that makes the women look like New Order’s Technique album cover, the drippy thick liquidy look is both sexy in a T2 (1991) morphing way and gross in a seagull covered in gook on a Gulf Coast beach way. Oil is indeed the blood the runs through this film’s veins and if you don’t think those oil pumps like the ones you see on La Cienega Blvd when driving from LAX to Hollywood are meant to make you think of sex, well then you haven’t seen enough Bond. What, you take the 405 from the airport? Amateur.
Opening Action Sequence: There is a theory in comedy involving repetition. The classic example often sighted is the Sideshow Bob rake gag from an episode of The Simpsons.
The idea is the first two times Bob hits his face it’s funny. Then the joke keeps going until it gets old and isn’t really funny anymore and then it becomes down right annoying. Yet it keeps going “too long” and then it becomes absurd and therefore once again funny. This idea is similar to the Shooting the Moon theory I went into in the Final Thoughts on Moonraker (1979). It’s the idea of taking something so far that it goes full circle and reaches beyond what we as an audience thought was the farthest it could go to once again pull us back in. I think the open to The World Is Not Enough pulls off the Bond equivalent of the rake gag by pushing action, as opposed to comedy, too far. But first things first as we join James Bond, 007, license to kill, doing his best Clark Kent. By simply sporting eyeglass the hard core MI6 agent becomes a mild manned banker right before our eyes. We see the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Jeff Koons’ “Puppy” in the background so we know exactly when and where we are but when Bond enters a banker’s office all the beauty and art from outside melts away to be replaced by delightfully tacky quips and innuendo. Bond is here to collect some money that was in the care of a MI6 agent when he was killed. A lovely secretary hands him the brief case as heavies in suits look on. “Would you like to check my figures?” “I’m sure they are perfectly rounded.” Bond then takes off his glasses and becomes Superman, demanding the Swiss banker give him the name of whoever killed his colleague. “I’m offering you the opportunity to walk out with the money,” “And I’m offering you the opportunity to walk out with your life.” As the heavies pull out their guns the banker notes “the odds are not in your favor Mr. Bond.” “Perhaps you fail to recognize my hidden assets.” This is all handled with tongue firmly planted in cheek and everyone in the room knows it’s just a prelude to the inevitable ass kicking. An explosion here, a judo chop there and Bond has a gun to the banker’s head. However, just before he gets the name of the killer the banker himself is finished off by a knife in the back. A second man who gets the drop on Bond is shot by another unseen killer who takes the man out with a single bullet though the window. Sometimes the Bond films can feel like cop movies or strictly action films, but here, right away, thanks to the setting and mystery (Who’s money is it? Who killed the agent? Why is Bond being protected?) this feels like a European spy thriller. It also starts super fast. At the 3 minute 30 second mark the Bond theme kicks in and we are off to the races. Bond escapes thanks to a daring leap out a forth story window and an extremely strong Venetian blind cord. Before we can blink Bond is back in England at MI6 greeting Q who is working on some kind of jet boat, flirting with Moneypenny who makes the terribly tasteless cigar joke, and drinking with M who is back behind her customary desk. M is chatting with Sir. Robert King, the oil baron who’s money Bond recovered. However, after King leaves M’s office, Bond figures out the money has been booby trapped. Bond chases King but it’s too late, the money explodes killing who knows how many and blasting a hole in the side of MI6’s headquarters. This is a neat twist because at this point we don’t know if King was set up or if he’s a suicide bomber. Bond has no time to find out as he is nearly shot by an assassin on the River Thames. Since she is shooting at him through the gaping hole blown into the side of the building, we can assume she too is in on the bombing. 
Bond rushes back to Q’s lab, jumps into the jet boat and like Batman flying out of the Batcave, Bond blasts out of the side of the building, on to the water, and off down the river after the female assassin he goes. A reminder, this is just the open and already we’ve done more then some films get done by the close of the third act. That said, the brisk pacing is deftly handled and while the film is moving incredibly fast, it never seems rushed. Speaking of fast, Q’s little Bat-boat, despite his claims of it not being ready, moves down the river at a rather good clip. Much of the DVD extras are given over to the boat chase on the Thames and great detail is presented on how much work the seven week shoot required. It was all 110% worth it. Seeing famous landmarks fly past as the boats chase each other is a thrill. The scope of the chase is staggering as the two play cat and mouse by ducking into coves, zooming under the London Bridge, knocking over docks, and even getting mileage out of the tried drawbridge impeding a chase gag; since we are on the water, it’s a drawbridge being lowered that causes the obstacle. Bond’s jet boat has an assortment of gadgets, which are used to great effect (but miss the target) and Bond even gets to flip the watercraft in a 360 barrel roll before he looses the assassin behind an impenetrable wall of fire. A quick look on MapQuest shows Bond a shortcut he can take to cut off the baddie further up river. The only problem is this shortcut would require Bond’s Bat-boat to climb up locks in a cannel and travel over land for a good six blocks. And this is where the Sideshow Bob rake theory comes into play. Bond soaks some ticket writing cops and smashes through a kayak rental shops to bring his boat up onto the cobble stone streets of London Town. At this point I was thinking OK, we saw boats slide over land in Live and Let Die (1973) and that worked for me. But then Bond goes down an ally, turns up a block to avoid cops, and then outruns them down another ally. Jesus that’s a bit much I thought, I mean all they had to do is add one shot where Bond hits a switch and wheels pop out of the hull and Bob’s your uncle. Then he blasts through a fish shop and I’m calling bullshit. But, by the time he crashes through a restaurant, upends several tables, and breaks out of the back window to land back on the river in front of the lady assassin, well it was just so over the top surrounded by other outrageous moments that I was back on board. It’s James Bond for Christ sake; of course he can do that! Go James! Now facing his target, Bond launches two torpedoes chasing the assassin out of her boat, up onto a dock and into the basket of a hot air balloon. Bond jumps his boat up out of the water (a four second clip that took 6 days to film, explaining at least a part of the huge budget) and he grabs one of the lines on the balloon basket as he floats up over the Millennium Dome. I can not express how exciting it is to see Bond, for the first time, doing his business in his home town of London. It’s astounding it took this long but well worth the wait. By the time the balloon explodes thanks to a suicide bid by the assassin (she would rather die then disclose the name of her employer) and Bond goes tumbling down the side of the Millennium Dome we have hit the 14 minute 20 second mark and 
I was on the edge of my seat for almost all of it. And somehow, some way, for all its action and Rising Arizona (1987) pre credit length, I didn’t remember a beat of this open. And once I realized that, my heart soared because it occurred to me, outside of Denise Richards trying to act, I didn’t recall any of this film at all. And wow we are off to a smashing start.
Bond’s Mission: Turns out Sir Robert King was set up, the first of many surprises in this film as I assumed he was a baddie. Bond was saved while he was in the bank so he could deliver the rigid money to the target. So, it’s murder most foul and the game is afoot. Bond attends King’s funeral while wearing a sling, thanks to the nasty fall he took on the dome. This injury threatens to sideline 007 until be goes heels to Jesus with the good lady doctor in exchange for a clean bill of health. “Promise you’ll call this time James.” Don’t count on it sister. Back on the case, Bond researches King and learns his daughter, Elektra King was being held for a ransom amount equal to the amount of money lifted off 009, the agent who’s murder we learned about in the open and now were are back to where we walked in. M confirms King was going to pay the kidnappers off, against her advice, but Elektra escaped all on her own. 009 did manage to put a bullet in the kidnappers head yet he lived and in fact has become more dangerous. So, connecting all the dots, this baddie who bumped off King is most likely his daughters kidnapper and now that the father is gone and the daughter has inherited his oil business, logic dictates Elektra could be next on the hit list. This is a lot to unpack but it’s handled briskly and logically, setting all the parts moving in a satisfactory way. And now Bond is off to Azerbaijan where Elektra is overseeing the construction of a huge oil pipeline. Our hero is official meant to babysit and act as a bodyguard as he and MI6 hope to use the girl as bait to draw out the terrorist. “Remember James, shadows always stay in front or behind, never on top.”
Oh no, not Him
Villain’s Name: Viktor Zokas AKA Renard. Like the Joker or a masked Dom Deluise, Renard’s only goal is chaos. In a neat narrative choice, we learn everything there is to know about the international terrorist before we meet him. The KGB cut him loose because he was a liability which sounds a little like Steven Adler getting kicked out of GN’R for doing to many drugs. (Not to mention, NO ONE EVER LEAVES THE KGB!) We learn he set Bond up to kill the father of the woman he kidnapped. We even learn a superhero like origin story, complete with super powers, told to us as we stare at a three dimensional holographic image of his head which is four times human size. All of this effectively works so by the time we do finally meet the terrorist on screen he has become a Keyser Soze like mythic figure. For his introduction, he emerges from a cave surrounded by natural flames so it looks like something out of Middle Earth. It turns out Renard’s days are numbered (more on this below) so he plays his cards like a man who has nothing to loose. And boy is he nasty. He taunts Bond telling 007 he should have had Elektra back when she pure, before he broke her. This is rough business that backfires on the villain down the road but he is certainly one of the more bastardly baddies we have seen in a Bond film.
Villain Actor: Robert Carlyle. Fair or not, I will always think of the Scottish actor as “that guy in that movie about the dudes who get naked that I never saw because it looks so God damn terrible but was somehow popular.” So big was the Full Monty (1997) that when it came out on video my neighborhood video store plopped a larger then life size cardboard cutout of Carlyle smack in the middle of the joint to promote the movie’s releases. The actor would stare out at me from under his blond Denise Leary looking hair, freaking me out as I sifted through 50 copies of My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) only to be told all two copies of 28 Days Later (2002) are out. (Thank Tebow we no longer have video stores.) Speaking off 28 Days Later, Carlyle is super scummy in a truly great way in 28 Weeks Later (2007) and while not as good as the first, its got zombies and I am a sucker for zombies. With a shaved head, a lazy eye and scars here and there, Carlyle’s brand of creepy is used to maximum effect as the ambitious yet reserved Renard.
Villain’s Plot: The plot of The World Is Not Enough is the most convoluted yet and that is saying a lot when considering the Bond series is legendary for thick and hard to follow stories. The nut of the thing boils down to control of the worlds oil supply. We learn that most of the oil exported from Russia, Iran, Azebaijan, Turkey, and Kazakhstan is sent to the Caspian Sea via three pipelines to the north. King is in the middle of building a pipeline in the south, threatening the monopoly of the other three. It’s unclear which of the interests Renard is working for at first but once his full plan comes into view, it’s a shocker. And like every Bond villain plot worth its salt, the plan involves a nuclear bomb and 8 million innocents as collateral damage.
Villain’s Lair: The Middle Earth fire and brimstone cave is cool but it’s more of a backdrop for a creepy intro, not where the bad man truly spends his time. He’s mobile for most of the movie, what with having to steal the raw ingredients for the nuke and then hijacking a submarine, but when he finally settles down it’s at a nifty spot called Maiden’s Tower. At first it appears to be a beautiful old stone lighthouse on the coast of the Caspian Sea. The attached building is stunning with huge windows, beautiful antiques, and a fully functioning dungeon. But what pushes this joint over the edge is the secret submarine dock hidden underneath. Now I know, “a secret submarine dock, have we not seen that 20 times before” and yes you have but! This is not you average 007 villain secret sub dock. As Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky explains, (yes, that Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky so lets us all rejoice) the Soviets had dozens of safe house along the sea during the cold war where the Commies could hide subs and kick the tires and change the plutonium and do whatever other general maintenance nuclear subs need. When the Soviet Union fell these bases didn’t just go away so there are a ton of places on the Caspian anyone could use do the same. This is the cloak and dagger European spy/intrigue stuff I love. It’s like knocking on the door in an empty Brooklyn ally and giving a password to a guy who looks out from behind a sliding shutter and then being let into a grand gambling hall. Not that I’ve done that … but if I did, it would be the stuff of great stories. What’s more, the sub base is in the same style as the lighthouse and surrounding building, which is to say, old stone. This isn’t Moonraker where Bond steps through a door to go from the inside of an Incan Temple to mission control at NASA. This is an organic spot that looks real and lived in. Is it real? Damned if I know, but it is 100% consistent with the look and feel of the rest of the film. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if on the coast of Istanbul stood just such a lighthouse.
Villain’s Coolest Accessory/ Trait: Rage Against the Machine had a tune called “Bullet In the Head.” Remember Rage? They were a band in the mid 90’s that had that video with the cute bee girl? Ohh, that Rage. Anywho, a line from a “Bullet In the Head,” “I give a shout out to the living dead” kept ahem… running though my head when it came to Renard the anarchists. M’s explains in her briefing, given while MI6 VIP’s are standing around a huge holographic image of Renard’s head, that while attempting kill the psychotic terrorist 009 put a bullet in his head. “That bullet is still there.”
All I can say is that Renard is pretty strange …
Indeed, there it is in the holograph, leaving a tunnel from his left temple into the middle of his brain which Bond thoughtfully sticks his finger in. Turns out the bullet has damaged the baddies noodle in such a way that his sense are dying, “touch, smell, he feels no pain,” and he can push himself harder then any normal man. “The bullet will kill him, but he will grow stronger every day until the day he dies.” How cool is that? Kind of a like zombie, no? “I give a shout out to the living dead” indeed. This also gives us the ticking clock scenario turned inside out. The baddie must finish his mission because it is he who is racing against time and Bond’s job is to catch-up. This is super cool and it’s not even the coolest bit about the baddie. Renard, for all his superpowers and anarchist tendencies, turns out to be the least of Bond’s problems.
Badassness of Villain: Bond catches up with Renard as the villain is personally overseeing the theft of a nuclear warhead. Dressed as one of Renard’s men, Bond makes his way over to Renard, grabs him in a headlock, and sticks the business side of his Welther PPK on Renard’s melon. “I don’t miss.” But the baddie keeps on talking shit because, as he points out “You can’t kill me, I’m already dead.” This is as badass as badass gets but the ex-KGB man overplays his hand. Bond is about to pop him but he keeps yapping. “Normally I hate killing an unarmed man but in this case I will feel nothing, like you.” “But then again, there is no point in living if you can not feel alive.” At that moment, Bond pauses and everything comes into focus. I complained in the last film that we saw the events unfolding well before Bond and it made him look dumb. Here, he proves why he’s the superspy and we are just along for the ride. 007 heard that exact sentence before, spoken by one Elektra King. Could she and Renard be in cahoots? Bond’s suspicion are confirmed moments later when Renard, after turning the tables and now holding a gun to Bond’s head, squeezes the agents broken collar bone causing extreme pain. How did Renard know about the injury unless Elektra told him? Unless we were really paying close attention we have no idea what Bond has learned. He is two steps ahead of not only the baddies, but the audience as well. What Bond knows, and we will learn, is that Ms. King has been playing MI6 all along and Renard is in fact her stooge.
Villain’s Asides/ Henchmen: Loyal readers know that we here at Blog James Blog enjoy watching Bond participate in Alpine sports and throwing chips around a card table above all else. (Drinking coming in at a not too distant third.) Well, the skiing sequence in The World Is Not Enough is a doozy. Yes, Bond’s skills on the sticks are impressive as ever (he even pulls a twisty backscratcher) but what makes the sequence stand out is the four biddies who give chase. As Bond and Elektra, still thought to be on the same side at this point, inspect a section of the pipeline reachable only on skis, four black “Para Hawks” appear on the horizon. Picture a snowmobile with a fan-boat back and a para-glider/ultra light parachute wing on top and you get the idea. These things are badass and their pilots even more so. Dressed in all black and wearing black helmets with black goggles they look like alien bugs piloting strange flying snowmobiles. Elektra’s personal bodyguard Gabor, played by American Gladiator John Seru, reminded me of Lobot, Lando Calrissian’s aside in The Empire Strikes Back (1981). Not so much in appearance, Lobot was a bald white man and Gabor is a dreadlocked black man, but in personality. Lobot never speaks a word but communicates with Lando through shared looks only the two of them understand. Ditto Elektra and Gabor who other then one spoken line (I’m assuming to justify Seru’s SAG card) just kind of hovers in the background until needed.
Bond Girl Actress: Ursula Andress, the original Bond Girl, once said “Bond girls don’t sweet, they just glow.” I wasn’t sure what she meant by that until I saw Sophie Marceau first appear on screen at King’s funeral. She not only glows, she radiates. Hot is one thing, beautiful is completely another, and never have I seen a woman who possess each trait quite like the native Parisian Marceau. The daughter of a truck driver, she got her big break at 14 and never looked back working as a actress, director and writer in both English language and French films. Smart, stunning and a striking screen presence Marceau can also act circles around most Bond women. She pulls off the role of Elektra King in a way where even after Bond knows she’s the baddie, a fact she never lets on and would have kept concealed successful if not for Renard’s slip by the by, she is still able to cast doubt with a few lines and an incredible convincing act of innocents. Then, once the cat is fully out of the bag, she keeps the same focus and intensity as she had previous, only now with an evil glint in her eye. She could have over played this and went full bat shit crazy as the baddie, but she lets Renard play that role, she just keeps going forward with her diabolical plan, convinced she can use her feminine wiles to talk her way out of any situation that comes up. Marceau makes all of this look effortless and gives one of the best Bond girl performances of the series. If Marceau is the glowing example of what Andress spoke then Denise Richards, the other woman in Bond’s life, is 
a dying florescent bulb, blinking and buzzing while casting a harsh, shrill light. Let’s start out as nicely as we can. I truly enjoyed the former Mrs. Tiger Blood Sheen in Starship Troopers (1997). While I’m not sure she’s in on what makes the film absolutely genius, her flat, vacant line reading is in perfect line tonally with the rest of the cast and fits the style of the film perfectly. I think she is in on the joke for Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), an unsung comedy gem with a very strong cast. She plays the over confident beauty queen who can say nothing that is not incredibly offensive and shallow but since she is so pretty no one ever calls her out. You could say typecasting and I will not argue but she hits the comic notes and makes the most of the role. That’s all I got. To put this as charitably as I possible can, Mrs. Richards is wildly miscast as nuclear physicist. Being in the same film as Marceau just makes this fact all more glaring. Next to her sexy and sophisticated cast mate, Richards looks like a child playing dress-up. In press conference on the DVD extra Pierce proves how much of a gentleman he truly is when he sticks up for his leading lady saying “those who don’t get her performance are missing the mark.” I truly appreciate what Brosnan is doing here but the truth is, it’s Richards who is so far off target that her presence in the film, mercifully not coming until the second half, single handedly holds this movie back from being one of the all time Bond greats and knocks a full martini glass off the final rating.
Bond Girl’s Name: Elektra King. What’s in a name? In Greek mythology Elektra kills her stepfather and mother to avenge the death of her natural father. In Bond 19, Elektra contracts the killing of her father in order to regain control of the oil empire which was owned by her mother’s side of the family for generations, Sir. Robert got in on the action through marriage. So it’s kind of the same thing but with a modern feminist cum OPEC twist. Elektra is by far the most complex Bond girl to date. We learn of her kidnapping and escape before we even meet her. Then when we do, she is seen diverting her pipeline to save a historic church. As peasants cheer, she confidently walks among the oil drilling rough necks proving she is tough and compassionate at the same time. When the Para Hawk case ends with she and Bond huddled together under an avalanche her tough exterior cracks and her claustrophobia, no doubt brought on during her captivity, causes her to freak-out and cling to Bond like a lost girl. This further wins our sympathy; so much so that we don’t even notice all four Para Hawks chased Bond and left her alone. Bond has always had a weakness for the fairer sex and Elektra plays Bond like fiddle well before she disrobes. She matches him with her wits and seems to see though his hard exterior. “Who is afraid now Mr. Bond?” She is so sly in he misdirection that she pays-off Valentin to the tune of one million dollars in direct sight of Bond and manages to make it look like the act of a wounded woman not yet fully recovered from either her fathers death or her hostage ordeal. Even after Bond has her pegged she still manages to cast doubt, to the point where she is able to draw M right into a trap set in plan sight. This is a woman who we are told escaped the sinister Renard by seducing her guards, cutting off her own ear, and now has the man who held her for ransom working for her. This is a woman who blew up her own father in MI6’s headquarters with the hopes of killing M as part of the collateral damage. And you know what, I 100% buy that she is not only capable of pulling it off, but that she would do so without blinking. She is a ruthless shark, a woman straight out of a 1940’s film noire who sees all the angles and uses her body and brain to keep the private dick spinning in circles. She is the most fully realized Bond Baddie and Bond girl rolled into one package. It’s a work of quantum physics on a level that would confound Stephen Hawking that she could possible occupy the same film as Dr. Christmas Jones, who is as much as physicists as Dr. Demento. From the moment Jones emerges from a mine and steps out of a jumpsuit wearing green tank top, short shorts and displaying perfectly manicured nails its like we’ve been warped to an episode of “Archer.” This could have been a sly tongue in cheek joke but Richards is actress incapable of pulling such a complex idea off. Then, to make matters worse, she opens her mouth. 
Listening to Richard read lines is like hearing a second grader read the Gettysburg Address out loud in front of the class. She can’t even pull off the lowest form of humor, the pun, without coming across as clueless and crass. I literally groaned out loud at “I have to get that plutonium back or someone is going to have my ass.” Even Brosnan looks like he has no idea how to field that one. And man she looks just scared shitless up there on the big screen. Her eyes are always wide and blank, as if it’s taking all of her energy to concentrate on hitting her next mark. I don’t think I can overemphasize how out of place this character is in this film. Picture Rachel Maddow running for Vice President on the “Santorum 2012” ticket and your not even in the ballpark. It’s just beyond all reason that this woman would be cast in this role. All that said, the thing that Jones and Bond ride thought the pipeline on is cool. See, I said something else nice about her.
Bond Girl Sluttiness: In The World Is Not Enough, sluttiness and badassness ignore Egon’s important safety tip and cross streams in an unprecedented manner. Indeed, Pussy Galore started out working for Goldfinger but after a roll in the hay with Sir Sean she helps Bond fake the gassing of half of Kentucky, more then making up for her sassy talk on the Learjet. Thinking about Goldfinger (1964) got me to thinking about how far everything has come since the 60’s. Back when Bond was a baby, the sight of Andrees in a two-piece or the name Pussy Galore was boundary pushing, shocking stuff. So was the idea that Bond, a good guy, would kill, and sometimes even enjoy it. By the 70’s Bond films relied on increasingly complex action sequences and stunts to keep audience shocked and awed. By the 80’s and most certainty the 90’s Bond had lost his ability to truly shock us. That’s not to say the films didn’t dazzle, excite, and thrill, they just no longer shocked. Hearing the name Pussy Galore was shocking, hearing the name Xenia Onatopp was cute. To bring shocking back into the Bond universe it took a cocktail of sex shaken, not stirred with violence. Elektra King is in a room in her lighthouse lair. Bond is strapped to a chair, bound by four heavy metal clamps, one around each ankle, one around each wrist, and a nasty, thick leather strap around his neck. On the back of the chair is a huge wheel looking not unlike a large wooden wheel one would find at the helm of an old sailing ship. This is attached to a large flat-headed screw that goes into the back of the chair. When turned, the screw moves forward into the back of the neck of whatever unfortunate son of a bitch is strapped to the chair, forcing his esophagus up against the large leather collar holding his head to the back of the chair. Three full turns and it’s curtains for Bond. His face is red. He’s gasping, pleading, spitting and all together struggling to breathe as Elektra walks slowly around the chair, each pass tightening the screws. Her walk is seductive and she is clearly getting off on holding Bond’s life in her hands. Throughout the film, Elektra makes a point of let everyone know she is not above using her body to get what she wants, but you never get the sense she enjoys the sexual encounters. But here, with Bond bound, she’s truly getting a sexual rise on the power she has over this man’s life. 
At one point she straddles Bond while he’s on the chair and while it never said, it’s clear she now is using his body, thanks to erotic asphyxiation or hypoxyphilia. Sexualized torture in a Bond film? Indeed, and it’s shocking as shit.
Bond’s Best Pick-up Line: Since pick up lines are not Elektra’s style, we will go bizarro for the next two categories and make them “Bond/Bond girls WORST pick up line.” Without further ado, we give you Bond while trying to score with Dr. X-mas Jones in the former Ottoman Empire. “I always wanted to have Christmas in Turkey.”
Bond Girls Best Pick-up Line: “Why don’t to unwrap your present?” And if you not gagging yet, a Worst pick-up lines bonus round! Post coitus Bond remarks “I though Christmas only came once a year.”
Number of Woman 007 Beds: 3, all of which have been covered in one way or another by now so we will keep it brief. The MI6 doctor, who not only gives 007 a clean bill of health but notes his stamina, wink wink. (I also greatly appreciated the cutaway to a man playing bagpipes.) Elektra King in a between the sheets encounter that, at the time, seems out of place following a comment about how Bond couldn’t afford to play her high stake reindeer games. However, in retrospect I think this horizontal mambo was yet another calculated move on Elektra’s part. She saw her fish slipping way, so she set the hook and reeled him in. And finally Dr. Christmas and while the two participants display no dignity in the act, John Cleese, of all people, does when he pulls the plug on MI6’s infrared spy cam.
Number of People 007 Kills: 22, give or take. Despite all the shooting and exploding and boat-on-land driving and Millennium Dome tumbling, only a single soul is lost by Bond’s hand in the open, that of a stooge in the Swiss Banker’s office. Bond takes out all four Tie-fighter pilot looking Para Hawk dudes; two by collision with tree and two by collision with each other. Bond shoots Davidov, an Elektra and Renard go between, as guards with dogs patrol nearby. The dog got me to thinking; the proud tradition of Bond fighting everything from tarantulas to sharks to tigers to snakes to out-of-control horses has fallen by the wayside in recent entries. I say get wild life back into the picture, I miss Bond vs nature stuff. Bring on a pack of wild dogs. Have him go mono a mono with an angry ape. Hell, I’d pay to see 007 go 5 rounds with a boxing kangaroo. I want to see Bond killing something with fur or scales stat! Anyway, he shoots three of Renard’s nuke thieves in a tunnel, the second being a miraculous shot from behind a moving train car. At Valentin’s caviar harvesting facility Bond takes down two helicopters which I will assume had a pilot, a co-pilot and two dudes to operate stuff like guns and four story spinning buzz saw towers so let us say that counts as eight kills. Bond shoots Elektra’s dreadlocked bodyguard leaving the lovely lady exposed. She runs to the top O the lighthouse (in heels and a long dress, this woman can do it all) and even when Bond sticks a gun in her face she is still trying to work her magic. Standing next to a bed, she puts on her best come hither look as guards are heard preparing to move in. Bond hands Elektra the radio and orders her to call em off. When he sees this is not sinking in with the lady, he give her a look of his own, one that says you had me for a while, but sister, the act is getting old. “Call em off!” he screams and her face crinkles, she realizes he means business but this is a woman who has had an ace up each sleeve all her life and she makes one last play. “James, you couldn’t kill me” and she might even believe it as she shouts an attack order into the radio a split second before she gets a bullet in the head. (There’s that song from the bee girl band again!) M watched as one of her double O’s killed an unarmed woman and you can see in this moment, out from behind the desk and in the field, M learns to appreciate her #1 agents all the more. (Have we discussed how Judy Dench has taken the M character and completely transformed her?) 
There is a submarine battle for the climax in which Bond kills two guys and uses one as a human shield.
Most Outrageous Death/s: A loose translation of Deus ex Machina would be the machine blowing a gasket at the exact right time and that is literally what happens at the climax of this movie. Bond is trying to stop Renard from inserting the last rod into a gizmo which will make the nuke go boom. As the baddie slllooooowwwwwlllllyyyyy pushes the rod into place a pressurized hose bursts loose right in front of Bond. Also in front of Bond are several holes one could hook this steam shooting hose up to. Bond plays eenie meenie miney moe to find the exact right plug-in at the exact right second to put the exact right amount of air pressure into the exact right tube sending the rod exactly into Renard’s right ventricle.
Miss. Moneypenny: Samantha Bond needs to call her agent. After an excellent introduction in GoldenEye (1995) she has been reduced to making awful Monica Lewinsky jokes. Open letter to Michael Wilson, Moneypenny and Ms. Bond deserve better.
M: Judy Dench on the other hand gets the most involved and satisfying M plot yet in any Bond film. After nearly getting killed in the MI6 bombing, she reviles to 007 that “against all instincts as a mother” she recommend against paying off Renard for Elektra’s safe return. This is fascinating not only because it sets up a neat little morality play for M but it reveals she indeed has a life and family outside of MI6. That said, I do think the idea that Elektra went bad because M didn’t rescue her is a bit over played. “You made her this way,” Renard tells M at one point but I don’t buy it; M made her a man hating killer of her own father who is hell bent on controlling the world’s oil supply? That’s just a bridge to far. None the less, it is great to see M question herself and MI6’s policies. I’m also not so sure M would jump on a plane and walk right into what is so obviously a trap but perhaps she was feeling guilt when it came to the whole “let Elektra rot in a cell” thing. (Yes, she did send 009 to rescue her and all that but let’s stay in the moment shall we.) M is warned by Bond that Elektra is up to no good but by the time she herself sees the plot it’s too late. M is indeed imprisoned by Elektra in what is supposed to be a shoe on the other foot moment but M is way to smart for that. She immediately goes about plotting her escape, using her brains in contrast to Elektra using her body. It was very enjoyable to watch these two smart women matching wits and there is even a moment where M admits Bond is her best agent, although she would never tell him that. All of this enriches the M character and goes miles to explain the close yet distant relationship between she and Bond.
Q: There are countless studies that show when people retire they increase their chances of dying. No one knows why but the prevailing theory is if you have something to live for, a reason to get out of bed in the morning, it keeps you living longer. Desmond Llewelyn, who was born in Newport, Wales in September of 1914, did a lot of living. The son of a coal mining engineer he got his first taste of show biz working as a stagehand in high school. Upon graduation he wanted to be a cop but failed the eye exam. In his later years he would say it was in fact the test administrator who was not seeing straight thanks to a hangover. He went on to study ministry but after a week-long retreat he realized he no longer heard the calling. Next it was off to the Royal Academy for the Dramatic Arts where he found his groove only to be interrupted in the mid 30’s by the Second World War during which Llewelyn served with distinction in the British Army. At one point he and his unit held off a division of German tanks until “eventually, the tanks broke through and many of us jumped into this canal and started swimming down it to the other side, figuring that our chaps were still over there. But the Germans were the only ones there.” Second Lieutenant Llewelyn was captured and held as a prisoner of war for five years. According to IMDB at one point Llewelyn and some other prisoners “had dug a tunnel and were planning to escape the next morning. Llewelyn was down in the tunnel doing some maintenance work in preparation of the escape when the Germans found out about the tunnel and caught him down in it, a crime that earned Llewelyn 10 days in solitary, which Llewelyn called ‘a blessing of sorts. After spending every day of several years sleeping in a room with 50 other people, the quiet and privacy was rather nice.’” I have visions of Q as the Steve McQueen character in The Great Escape (1963), throwing a baseball against the wall. All I can say about this is rock star. After the war, Llewelyn returned to London where he rejoined his wife, Pamela Mary Pantlin who he married in 1938 and who was with him till the day he died. As Major Boothroyd, Llewelyn has appeared in more Bond films then any other actor. Introduced as “Q” for quartermaster in From Russia With Love (1963) Q appeared in every Bond film save Live and Let Die (1973). His absents from Moore’s first film caused such a fan uproar producers were forced to bring the character back. For his part, Llewelyn, who regularly admitted that gadgets and technology were fields he knew nothing about, was also confounded by the popularly of his Bond persona. As he delighted in pointing out, his total on screen time in 17 films was less then 30 minutes. 84-years-old at the time the 19th Bond film was being produced, Llewelyn planned on The World Is Not Enough being his last. Indeed, Bond steals and destroys his retirement fishing boat in the open. I’m not sure what Q was planning on catching with all that weaponry; perhaps he was going to join Chief Brody and Capt. Quint on their quest for Jaws? (Not him, the other one.) In announcing his retirement, Q hands over his duties to his successor, R. For the last shot of Q on screen, we see him sinking into the floor, giving advice to Bond. “Always have an escape route.” The World Is Not Enough was released on November 19, 1999. On December 19, 1999 Desmond Llewelyn was driving home from a book signing to promote his autobiography in East Sussex when his car collided head-on with another. I always thought that as I got older I would grow more cynical, but a strange thing has happened. I’ve actually gotten more romantic and sentimental. I will miss Desmond Llewelyn and his Q greatly. He was as much a part of the Bond films then the music and the opening gun barrel shot. Brosnan described Q as “the Merlin” of the Bond films, which I think is spot on. The next time I have a martini, I’ll toast to Q.
Q
List of Gadgets: Bond meets up with Q at the MI6 headquarters in Scotland which is inside a castle, naturally, where the gadget guru introduces “the young fellow I’m grooming to follow me.” Monty Python vet John Cleese is one of the funniest men on the planet and I can see the allure of making R an absentminded professor type. We will hold off judgment on this choice until the next film where R will, presumably, take center stage. In the meantime, R has a very funny bit where he is displaying the new ski jacket to Bond. “Watch closely please 007. The right arm goes in the right sleeve thusly” and “the lower part of the zipper and insert it into here like so…” until Q hits the button and the jacket becomes an inflated ball trapping R inside. As for this weeks BMW it has “the very latest in intercepting countermeasures, titanium armor, multi-tasking heads up display and 6 beverage cups holders. All in all rather stocked.” Bond gets two sets of glasses this go around; the Clark Kent glasses from the open also function as a detonator and a second pair have X-ray vision. Making a return is the credit card skeleton key and his watch has a light bright enough to illuminate Las Vegas Blvd. Finally, Bond has a program on his computer that can instantly convert dollars into pounds, it’s amazing what these desk tops can do.
Gadgets/British Government Property Bond Destroys: Pretty much all of the above, the jacket, the glasses, the boat, and the car which is sliced in half prompting Bond to lament “Q’s not going to like this.”
Other Property Destroyed: After Bond uses some window blinds and a table to escape an office in Spain, the Swiss banker will need to make a trip to IKEA. Not five minutes later Bond blows up 3 million pounds, all be it inadvertently. Thanks to 007’s complete disregard for no wake zones there is some riverfront property on the Thames that’s going to need some work including a kayak rental kiosk, a fish market and a swanky seafood restaurant. The would be assassin’s boat also has a few leaks. 007 recklessly shoots up a nuclear bomb storage faculty including a train car which is cut in half. He has a chance to disarm a bomb but says ahh screw it at the last second and takes out a good 50 yard section of a mercifully empty pipeline. Then there is the Caspian Sea caviar factory, which has to be in the top three most inspired locations to hold a shoot out. The facility itself is a series of wooden shacks and storage houses built on pillions in the middle of the sea. These buildings are connected to each other and to the near-by shore by a series of wooden docks and walkways, some large and strong enough to support vehicles and other simply two foot wide pedestrian bridges. Bond drives his BMW out to one of the buildings and goes inside where the floor has several cut outs giving free access to the water below. In some of these cut outs are large vats of freshly harvested fish row. Then the two helicopters show up, one of which has a pole with six or seven huge whirling saw blades hanging under its belly. This device’s out of the box purpose is to trim the top of tall trees but it’s also good for reeking havoc on wooden docks and warehouses. Bond swings, dives, swims and shoots doing battle with these two choppers while splinters fly everywhere in a truly fantastic action sequence that works because there are no cheats. It also delivers enough explosions to give Jerry Bruckheimer a woody. At the end, when Bond blows up the chopper with the saw blades, the saws come flying every which way imbedding themselves into walls and floor boards just inches from several of Bond allies. Bond also sinks a sub in a sequence that makes no sense and is full of cheats, the Deus ex Machina leading to Renard’s death not least of which, but somehow still almost works. Almost…
Felix Leiter: Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky and his limp return and we here at Blog James Blog say hell yah! I absolutely adore the Valentin character and here his role is much expanded upon from his debut in GoldenEye. It appears the Russian gangster is trying to put a ligament face on his criminal empire and has opened a casino. Since literally every single person in the joint is carrying a concealed firearm, I’m not so sure we can say his desire to go legit has been successful. When Bond makes his way into Valentin’s office (after threatening Dennis Rodman at gun point) he finds the ex-KGB man sitting behind his desk feeding caviar to two women, one on each knee. “Bond, James Bond! Meet Irnia and Varuska.” This guy gets all the lines. Bond visits Valentin to get the low down on Renard but it also turns out Valentin is doing business, as far as he knows independently, with Elektra King. The $1 million she drops in his casino is payment for what Valentin thinks is a “smuggling job.” Little does he know that his nephew, a submarine captain in the Russian Navy, is being set up to deliver and detonate a nuclear bomb. Bond puts it together eventually and confronts Valentin at his caviar factory. “I’m a slave to free market economy.” They are, of course, attacked by all of King’s men and the big battle ends with Valentin, in an all white suit, drowning in a pool of oily black fish eggs. As they say in those credit card ads, priceless. Did I mention Valentin’s number two, Mr. Bouillon, looks just like Dennis Rodman? Anyway, he’s also a little punk like Rodman and he sells Valentine out and tries to kill him. Valentin escapes and makes his way to Elektra’s lighthouse only to discover his nephew has been killed and Bond is strapped to a torture chair. Elektra then shoots him and with his dying breath, he shoots Bond free with the gun he has hidden in his cane. I was bummed to see him go but his dying act is to be applauded.
Best One Liners/Quips: Bond makes his way into the nuclear bomb cave by impersonating a famous nuclear scientist. He is doing well until he gets busted by Dr. Christmas Jones. “I talked to him, but he is not a nuclear scientist.” Neither are you sister.
Bond Cars: BMW Z8. The sporty convertible looks great, especially slicing though the oil fields of Azerbaijan. While poking around the internets I learned that Brosnan, in addition to whatever seven digit salary he was receiving for the films, got to take home the featured BMW for the last three Bond outings. So, in his garage he’s got the BMW Z3 from GoldenEye (1995), an 8-series BMW (instead of the 750iL) from Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), and the Z8 from The World Is Not Enough. This is a super smart call on both EON and BMW’s part. After all, Brosnan is Bond and it simply would not due to have him tooling around London in a Fiat. This way, he gets a great car and every time he leaves the driveway he’s promoting his films as well. The jet boat featured in the open has a V8, which is insane; the tiny boat is not much larger then a V8. This sucker can reach up to 80MPH, go as shallow as 4 inches of water, and turn on a dime. If I were Brosnan I’d insist on hooking a trailer to the Z8 with this little baby on board.
Bond Timepiece: Omega Seamaster Professional. This is the same as the Tomorrow Never Dies Omega in that it’s automatic as opposed to the quartz number 007 had in GoldenEye.
Other Notable Bond Accessories: When Bond visits Elektra at the oil field he is already sporting a full ski outfit, he just needed to grab the sticks and go. This I can understand. However, later, when he is impersanationg the nuclear scientist, he is about to get on board a helicopter that will take him to the nuke sight. One of the baddies asks if he has “it.” Bond hands over a gym bag containing sneakers. This is good to get him onto the helicopter. I have no idea why and from the look on Bond’s face, neither dose he, but he simply roles with it. That’s why he gets paid the big bucks.
Number of Drinks 007 Consumes: And once again, Bond’s borderline alcoholism pays off. As he sits with M in her office about to drink some bourbon, he notices a fizz coming from the glass. This alerts him to the bomb. How? Turns out that when he handled the money he got whatever explosive residue (you know, the stuff they swab your laptop for at the airport) on his fingers and that in turn reacted with the ice. So as always, drinking is not only good for you, it could save your life. A personal bourbon note, I was just in Louisville (pronounced by natives as Luh’vulll) for work recently and being Kentucky there was more good bourbon to be had then you could shake a stick at. That said, if you ever come across a creature called Kentucky Bourbon Ale I suggest you belly up and buy a pint. It’s one of the more incredible beers I’ve ever had in that it tastes like beer and bourbon in equal parts. Simply delightful. 
At Valentin’s casino Bond orders a martini, shaken not stirred, to steady his nerves after nailing a baddie to the bar with a knife staked into his tie. Bond then pays for the drink with the baddies gun. While lounging in bed with Elektra the two share some Bollinger.
Bond’s Gambling Winnings: Jimmy B walks around Valentin’s casino but decides not to play. Perhaps the fact that everyone is armed dissuaded him from tossing a couple of chips around. Ms. Elektra King on the other hand has quite a bit of gamble in her. She strolls into the casino drawing the immediate attention of Valentin who is happy to extend her the same line of credit given to her late father who apparently enjoyed Blackjack. She declines but then for no (apparent) reason decides to put $1 million on the turn of a single card, high card wins. Bond, still tasked as her bodyguard, first attempts to protect her by making sure the first three cards are burned. Then, he tries to talk her out of this rash act. “You don’t have to do this you know.” “There is no point in living, if you can’t feel alive” she replies while drawing the Queen of Hearts. Got to feel pretty good about that one, only Kings or Aces can beat her with the other 3 Queens pushing the bet. In other words she is trying to avoid 11 cards out of 51 giving her a 78 and change percent advantage making her slightly better then three out of every four times a winner. She seems not a bit phased when Valentin draws the Ace of Clubs. Bond takes this as another act of a women completely damaged by recent events but he’s still on the ball enough to tuck the whole “no point in living” comment into his back pocket.
List of Locations: EON return to Pinewood for the first time since 1987’s The Living Daylights which explains why MI6’s home base of London is featured more spectacularly then ever before. The return to home base may also explain why this is one of the better looking Bond in terms of sets we’ve had in quite some time. All the locations are presented in a way that makes them both exotic and real, not an easy balance. As mention previously, MI6’s Scotland headquarters is in a castle and while I’m sure the interiors were soundstages the look quite castley. We also already pointed out the fantastic use of Bilbao, additional Spanish locations of Bardenas Reales and Las Majadas served as stand-ins for Kazakhastan and Azerbaijan but the striking oil field location actually was Azerbaijan. The fields were owned by the state in 1847 when a tobacco man drilled a well and this sight became the first ever oil filed. As seen in this film the landscape looks absolutely alien and demonstrates how our quest for oil has been raping the land for the first. The Istanbul Caspian Sea locations are real places and the skiing bits were shot in the French Alps in the same valley that hosted the First Winter Olympics in 1924 and is said to be where “Mountaineer” sports were born.
Bonds Special Abilities Displayed: This is the most physical Bond I can remember. The sequence in the nuclear bomb storage tunnel alone qualifies Bond for a spot on the Olympic decathlon team. Bond is just getting warmed up in the open when he flies around the Thames in a boat that is not done being built and he’s never driven while bouncing it over land. His outer limits skiing haven’t seen any decline in skill but all of this is to be expected. It’s later in the film where James truly outdoes himself when he runs up to the top of a lighthouse, pausing only to shoot a perfect shot to hit the lock on M’s cell door, and reaches the top without even break a sweet. Then, after he kills the lady he swan dives out of the top of the tower getting a 9.6 from the judges after the Russian’s 6.4 was thrown out. He also has to swim from one section of a sinking sub to another and holds his breath for what I think is about a half hour, give or take.
Final Thoughts: Timothy Dalton has often complained in his post Bond years that the audience didn’t accept his take on the character because it was too dark. I would argue this film is 10 times darker then anything Dalton attempted and 100 times more fun. In some ways this movie reminded me of Octopussy (1983) and not just because 009 gets wacked in both films. I found them similar in so much as they both work despite a convoluted plot that falls apart under any scrutiny. Because the action is so good and the characters are so well define and the individual moments work so well and the goings on are so fun and funny, I was willing to forget the big picture in both cases and just enjoy the ride. But the two films are also very different in that Octopussy had not a thought in it’s head where as The World Is Not Enough is one of the smartest Bond films to date. The big twist works because of the superb set up despite it also being absolutely ludicrous. 
In order for Elektra’s grand scheme to work she not only needs to be seeing 20 moves ahead on the chess board, but everyone one of those moves must go her way or the entire plan collapse around her. And you know what, I was fine with this because it was so smartly executed and it stuck to its own logic. Each event played on what happens before and after making a logical, tight and wildly entertaining story. Bonus points for giving us incredible insight into M and Bond’s relationship, the most complex Bond girl and baddie rolled into one character, and twisty-turny misdirection throughout. On top of that, it tackles heavy themes like terrorism, torture, and petroleum politics in the Trojan horse of an expertly executed Bond film. All super smart indeed. I think much of the credit needs to go to Apted who brings both a grace and a light touch that allows these characters to breath where we want them to but then when called for, he tightens the screws and bring the action-oriented “wow!” I love seeing Bond get hurt, I love seeing Bond navigate the shady underground, and I love seeing Bond match wits with intelligent women who are his equal, and we get it all here. This movie plays like a character driven spy thriller and rewards the viewer at nearly every turn. The elephant in the room is of course Denise Richards. At one point she and Bond are racing through the pipeline on a speeding platform they want to slow down. But they can’t because as Richards tells us “the controls are jammed.” Have you even been unable to stop anything from moving because the controls were jammed? Ever? What the hell does the controls are jammed even mean? While this film does so much so well every single time the Richards character, named Dr. Christmas Jones in case you forget, is on screen she acts as an anchor pulling the film into tried cliché. The worst part, her character is 100% superfluous. We could have gotten all the same info/hit all the same story points without suffering through “could you translate that for those of us that don’t speak spy?” She is this film’s Kryptonite. Back to Brosnan’s previous outing, I liked Tomorrow Never Dies a whole lot less than I thought I would. The other side of that coin; I liked The World Is Not Enough a whole lot more then I anticipated. The 19th Bond was a surprise in the best way possible and when placed in the Bond canon I think it fits squarely in the bottom of the upper halves middle.
Martini ratings:
Title: Tomorrow Never Dies
down. You can see it on Brosnan’s face in his interviews on the DVD extras for this movie. All the enthusiasm from the last film is gone. He looks worn out and answers the questions like he’s giving the correct answers at a job interview. After only two films, the shine has worn off for Pierce. That all said, after we watched Tomorrow Never Dies the wife declared Pierce is her favorite 007 and a far better action hero then any previous Bond, so what the hell do I know? To quote my friend Brian Pappis, “It’s good if you like it.”
He helmed Turner & Hooch (1989) with a pre A League of Their Own (1992) Tom Hanks staring opposite a dog, the very definition of carrier suicide, the unwatchable Air America (1990) staring Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr., and he put the final nail in Sly Stallone’s career coffin with Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992). What did EON see in this cat? Martin Campbell was asked back but turned the job down not wanting to do two Bond films in a row. I suspect Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson weren’t necessarily broken up about his decision to not return. Everything I’ve read and seen about Campbell says he’s an incredibly strong personality with a stronger vision and not easily controlled. With Cubby gone, his daughter and her husband were now running the biggest and most profitable show in town, and I think they felt the need to flex their muscle. Take this quote from Brosnan. “That was always the frustrating thing about the role. Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson play it so safe. The pomposity and rigmarole that they put directors through is astounding…” Based on that and other things I’ve read, I’d imagine Broccoli and Wilson wanted someone they could push around and impose their own vision upon sitting in the director’s chair. All they needed was a guy who knew his way around a film set enough to not trip over the cables and deal with all that annoying “techie stuff.” Indeed, this is a Bond film with no vision at all except to promote “the 007 brand” and push products like BMW in the process. It a movie where the trailer plays better then the film. It hits all the marks but does so as an exercise in hitting the marks. OK, make sure Q makes the joke about getting the car back in one piece and perhaps we should make sure he says BMW again, just to make sure the audience gets it. I’m not sure how handcuffed Spottiswoode was but he’s managed to make a lower case “b” bond film. For a former editor its unreal how bad he is at creating a scene. Establishing shot is a dirty word to this man and pacing is non-existent. With few exceptions this is a film that gives the audience only what’s necessary, unless setting up a bad joke, and hurdlers gracelessly onto the next bit of business. I had no idea where I was or what was happening in the climatic boat battle. The set was black and everything is so dark that all sense of perspective is lost, a pity since everything is taking place on what is clearly a huge set. 
Stuff was just exploding everywhere, missiles were being shot into the deck of a boat, and yet not one leak was sprung. At other moments, in the middle of action, Spottiswoode would insert a slow-mo shot for no reason what-so-ever. I’m not taking about slowing the film down in an attempt to emphasize something; it was just random shots out of a sequence. This happens several times in the film with no continuity as to when or where it will happen. All I can think is the shots weren’t long enough to fill the hole so he simply extended them in edit. It’s like no one storyboarded this thing and if they did, they did so poorly or Spottiswoode didn’t stick to the game plan. The entire enterprise has a slapdash “lets fix it in post” feel, remarkable when you consider the budget. There are great moments in this movie and a few of the action set piece are quite well done but I can say without a doubt that this is the most poorly directed Bond film up to this point.
Kerkorian threw money at the project to rush it along and with the 9 digit budget came immense pressure on Broccoli and Wilson to deliver on time. Shit, as they say, roles down hill and Spottiswoode was handed a compressed production schedule forcing him and his crew to work quicker then they would have like in order to meet the tight deadline. “Ars Gratia Artis” indeed.
box-office (#36) the film gained a huge cult following on video and the rest, as they say, is history baby. Forget the two horrendous sequels for now, the first Austin Powers film is fantastic and a better made movie then Tomorrow Never Dies. That is to say, the Bond parody is better then the genuine article, providing the short and dirty answer for exactly where the Bond brand was in 1997.
I digress, turns out Gupta is spotted holding a missing American encoder which controls this new fangled GPS. Yes, there was time when GPS was a military tool and not a toy used to check into Starbucks on Four Square. Enter Admiral Roebuck, one of the most annoying characters in a Bond film since Sheriff J.W. Pepper. We will get to him a moment but for now he decided to blow up the flea market and take out half the worlds terrorist in one shot. M protests, he ignores her, and well after the missile is launched, Bond sends back photos of a Russian jet with nuclear warheads on it sitting right in the middle of the targeted zone. “Can’t your people keep anything locked up?” the Admiral asks a Russian who happens to be in the war room (But he’ll see the big board!!!) So, Bond must get in the plane and take off before the missile hits the sight. This involves him getting into the cockpit and destroying half the base before he even takes off. It’s exciting and well edited but it also never quite gets going because we are constantly cutting back to M and crew watching on the monitors like a room full of fans waiting to see if the game winning felid goal is good. Bond ends up playing chicken on the runway with another jet and the two take off, just missing each other, as the entire bizarre goes boom. It’s a good thing Bond knows how to pilot a Russian MIG because he instantly finds himself engaged in a dogfight having to not only deal with his enemy but also the surrounding mountains and Oh, that guy in the back of his plane who just woke up and is strangling Bond with some kind of lanyard. Making like Jack Nicholson’s least favorite waitress, Bond holds the yolk “between his knees” to keep flying while he fights the backseat dude. It’s around this time Bond remembers the “look at the birdie” scene from Top Gun (1986) and flies his plane directly under the second MIG. A quick hit of the eject seat and his passenger flies up into the other plane’s back seat and then the plane spins off and blows up. “Ask the Admiral where he’d like his bomb delivered.” If the writing here feels a little passionless and utilitarian that is by design, it’s what this sequences feels like as well. The open stands on its own rather well and works on an action level but it fails to bring us into Bond’s world. The GoldenEye open had amazing stunts but more importantly it transported us to the time and place where the action was happing. Here we feel like M, removed and just watching it all on the big screen. But damn does that DVD look good.
Bond’s Mission: We join the HMS Devonshire, a British frigate dealing with two MIG’s they believe to have hostel intent. Jesus, this is Top Gun. Anyway, the Chinese MIG’s insist the ship is in the South China Sea while the boat’s radar shows them to be in international waters. The Brits are mistaken but since they have a satellite fix telling them otherwise they continue to rattle the saber. See, if just one of these alleged “sailors” knew basic seamanship he could break out his sextant and put the whole matter to rest. Alas, standards have fallen in the Royal Fleet. Turns out Henry Gupta escaped the missile attack on the terrorist swap meet with his decoder (How? We have no idea) and is now helping an Aryan named Mr. Stamper screw with the GPS system on the Devonshire. Stamper and Gupta are not far off the bow of the Devonshire aboard a “stealth boat,” kind of a catamaran crossed with the Bat-plane. True, it’s the most astatically unpleasing mode of transport since the AMC Pacer but it allows the baddies to lurk about in the dark seas undetected. The stealth boat then launches a torpedo that looks more like one of those tunnel digging rigs with the several spinning rock cutters on the front and sinks the Devonshire. We are treated to all the Hollywood sinking boat shots that truly terrify me but amidst the exploding bulkheads and trapped crewmen drowning we get our first of the random slow-mo shots for no reason. Kind of sucked me right out, reminding me I was not on a sinking ship but sitting in my living room so I took another sip o Yuengling. Meanwhile these poor bastards are drowning and even worse they radio back the wrong position thanks to the tomfoolery with the GPS so any chance of being saved is erased. Not that it would matter; Mr. Stamper shoots and kills all the survivors with “Asian ammo,” whatever the hell that is, so that the Brits would think the Chinese sunk the ship and killed the sailors. Stamper works for a media mogul who set the Brits and Chinese against each other with the hopes of starting WWIII. 
Back at the Bat-cave, M has this all pretty much figured out, well at least the “who” bit, and here comes Admiral Roebuck. The first issue is the MI6 war room. So effective in the last film, here the space works against the M scenes. Throughout the movie Spottiswoode proves he has no clue how to shoot large spaces and since the MI6 room is very big and very dark the characters just kind of float in a limbo. The scene would be so much more effective if taking place in say M’s old office, with M behind the large desk giving the proper weight to what’s being disguised, mainly should they start WWIII. Instead the players look like four co-works standing outside a freight elevator taking a smoke break. So, England is on the brink of war and the PM has M, the head of MI6, and Admiral Roebuck, some kind of military muckety-muck, standing before him in this void of a space. M wants to investigate further and Admiral Roebuck wants to drop the bomb. We remember how well Roebuck’s “drop the bomb” strategy worked out at the terrorist bizarre five minutes ago but somehow no one in the film recalls the Admiral’s colossal blunder. No matter, the Admiral’s function in the film is to make the wrong decision every time. He is a useful idiot (useful as far as creating easy if unnecessary tension) who is one of the laziest of lazy plot devices. I became keenly aware of this character thanks to Siskel & Ebert’s review of Die Hard (1988). A split, Gene liked the film’s action well enough but Roger couldn’t get past the police chief played by Paul Gleason. Ebert’s point; how did this guy get to be in charge? All he does is make wrong choice after wrong choice putting everyone in further danger. He ignores Sgt. Al Powell, who’s been on the scene from the get go, and blindly plows ahead when all evidence suggests he ought to do the opposite. Now, it is true M can’t give up the name of the media mogul she suspects is behind everything because of his ties to the PM. 
I also like the idea of the military and MI6 chafing when it comes to dealing with an extremely volatile situation but none of those arguments are made here. Instead, we get chirping and snipping until the Admiral calls M out for not having “the balls for the job.” She and Bond just bailed you out ass hat! And besides, we got the M-doesn’t-have-balls-joke in the last film and that time it was, you know, funny. So now we have an exasperated PM delivering a line out of countless Dirty Harry rip-offs, “Tell your man he has 48 hours.” So, Bond has two days to prove M’s theory and stop WWIII. Giddy up.
Carver’s empire, unless they are employed in security. It’s one more example of the film beginning lazy, not well thought out, and once again exposes our director as unable to handle the large sets that dominate Bond films. Take the other space where Carver spends his time, the stealth boat. The interior is again a dark, huge, soulless room but at least there are a few people turning knobs to give the appearance of a crew. By the by, we are told the boat can hit 48 knots which is 55.2 MPH. Not bad for a craft with no discernable propulsion system.
The only moment we see a hint that perhaps this man is human is when Bond breaks into his safe to steal the American decoder. There, locked up with this most powerful tool, are baggies of dope, a few syringes and some porn. What does this man do when he’s alone?
We do get a sold hint that way back when she was quite a handful. “He will have a vodka martini, shaken, not stirred…” “…and the lady will have a shot of tequila.” “Mrs. Carver will have some champagne from Mr. Carver’s cellar.” Perhaps they met on spring break. As discussed earlier, Bond’s best bit in the film is his drunken bedroom meeting with Mrs. Carver. But like almost everything in this film, what starts as interesting ends in cliché as these two talented actors have to deliver dialog like “Did I get to close?” as the music swells.
Bond’s Best Pick-up Line: Bond to Paris Carver when they first come face to face “I always wondered how I would feel if I saw you again…” smack to the face. “Now I know.”
Number of People 007 Kills: In the days of yore, Bond had his trusty Walther PPK and we could keep track of where his bullets landed. Now, Bond prefers picking up a machine gun from a downed baddie and going to town. This is surely much more effective for the agent but its hell on the body count department. We will, in the interest of accurate reporting, do our best. In the open Bond gets into a cockpit and lets loose with both bullets and missiles. Many trucks, planes and crates of weapons are destroyed and our spotter counted three terrorist killed. Once airborne, Bond’s little ejector seat trick takes out two more baddies. After getting Paris killed, all be it indirectly but I think 007 bears some responsibility, he puts a single bullet into Dr. Kaufman. Bond breaks into Carver’s TV station where he gets his hands on a machine gun and shoots down at least one guy while escaping. This maybe a good place to note that Carver’s men have the aim of drunken imperial storm troopers on ice skates. Watching them shoot at Bond I was reminded of the scene in The Dead Pool (1988) where Harry and his lady are in a glass elevator, literally fish in a barrel. Two baddies with machine guns open fire on the elevator and unleash 300 or so bullets, not hitting either of the people trapped in the glass box. Harry then fires off three bullets to kill both men. We counted four guys in the chopper that Bond downed with the clothesline leading us to the climatic battle. While running around under the stealth boat (it’s like a catamaran) he knifes one baddie and once inside he once again gets an automatic weapon and takes out five. Another aside if I may, I don’t know much about guns. The last time I pulled the trigger on one I was 10-years-old shooting a .22 at Boy Scout camp. I was not very good at it. Anyway, my understanding is guns, automatic weapons in particular, have what is called a kick, or recoil, in which the gun moves backward with some force as the bullet leaves the chamber. This is why, I’m told, guns have a shoulder stock, so the shooter can steady the gun and absorb the kick with his body. Right. While ripping apart the stealth boat with bullets Bond waves the gun about this way and that as if he were Gene Kelly twirling his umbrella in Singing in the Rain (1952). Would this not at the very least hamper his aim and more then likely rip his arm off? Please feel free to comment if you are in the know. Anyway, when it comes to what weapons can do we should really be discussing missiles. Bond gets behind a missile launcher on board the stealth boat and starts to fire missiles at baddies who are on the boat. This causes them to jump off the catwalks they were perched on while large red fire balls flair up but no holes are ripped in the hull, no water comes rushing in, and in fact, the boat suffers little. Now, I know this is a movie but it must be consistent. Earlier we saw the Devonshire go down 
thanks to one projectile hitting it. We saw water rushing in and sailors getting blasted around thanks to the force of incoming water. Here, a piece of piping falls with loud clank. Mr. Stamper is undone by a missile but not as you would imagine. Bond traps the henchman behind a missile that’s about to launch and when it does Stamper disappears in a great ball of fire. Goodness gracious.
Miss. Moneypenny: I really don’t enjoy continuing this negative tangent but here again I must. Moneypenny and M both are robbed of any humanity and function only as the plot requires. It’s incredibly frustrating because we’ve spent so much time with these characters at this point we want more from them then just function. Add the fact we have in Moneypenny and M two incredible actresses who are new to the series and showed such promise in GoldenEye and it all the sadder. Here poor Samantha Bond is reduced to chiding Bond over the phone for his sexual exploits. When she hangs up Judy Dench is standing behind her. “Don’t ask” says Moneypenny “Don’t tell” responds Dench. I can only imagine both women returning to their trailers depressed after that exchange.
Then, the baddies put a chain up in front of the car, which suddenly becomes a Swiss Army knife. Bond pushes a button and whala, the hood ornament pops up and a cable cutter is underneath. Back to the video game thing; throw an obstacle out there and the environment, in this case with no context, will provide the answer. What purpose other then cutting the cable would the devise serve? Did Q sit up late and night and consider what would happen if say a dead elephant was in Bond’s way? Just as likely a scenario. Everything in this film exists in the moment it is needed and has no context to the rest of the goings on. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to move Tokyo Drift to the top of my queue. After all, If You Ain’t Outta Control, You Ain’t In Control! Freaking geniuses.
Final Thoughts: The finally credit on screen for Tomorrow Never Dies says the film was done “In loving memory of Albert Cubby Broccoli.” The old man deserves much better then this, one of the weaker entries in the Bond cannon. I found this film to be the most frustrating Bond film yet. All the pieces were in place, and yet it never worked. While writing the review I often thought back to an episode of “The Office.” In the episode, Andy Bernard was contemplating becoming a critic. “Perhaps I could be a food critic. These muffins are bad. Or an art critic, that painting is bad.” My intent was not to be negative for the sake of being negative, but to explore why this film didn’t work. The point of this blog from the get go was to look at Bond films, which more or less have the same ingredients, and figure out why sometimes they work and other times they fall flat. I think Tomorrow Never Dies is a failure with many architects. The movie is Bond paint by numbers, checking off the boxes listed in the song, “martinis, girls, and guns.” I often think about the people working on bad films, at what point do they realize they have a turkey on their hands? “I remember starting the first day on that film in an aircraft, flying a jet and it was 102 degrees, and I’m wearing a helmet and sweater, and then I’m being strangled over and over again, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, this bloody character is going to kill me.’ The press tour for that film was 22 countries. When I did it I knew the movie wasn’t up to speed; it wasn’t as good as GoldenEye (1995) and you have to bang the drum loudly to get the attention.” I found that quote by Pierce Brosnan on IMDB. He had given it after he was more or less fired from the James Bond role so perhaps there are some sour grapes delivered along with the quote but I have a feeling he’s being 100% honest. I’m reminded of a story George Clooney tells about promoting his 1997 film, Batman & Robin. He was sitting backstage waiting to go on Letterman when he realized he had to go on TV and lie. He had to talk about how great the film was to promote a product he knew to be garbage. He decided he never wanted to have to stand behind a project he didn’t believe in again. Take a gander at his 
Maybe part of GoldenEye’s greatness can be attributed to the six years of prep time. This movie feels rushed and incomplete and perhaps the every other year schedule for Bond releases works against the creative process. Add the fact the studio brass was forcing the issue with an accelerated production schedule and the problem becomes compounded. The film simply doesn’t come together even on the most basic level. Bond had 48 hour to prevent a war, yet we saw many nights and days pass and more front page headlines; the Devonshire sinking incident, Paris’s obit, the “Empire Will Strike Back,” Bond’s obit, etc., then could ever be written in the given news cycle. Bond runs around at the climax trying to prevent what? The missiles have been launched and the British government and Chinese governments are working in concert to get Carver. Bonds job was done, yet he hangs around and almost gets Wai Lin killed in the process. Everything done in this film, with a hand full of exceptions, has been done better in previous Bond films. It’s one of the worst directed Bond films to date (that damn slow-mo!) and everything is backed by wall to wall, over the top, thumping music broken up by poorly written one liners. I could go on and on but I already have. The movie has its moments here and there and is therefore not a total failure but to take a page out of Andy Barnard’s book, this film is bad.
Title: GoldenEye
Film Length: 2 hours 10 minutes
Director: Martin Campbell. The great purge continues behind the camera with a new director and for the first time ever, no Cubby Broccoli. Barbara Broccoli, Cubby’s daughter and her husband Michael Wilson, who has been increasingly involved since the mid 1970’s, are listed as the Executive Producers. They worked “under the supervision of Cubby” which I read to mean Cubby was present in name only. Indeed, GoldenEye would be Albert “Cubby” Broccoli’ last film as one of the men most reasonable for the Bond films passed away on June 27, 1996 at age of 87. Campbell, who was well known in the UK for his work on the BBC show “Edge of Darkness,” brought a modern sensibility to the Bond franchise. More importantly, unlike Glen, he is a capital “F” Filmmaker. On the DVD extras, the Kiwi director is painted as a precise craftsman and a tough love taskmaster. The cast and crew talk about how intense Campbell is on set and “There is lots of yelling…” is a familiar refrain but across the board everyone agrees he’s “sharp as a knife” and “keeps your head in it.” Pierce in particular talks about how Campbell pushes but keeps the energy up and can be trusted. Listening to this stuff reminds me of the classic baseball scenario where a “player’s manager” is sacked after losing 90 plus games to be replaced by a spitting-from-the-mouth-screamer who drops F bombs and throws the occasional chair. The players all snap to and in the end are a much better team for it. This is exactly what the lazy Bond franchise needed, a new guy to take over the clubhouse and kick some ass. The #1 best thing about this film, and this goes back to Campbell, is balance. The director seamlessly balances the classic Bond conventions we love with a new modern flare he brings to the picture. The humor and action play together like rhythm and melody in a well crafted pop tune. The use of the old school filmmaking, stunts, miniature models, and actual locations are mixed in effortlessly with minimal, tasteful CGI and quick cut modern editing. The film simultaneously plays out as a 50’s spy noir and updated post cold war thriller. The script even expands on James Bond character, dropping nuggets like the fact Bond was orphaned when both his parents died in a climbing accident. Most importantly the romance is back, and I’m not talking about Bonds relationship with women. I’m talking about the romance of going on an epic adventure with a spy who is out to save the world. From the get go, I couldn’t believe how much more juicy and enjoyable the action sequences were and how everything fit together organically, one moment rolling into the next with expert pacing and seamless ease. Add the numerous nods to James past and winks to long time fans and Campbell delivers everything you want in a Bond film and then some.
busting flops of all time which was also the most expensive film made at the time, Waterworld ($175M estimated). Now here’s the kicker; only two of the above films made more money then Bond.
the sequence) GoldenEye’s credits have upped the ante considerably. When you look at the actual credits themselves; Famke Janssen, Sean Bean, Alan Cumming, Robbie Coltrane, and Judi Dench as “M”, it would appear that Bond 17 has the cards to win back anything 007 lost in his six year absence.
gun is just good old 006. “For England James?” “For England Alec.” As the two break into the main generator room it quickly become clear they have worked together before. Like a QB needs to be in complete sync with his star receiver in order to orchestrate a 2 minute drill, James and Alec work the room as tightly as a Swiss watch; that is until James peeks out to see Alec on his knees with a gun to his head and 50 or so Ruskie soldiers. “Come out with your hands up.” “How original.” It’s all pearls with this Brosnan fellow. Before 007 obeys the clichéd order he resets the timers on the explosives he and 006 planted from 6 minutes to 3. Make note of it, it becomes important later on. The man holding the gun to 006’s head by the by is wearing possibly the best police state military uniform since Ralph “don’t call me Ralph” Fiennes stomped around in Nazi boots in Schindler’s List (1993). He is General Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov and his name says it all. Ourumov is a deliciously evil cartoon military tyrant who would fit seamless in with the cast of Dr. Strangelove (1964). Just to prove how nasty he is, he puts bullet in 006’s head when it didn’t quite seem necessary to do so. Make note of it, it becomes important later on. Like every room in warehouse looking structures in Bond films, this room is filled with vats of nasty chemicals and explosives but since this is a Chemical Weapons Facility I guess it’s understandable. Perhaps they ran out of room in the pantry and the just stacked the stuff on empty shelves, like the one above everyone to the left. A quick gun blast from Bond and the canister come pouring down upon all the soldiers’ heads. As the fire starts Bond blots out the door mowing down machine gun toting baddies like he’s a 15-year-old boy on Red Bull playing “Call of Duty.” As Ourumov and half the Soviet army chase him down, Bond jumps into a plane which is headed toward the edge of a cliff. At this point, we expect him to fly off into the night but the film, not for the last time, sweeps the carpet out from under our expectations. When Bond goes to toss the pilot out the door, the pilot grabs Bonds arms and pulls them both out onto the tarmac. Always a great improviser, Bond grabs a Russian motorcycle and jumps on to chase the pilotless plane that’s continuing down the runway to the cliffs edge. While Ourumov looks on with more admiration then disappoint at loosing his prisoner, Bond guns the motorcycle and like he did 18 years earlier on skies, jumps off the cliff into the void. Kicking the bike aside and turning himself into a missile, Bond, Superman like, flies through the air to catch up with the plane, makes his way into the cockpit, grabs a hold of the yolk, and pulls up before going head on into the mountain to cap off what is hands down the most exciting open since The Spy Who Love Me.
Bond’s Mission: After the credits we learn the events in the open happened 9 years earlier, and now we are in the present, 1995. We join James as he is engaged in some high-speed road flirting a al Chevy Chase and Christie Brinkley in National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983). The girl is still in a red Ferrari and the guy still needs to peer over a more conservative woman in his passenger seat to catch the red Ferrari girl’s eye however, this time the part of Clark W. Griswold is played by Bond, the green wood paneled family truckster is now the classic grey Aniston Martin DB5, and the flat highway of the American Midwest is replaced by a mountain road in the French Alps. The conservative woman in Bond’s passenger seat (on the left side of the car, though the girl in the red Ferrari is driving from the left. Europe is just crazy…) has been sent by the new M (who we have not met) to observe Bond in the field. She’s a one-dimensional prop who I immediately pegged as a misstep in the film. That was until Bond slams on the breaks to stop the car in the middle of the mountain road, produces a bottle of Bollinger (chilled), and gets an “Oh James…” all in 15 seconds. Ahhh, I get it now. This is silly and outrageous. With this 15 seconds all the ill will of the PC uptight Dalton Bond is erased and we are once again allowed to not take it all so seriously. Not for nothing is 007 in a grey Aston Martin; this is the return of the rakish hero we all know and love. The Bond who drives fast and chases skits is back and not a moment to soon. Need more proof? In the next few shots we see Bond in a tux, entering a casino, drinking a martini made to his liking, and playing baccarat with the girl in the red Ferrari, one Ms. Xenia Onatopp. “On a top?” The first 10 minutes of GoldenEye firmly puts us back into the proper Bond world of hyper-realty where the cars a little faster, the drinks a little stronger, the stakes at the table are a little higher and women …ahhh the women. If Bond’s your bag, you’re in clover. 007 movies generally work best as elaborate case films with twist and turns along the way. GoldenEye, like the classic From Russia With Love (1963), is essentially Bond and the baddies both trying to get their hands on the same technological dingus with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. The MacGuffin this go around is the French prototype stealth helicopter TIGER. Not only is it invisible to radar, it can still fly after a magnet pulse from a nuclear blast, an event that would render every other electronic device useless. Not two seconds after we learn how kick-ass the TIGER is Onatopp and her accomplice, General Ourumov, committing Grand Theft Huey. But in a classic film noire twist, the MacGuffin is a red herring! The real MacGuffin, like the Lektor before, is much more sinister and dangerous. Ourumov and Onatopp (not to be confused with Bonnie and Clyde) stole the TIGER to be used as a getaway car in the theft of the Goldeneye. 
The dingus, named after Ian Flaming’s Jamaican home, is a space-based magnetic-pulse weapon that simulates the shutting-down-all-electrical-devises havoc of a nuclear blast without all the messy fallout. You now see why they needed the TIGER. All of this business is handled in an entertaining and efficient manner that’s on par with mid 90’s pacing but also in a way than demands the audience keep up to speed. In other words, it’s a smart film that treats you, the viewer, as an equal, unlike its predecessor, which fed us garbage and told us it was a gourmet meal. Anyway, now the baddies have the Goldeneye and Bond must get it.
Villain Actor: Sean Bean, a perfect choice to play Alec Trevelyan. As he proved playing Boromir in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) six years later, even when he is the good guy, he’s still got the coiled up intensity of a baddie. You just feel like he could jump over the line at any moment. I hear he’s also fantastic in “Game of Thrones” but I have yet to dive into the series. Hey back off, the wife is reading the books and wants to finish them first. Shesh. Gottfried John, who plays General Ourumov, was born in Berlin and after a quick glace at his IMDB page I think we can official name him the Samuel L. Jackson of Germany for his unwillingness to turn down any role offered to him. He is not pretty man but I just love his look. He looks like he would be at home in front of the local OTB picking up half smoked butts off the sidewalk and finishing them off. He would have no problem hanging out with those dudes who watch old boxing matches on the TV’s at Record Mart in the Times Square subway station. He has a face that just says Character. He’s seen it and you can tell just by looking at em.
But back the impending destruction of London at the hands of old Alec. In Alec, we have a villain of Shakespearian scope, a man who literally has spent his entire life planning and scheming to visit tragedy upon many innocents all in the name of vengeance. What more motivation do you need? To add bank robber to Alec Trevelyan’s résumé cheapens it.
bombs. This base is essentially one huge parabolic dish built into the side of a mountain and hidden under a lake. This is similar to the trick Blofeld pulled with the volcano crater in You Only Live Twice (1967) but Bond is still slow to recognize it. When Bond finally does uncover the base and sets about to stop the Goldeneye, there is a nice bit of fun in 007 stymieing the entire deal by literally shoving a pipe into the gear works; an old fashion low tech solution to disable the most advanced weapon in the world.
Badassness of Villain: General Ourumov, head of the Russian space division, betrayed and killed the best and the brightest under his command. He marched into the bunker where the Goldeneye was hidden and asked the man in charge to fetch the device. “I’m timing you” he announces as the poor bastard scurries off, grabs the dingus, and hand delivers it to the thief. For his trouble, he and (almost) everyone who works at the base get mowed down in a spray of machine gun fire. And Ourumov is just the opening act. For the main event Alec has mastered the mind screw. Both Bond and he were orphaned and adopted by MI6, so Alec is able to call out Jimmy B as only a sibling who is out for blood can. (To continue the analogy, that would make M the dad, regardless of gender, Moneypenny the mom and Q the crazy, drunk uncle.) Yes, Alec knows how to turn off Q’s hidden detonators but it’s when he calls Bond out for using martinis and one night stands to wash away the guilt he feels for all the men he’s killed that he hits a nerve. He is, in fact, one of the few villains to actually rattle Bond and it’s a thrill to see the unflappable 007 become flapped. All Bond can do is raise an eyebrow, curl his lips knowingly, and look to the ground as if to say “well played.”
It seldom works. Cumming does all he can, spitting out “I spike dem, Slugheads” like a rabid weasel with Tourette’s and while it’s over the top, he is still entertaining at points, like when his jittery persona sets up a great gag involving his nervous clicking of a pen.
Bond Girl Sluttiness: There is a scene on a Cuban beach that could have been something more. Natalya calls Bond out in a way no Bond girl ever has. He’s distant and she chastises him for not letting her in. Bond then feeds her a line about needing to keep his angst close and inside. “It keeps me on the edge, sharp, where I got to be.” Actually, that was Pacino in Heat (1995) which I’m sure was playing across the hall when I saw GoldenEye in the theater but you get the idea. And besides, Al says it better. Anyway, Natalya takes this macho posturing and throws it back in Bond’s face “No, it’s what keeps you alone.” This one exchange hits harder and is more “dark” then anything Dalton ever did with the character. Sadly, it’s also totally undercut by the fact that (a) Natalya enters the scene wearing a white bikini that (b) we see in a close up crotch shot. One of the few missteps in the film.
Number of People 007 Kills: Classified. Or more accurately, the official Blog, James Blog spotter can’t confirm an accurate number. Such was the killing in GoldenEye that our official body count man not only lost track but curled up into the fetal position and begged for Ben & Jerry’s. Needless to say we wish him well and hope he recovers in time for Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). And with that, onto the carnage! In the open Bond gets his hands on a machine gun (you already see the spotters issue) and did in at least five Ruskies while running about with his finger firmly on the trigger. Then, after he jumps off the cliff to catch the plane to pull up and fly away the entire base explodes. We know Alec made it out with roughly 90% of his face intact but as for the others? Bond again gets a hold of an automatic weapon when fleeing a St. Petersburg jail and mows down at least ten more. He then manages to use the machine gun like a snipers rifle and shoot old Ourumov in the head while missing Natalya who the General was using as a human shield. He kills a helicopter pilot while someone is tied to said chopper (that someone to be revealed below!) and shoots at least three guards while escaping the Cuban dish base; a base that yes, gets blown up and unlike the Dr. No (1962) lair destruction, we don’t see any baddies running out before the big boom. So yah, countless folks met their end at James’ hand including one Alec Trevelyan. I’m happy to report that the final battle between 006 and 007 lives up to its billing as the title bout. The hand to hand feels tougher then some fights we’ve seen in Bond films which is to say when the punches land, they hurt. Yes, by the time the two combatants end up hanging on the end of the satellite antenna like Luke under Cloud City it’s a bit much and your right; Natalya showing up in the helicopter to scoop up James as Alec falls to his death is a huge cheat but since our official spotter had his face in a pint of Chunky Monkey by this point we missed it and just enjoyed the whole rig falling on Alec’s crippled body stuff. “For England James?” “No, for me.” Kick ass!
Q: When Pierce walks into Q’s lab it’s like Norm walking into Cheers after he’s been gone for two weeks. He looks around and exhales; even though he’s been gone everything is in place and as it should be. This is Desmond Llewelyn 15th Bond film and at 82 years old he is absolutely thrilled to be back after 6 years. Showing more energy then he has in years, Q jokes (“Sorry about the leg Q, skiing?” “Hunting”), makes like its 1964 and breaks out Goldfinger (1964) era lines (“I’m particularly proud of this, headlight singer missiles!”) and even turns his cranky character upside down. When Bond reaches out to touch a sandwich on a plate, Q scolds him as he would if Bond were about to touch an explosive device. “Don’t touch that!” He then picks up the sandwich adding “It’s my lunch.”
Gadgets/British Government Property Bond Destroys: Bond manages to get both cars, the Aston Martin and the Beamer back in one piece. However, the French owned multi-million dollar prototype TIGER does not make it back. This is huge lose when one considers the never previously, and never will again, develop a weapon.
But Bond still has one more trick up his sleeve for the encore. Ourumov and Natalya join Alec and Onatopp on board Alec’s iron plated missile train. Like Alec did twice before, Bond appears from the shadows to surprise his former comrade, only this time the shadows are the mouth of a railroad tunnel the train is rushing toward and the gun is the barrel of a tank. James jumps clear before the unstoppable train hits the unmovable tank and while not as thrilling at the train derailment in The Fugitive (1993), it’s a hell of a wreck.
Best One Liners/Quips: Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky, mulling over why he should help Bond; “He stole a helicopter? I have 6.” “Three” Bond corrects him, “and none that fly.”
agreement from Bond and a nod from the pit boss and the next hand is double or nothing. Bond takes the pot down and Onnatop storms off. Bond catches up to her and wonders why she’s so sour. After all, “One rises to meet a challenge.”
Are we still to this day not continuing to rocket forward with this failed system under the false idea that this is what capitalism is a about? Heavy stuff for sure but this Bond movie has a thought or two in its head and as much as it tied to a time and place, the newly free Russia of the early 90’s, the timeless theme of governments collapsing under their own hubris then needing to reinvent themselves hangs over everything. So we have that, plus a rock ‘em sock ‘em, gadget filled, sexy, slick Bond film; everything humming along in perfect balance. In the past, I’ve complained about Bond filmmakers feeling the need to go big, and here, from the first shot, everything is big. The difference, it not just the explosions but also the themes and ideas that are big and thanks to the balance between all these moving parts, it all works. As for Pierce’s debut, I will say this; in GoldenEye, he gives the best Bond performance since Connery. I know I’m touching the third rail here but please understand, I am not saying Pierce is the second best Bond (working on the assumption Connery is the best), but simply that in this film, taken as a single entry, Pierce’s performance as Bond is better then any of the previous entries going back to the Connery days. Let’s put it another way. If a 12-year-old boy came up to me today and asked “Who is James Bond?” out of all the 17 movies up to this point, GoldenEye is the film I’d show him. Is it the best one yet? No. Maybe not even top 3. But the 17-year-old and counting GoldenEye still feels up to date enough to hold the attention of a kid raised on Harry Potter and “Halo” while also laying out all the classic elements that define Bond and Bond films. While watching the helicopters fly off into the sunset in the final shot, I did think of Pierce and Campbell and Wilson and Lamont and everyone else involved in this project as heroes. With GoldenEye, they made the movie that saved the franchise.
Welp, it’s happening, which is just fantastic news. Like Harold Camping, he of the “Open Forum” on Family Radio who has predicted the end of the world will happen on March 21, 2011 and then again in October 2011, Bond’s death has be nigh several times in the last few year, but the man with the license to kill simply will not die. As it so happen, Bond 23 will be coming out in November of 2012, a year that will mark the 50th Anniversary of Jimmy B’s marriage with the big screen. 50 years and 23 “official” films later and I can’t wait for the two to renew their vows. I will not make a habit out of posting every little news item that comes out regarding the new film because I have zero inside access. Between the twitter account, official press releases, the 50th anniversary celebrants, etc., I’m sure there will be no shortage of Bond news at other corners of the internet for everyone to feast on. However, when I saw the attached photo, proof that this thing is finally flying, I just had to say something. Speaking of flying, Skyfall? Yah? Blog James Blog agrees with the 
Oscar winner to sit in the directors chair! Our friend-o Javier Bardem is the baddie! Adele is most likely recording the theme! It’s not a continuation of Quantum of Solace (2008)! And it is the Golden Anniversary, a metal that has been very good for Bond in the past. Well, let’s say on paper it looks like the stars are lining up. And then the photo above! It’s really happen, and for that we say to EON and MGM and everyone else who made this possible, in the immortal words of Prof. Joe Butcher, bless your heart.
Title: Licence To Kill
Reported Budget: $32,000,000 estimated. This too is an issue. To keep the budget about where it’s been for the last five or so films, producers were forced to abandon their beloved Pinewood Studios. New tax codes in England would have pushed the cost of filming up by an estimated 10%. So, the entire cast and crew relocated to Mexico where a majority of the surrounding country was used for location shoots and Churubusco Studios in Mexico City served as the sound stage and home base. While the last few films weren’t the run away spending spree that the earlier Bond films where, they never felt like they were cutting corners to make the film on the cheep. In the Licence to Kill, the lack of funds can be seen on the screen. This hurts the film in countless ways and further degrades what we have learned to be Bond’s world.
Opening Action Sequence: The first shots of Bond in the last film featured him all in black. His feet having barley touched the ground he went sprinting into action. The first shot in this film features Bond and two other tuxedo clad men sitting three abreast in the back seat of a car. The tuxes are a tip that a wedding is in the future. The fact they are driving on the Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys is a tip that cars will flying off the bridge and sinking in the wet in the future. Indeed, its Felix’s wedding day and the three men are trying to get to the chapel on time when they are interrupted by Felix’s “partners at the DEA.” The feds have the notorious drug dealer Franz Sanchez in their grasp and they need Felix’s help to nab him before he makes it into Cuban air space. Felix jumps on their helicopter and brings James along “strictly as an observer.” However, he does give James a gun “just in case.” We then cut Sanchez, who has risked stepping foot on U.S. soil for a woman; a woman he finds in bed with another man. “What did he promise you, his heart?” Sanchez asks while his men hold the guy at knifepoint. “Give her his heart” Sanchez says as they drag the man out. He then proceeds to whip the woman with a stingray tail. This would be the most badass intro of a villain ever, except the scoring is so ridiculous as nearly ruin the scene. Nearly, but it still manages to work and in a bigger sense sets a precedent that will play out for the entire film. Mainly, the bad guys are the only thing in this movie that’s any fun or works well. Bond villains are always a blast but this is the first film where I found myself enjoying the villain stuff so much that when the film goes to the Bond stuff, I couldn’t wait to get back to the villains. Case in point, when we rejoin Felix and Bond they are screaming at each other in the copper to be heard over the motor. It is jarring and simply bad sound editing. Then, when the chopper lands we are presented with a shot that would be embarrassing in the Bad Boys 2 (2003) trailer. Felix, in his tux, carrying a machine gun, runs straight at the camera, flanked by DEA agents on either side doing the same … in slow motion. I literally couldn’t believe it but I swear it happened (I watched the film twice, I didn’t dream it.) I could be wrong, but I think this is the first slow motion shot in all of the Bond films, and yes, it further destroys the world of Bond. Speaking of, I love when Bond does outrageous shit that works within the rules we have so firmly established. Hell, it’s why we watch Bond in the first place. But nothing, nothing has set up a universe where a helicopter can catch up to a crop-duster plane, have Bond repel out of said helicopter and land on the tail of said plane, hook a cable to the tail, and the helicopter then takes off with the plane dangling under it like a cowboy that has just lassoed a bull. Well, that’s how they get Sanchez as he’s trying to escape and “oh look, it’s the wedding down there. And it’s yours Felix! What say we … drop in?!?!” I wish, but that would be too Moore. Now I want to pause at this point and make this about me, if you will indulge such a detour. I enjoy the hell out of this blog. It’s also a lot of work. It’s work I enjoy or I wouldn’t do it but it consumes a ton of time to come up with different angles and a bunch of tweaking of ideas to make them fit into the context of the big picture. Anyway, some stuff I think works OK and other stuff I’m really proud of. One of the things I thought was quite good and fairly witty was my parachute principal for Bond openings that I came up with for 
Villain’s Name: Franz Sanchez. If you haven’t gathered yet, Bond sucks in this film. Thank EON for Sanchez. It’s only while sharing the screen with slippery snake that the Bond character is elevated to the Jimmy B we know and love. Our baddie is all you want in a Bond villain; he’s sinister, scary, shrewd and charming as hell. Whether he’s feeding CIA men to sharks, beating his girlfriend with a dead animal part, or schmoozing investors to get them to come in on his cocaine empire, he always has the same calm exterior that almost succeeds in obscuring his steal-eye intensity. While Bond spends the film flailing about and getting his friends killed, Sanchez is always in control, until he’s not. While the press material says Sanchez was based on Manuel Noriega but he’s more of a Pablo Escobar like figure, a man who is simply more powerful then the government of his nation. His coke operation basically makes up the bulk Isthmus’ GNP and he therefore has every pol, policeman, and peasant in his hip pocket. He ruthlessly rules through fear, intimidation, and insistence upon loyalty. The first two serve him well but it’s his high ideal of honor among thugs that proves to be his downfall and not coincidentally, the only hook in the film on which we can hang our hat. Take Ed Killifer, the CIA man who sells his buddy Felix out for $2 million. Sanchez uses such a man while finding him despicable exactly because he does sell his friend out. Then, he pays him anyway. Sanchez did after all give his word. The reason Sanchez whips his woman while his flunkies get all Mola Ram on her lover’s chest? Not because of the physical act of sleeping with another man, but because she was unloyal. This character trait is the only thing in the movie that allows Bond to shine and be Bond. In an expertly executed bluff, Bond, Jiu Jitsu like, turns Sanchez’s code of loyalty against him. By sowing seeds of doubt about his trusted henchmen, Bond twists Sanchez in to such a state of distrust that while Sanchez never gets high on his own supply, he still ends up just as paranoid as Tony Montana in Scarface (1983). And like Pacino’s South Florida coke baron, Sanchez ends up imploding and killing everyone he once trusted. (Side note: In another reference to Brian De Palma’s llello opera, one of the CIA guys figures Felix’s missing leg was thanks to a chain saw “They sell more then they do in Oregon down here.” Good stuff)
about a baron of blow building a home where everything from floor to ceiling in bone white. Also, let’s take a moment and silently bow our head’s for the poor cinematographer who had to figure out how the hell to shoot this place. Cameras and white don’t get along at all and add the sun reflection off all that water…well lets just say I hope our DP has recovered from the stress nightmares that most certainly plagued him during production. Well done good man, and know it was worth it; the place is simply breathtaking. The same cannot be said for deep forest hideout. After all the talk of a new, dark, Bond that audience will barely recognize, Glen and Co. rely on the most tired and boring of all Bond clichés for the films third act. Everything comes to a head at the villain’s ultra modern over-sized lab (in this case, a coke possessing plant) that is hidden in an agent over-sized wonder of the world (in this case, a faux Aztec temple that is also the home to a Jonestown like cult) that inevitably catches fire and explodes moments after Bond, with girl in tow, escapes. At least in the past with the volcano lair de Blofeld, or Drax’s temple come lunching pad or Scaramanga’s sea side cliff/solar power plant or Stromberg’s octopus garden or even Dr. No’s shanty nuclear powered fishing wharf rocket jamming digs, we had a sense of the place. (Not so with Mr. Big’s voodoo shark aquarium but hey, the graveyard was cool!) Sanchez’s joint just seems to have random rooms that kind of pop up just to serve out whatever purpose the film demands. It has a TV studio with a lion head waterfall, an underground helicopter parking garage, a cocaine-refining assembly line, a huge trucking doc, and a soundproof rape room cheekily referred to as a “meditation chamber.” None of these locations has any relation to the other and the rooms aren’t even visually consistent enough to be close to existing in the same space. But it all blowed up real good, which I guess, is the point.
agent, suspended over a shark tank, asks about his new bride, “we gave her a nice Honey mooooon” with his voice rising to emphasize “oooon.” Even his wardrobe, which looks like something one of the dancers from Michael Jackson’s “Bad” video would wear, he somehow makes cool. He’s the perfect man behind the man, always present and ready, but also fading into the background when not needed. Next we get Milton Krest who is the only non-reoccurring character in the film to come from Fleming’s pen (the short story “The Hildebrand Rarity.”) Krest is a rich American though how he made his money is unclear. Now, Krest earns a living using his fleet of boats and submarines as well as his Florida Key warehouse to smuggle Sanchez’s blow to a beeper carrying street level pusher near you. One more note about his warehouse, it holds every variety of aquatic life imaginable (sharks, electric ells) for no real reason and has a variety of containers that say ACME on the side. Perhaps Krest makes his money selling gadgets to Wile E Coyote? Anywho, as played by Anthony Zerbe, a character actor who has earned “Oh, that guy!” status, Krest is one smarmy guy. He gets one scene that is absolutely riveting and more frightening then the Sanchez woman whipping incident. In both scenes, Sanchez’s lady, Lupe Lamora, is in bed, this time on board Krest’s boat. Sanchez is not on board and Krest has been drinking. Because Zerbe plays the scene like he is truly inebriated and not like a cartoon stumbling drunk, he gives off the unsettling feeling that he is capable of anything, at any moment. So when his mood starts to sour Lupe is justifiably terrified. She attempts to defuse the situation by playing her ace and threatens to tell Sanchez if Krest touches her. This backfires horribly as Krest moves in for the kill. “I’ve known Sanchez a long time…. And I’ve seen girls like you come, and I’ve seen girls like you go.” Mercifully, he is interrupted by the ships captain before things truly take a turn for the worse. I wanted to know everything about Milton Krest. Who is he? How did he get involved in this business? How did he and Sanchez meet? What’s his drink of choice? Who is his favorite baseball player? Before we can learn such things he ends up loosing both the shipment of coke AND the money and scratching his head looking for excuses when Sanchez comes calling. I have a feeling this will end badly for old Milton… Between Dario and Krest, we would have had two classic henchmen. But then we get, and I must admit, I somehow forgot he was in this film, Mr. Las Vegas himself, Wayne Newton!!!!!!! Forget everything you know about this movie. Now, picture yourself sitting in a bar, waiting to meet a friend. That friend enters and says, “I just heard the craziest thing.” “What?” you ask. “OK, Wayne Newton just came out with a movie where he plays a character named Professor Joe Butcher. Professor Joe is a preacher who has a Pat Robertson’s like TV show but it’s really the front for a cult in Mexico somewhere. Everyone in this cult walks around in white robes. As initiation, all the women are taken to a sound proof room when Newton has sex with them. Oh, and Newton drives around this place in a golf cart. OK, to get money, he sells a book he wrote which has a photo of a half naked woman in a yoga posses on the cover and is titled “The Secretes of the Cone Power Reviled.” The other way he makes money is by selling cocaine over the air but only a few distributors in the states know this.” “Wait, what?” you ask. 
“Shut-up, I’m telling you” your friend answers. “Newton goes on his TV show and sets a goal for pledges. Like he will say on the air he needs to raise $18,000, and then that’s the price for the shipment of coke. So say you’re the Chicago supplier, you call in, pledge, send the check, and then that’s the payment for the coke. He then ships it out of his temple where he also processes the stuff. And here is the best part about all of this, it’s a Bond movie!” Wouldn’t you spit your Anchor Steam on the floor, throw a $20 on the table, and run out to the nearest theater to buy a ticket that second? Hell yes you would and I would be right behind you. And that’s not to all; Newton totally nails the part! I’m not kidding. At one point, the Bond girl shows up at the compound, dons the white robe and pretends to be a fawning follower. Prof. Joe takes her to the pyramid like bedroom, which is decorated with copies of his book, to make the moves. When she pulls a gun on him, is he upset? No. He loves it! As she is locking him in this room, a sound proof room (all the better for raping), he smiles at her and says “Bless your heart!” the same way he says it to the dups on his TV show. Even later, when his temple is blowing up and his entire lives work is literally going up in flames, he is fleeing with a bag of money, the last thing he has in the world. The Bond girl comes up behind him, riding in HIS golf cart, and swipes the money. He stops running and looks at her with a smile of deep admiration. “Bless your heart!” It is a part and performance for the ages and you know what, it still gets buried by this shit pile of film. Honestly, it takes a special kind of suck to blow Wayne Newton’s Professor Joe Butcher.
Bond Girl’s Name: Pam Bouvier. Despite how stunning Ms. Bouvier is, Bond doesn’t recall the first time he met her at Felix’s wedding. At least when they meet up again at the ZZ Top redneck bar he doesn’t let on that he remembers. Strange. Bouvier is some kind of mercenary, its never really clear, who partnered with the CIA on the Sanchez missile sting. She can suck down a martini, handle herself in a barroom brawl and bails Bond out of trouble more times then I can count, including one hell of shot to take out Benicio who literally had Bond dangling over a barrel. Her thanks? Bond screams at her. At another point she somehow resists the temptation to smack Bond when three seconds after lecturing her about her professionalism, his getaway boat runs out of gas. “They must have shot the fuel line.” Uhhuhh, that’s what they all say. Yet, despite the fact that Bond treats her like yesterday’s papers through the entire film, like say when he takes too much pleasure putting her down in front of people while she is playing his assistant, she still falls for him. This isn’t the usually babe in the woods Bond girl who would be wowed by the spy. Nor does he give her the respect of treating her like an equal. So why would she fall for him? And this just adds to the Dalton problem, his Bond is a jerk, and not a fun one. And to a larger extent, the film as a whole is kind of mean to the women, perhaps thinking “dark” means “cynical.” How else can you explain Glen’s choice to make Bouvier weep when she learns Bond is messing around only to be won back after he throws her in a pool? Cynical.
Bond Girls Best Pick-up Line: “Why don’t you wait until you’re asked?”
M: Robert Brown. I always felt Brown was a dick as M and he absolutely confirms it here. In the past, M would “officially” dismiss Bond when the political heat was coming down and then support him on the sly. Not here. Universal Exports commandeers the Hemingway House, a fact I enjoyed immensely. While several six towed cats and armed men watched, M dresses Bond down for undermining the CIA’s case on Sanchez by going on his “personal vendetta.” The thing is, M is kind of right here. But now, see if you can follow this. Bond says he will resign if not permitted to stay on the case. “This is not a country club” M hisses at his best agent. I guess what he means by that is one can’t just walk away from being an agent, you know kind of like “No one leaves the KGB!” (I miss General Gogol) Fine, but then in the next breath M tells Bond to hand over his gun and 00 licence to kill. Is this some kind of “Oh you can’t quit because your fired” argument? I don’t get it. Then, Bond takes a swing at another agent, steals his gun, and jumps off the balcony. There are several MI6 dudes who have a clear shoot at this man who just committed treason against the crown. But then M tells his people “Don’t shoot.” If he said so because he trusted Bond or didn’t want his best agent to get killed or anything other then “there are too many people around” it might have worked. But here’s the thing, they are at the Hemingway House which is walled and cut off from the 
public. They could shoot all they want in the courtyard and the only causality other then Bond would be a few six toed felines. It’s 100% M’s fault Bond got away so what does he do? He takes it out on poor dear Moneypenny. “There are five typing eras on the first page alone” he barks before literally throwing the paper at Moneypenny. What a dick.
Gadgets/British Government Property Bond Destroys: His career, future pension and possibly the James Bond franchise.
Look, these two men now have both been widowed on their wedding day thanks to the violence that comes part and parcel with their chosen professions. Is that dark enough for yah? Think there are some larger ideas that can grow out of this? Do James and Felix form a bond over this incredibly traumatic event in both of their lives? Nahhh, they don’t even discuss it. Felix’s bride is given just enough screen time to smooch Bond and then get killed off so the plot can get rolling and then she’s forgotten. Again, I can’t decide if this film is just super lazy or so cynical as to not even care about her or Felix or the audience. I suspect all of the above. Felix by the way was played by David Hedison who becomes the first and to this point only actor to reprise the Felix role. For those keeping score, he was Moore’s NYC docent in Live and Let Die (1973).
Number of Drinks 007 Consumes: One of the other things is Bond’s drinking. I tipped my hat in admiration when Bond checked into his hotel and ordered a case of Bollinger for his room. While depositing millions into Sanchez’s bank, Bond enjoys a glass of bubbly. He has another when touring the coke bottling plant with the Asian inverters. Bond orders his signature drink, a medium dry martini shaken not stirred, but he must leave before he gets to enjoy. No worries, Bouvier downs it in one slug. I also loved that while in the ZZ Top bar, Bond is served a Bud with a lime and he doesn’t even consider soiling his pallet with such swill. Flashes of the Bond we know and love.
It’s a shame because hustling at blackjack is a rather novel idea. While tanking on purpose is rather straight forward, going on a $500,000 plus run is not easily engineered. I’m not sure how you can do it without cheating so I would have liked to have seen how Bond pulled it off. However, the only way we learn about what Bond is doing at the table is from other characters dialog breaking one of the cardinal rules of filmmaking; don’t tell it, show it. We have no idea of how Bond switched gears to go on a ½ million dollar positive swing simply because the film finds it unimportant. The blackjack game is an excuses to get Bond in a tux, two ladies in evening gowns and then it’s simply a bridge to get Bond though Sanchez’s door. As a result, this is the most disappointing 007 gambling scene to date.
Blog, James Blog 