Review of World Is Not Enough, The: Special Edition (James Bond)

Introduction

Bond is back, again. Another film in the hip-again James Bond series. The "Bond Cocktail", as it is described by one of the extras, is shaken (not stirred) one more time, and "The World Is Not Enough" is the result.

Opening with one of the longest pre-title sequence segments packed full of action and top quality stunts, this pretty much sets the scene for the whole film. This is still a sufficiently different Bond film in places though.

A big cast support Pierce Brosnan in his third outing in the role, including Dame Judi Dench (who gets more screen time than any "M" has done before), Sophie Marceau, Denise Richards (who gets to play a character with one of the stupidest names in Bond history), Robert Carlyle, Robbie Coltrane (2 Scots playing eastern europeans), John Cleese (who now works for Q division) and of course Desmond Llewellyn as the lovable "Q" (his final Bond movie, as he has sadly passed on since the making of this one).

Video

An excellent 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer, very well presented. You would of course expect nothing less given the tender age of this film. Plenty of exotic Bond locations are rendered on to your TV screen with excellent detail.

Many of the extra features (more on those later) are shot in 4:3 with some film clips panned and scanned though. This is often the norm for the types of feature involved though.

Audio

An excellent DD5.1 track is on offer here. This is an action film, and there`s plenty of action for the speakers to deal with - the obligatory explosions (lots of bass), helicopters flying overhead, and some other whirling blades flying all over the place.

Add to this an excellent score by David Arnold, and one of the best title songs ever (written by Arnold and his lyricist whose name escapes me), performed by Garbage, and you have plenty to delight your ears.

Features

Ok, settle down, grab a coffee or something. This may take a while. This disc is littered with extras.

You get 2 audio commentaries, one from the director, the other from a combination of second unit director, production designer, and David Arnold. Both of these contain plenty of nuggets of info about the film, and despite the ecletic mix of people on the second commentary it works well - Arnold is almost the interviewer at some points, asking questions of the other two. There`s quite a lot of mention of deleted scenes, and it`s a shame we didn`t get to see some of them.

If these haven`t given you enough backround for the film, there are several documentaries to try and plug the gaps. The Making Of documentary is standard fare, but is fronted by a rather annoying lady who very quickly makes you want to watch something else instead. This comes in the form of the "Bond Cocktail" documentary, which is a look into what has made the Bond franchise so succesful, with particular relevance to the film in question. A much more watchable feature !

Another documentary concetrates entirely on the opening section set on the Thames and is very interesting indeed. You begin to appreciate the amount of work that went into something that`s all over in 5 minutes. There are also some more behind the scenes clips "The Secrets of 007" accessed from another menu, which are short clips on particular scenes.

There`s also a short sequence of clips featuring Desmond Llewellyn accompanied by "Nobody does it better" - this serves as a tribute to this Bond institution.

You also get the music video, which is a sort of Bond homage itself, but sadly it`s not anamorphic. Great song though.

Conclusion

Overall, this film is somewhat of a mixed bag. On one hand it works, on another it doesn`t. The plot seems to jump about a bit too much (the re-instatement of deleted scenes mentioned in the commentaries may have helped), Sophie Marceau didn`t totally convince me as Elektra, and Robert Carlyle wasn`t quite evil enough for a man with a bullet in his brain and whose senses were being whittled away. This particularly confused me as I was expecting a more stereotyped "complete psycho loony killing machine", given the way the character was introduced.

And then we come to Denise Richards, as Dr Christmas Jones. Yes, that`s really her character`s name, and that of course leads to a very cheap gag about it at the end of the film. But the first time we meet this erstwhile nuclear physicist (remember that occupation), she bears a more than passing resemblance to the PC/PlayStation pin-up Lara Croft. Maybe I`m meeting the wrong kind of physicists, but none that I`ve met resemble Ms Croft.

In the end though, these things don`t quite distract you enough to stop you enjoying this action romp. The opening scene on the Thames is excellent, the ski-ing scene did seem a little formulaic, but there are plenty more great action sequences to make up for that. After all this is Bond, and when all is said and done this is actually a pretty good Bond.