World Is Not Enough, The: Special Edition (James Bond) (UK)
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Danger, suspense, excitement. There must be when he`s around
Certificate: 12
Running Time: 123 mins
Retail Price: £19.99
Release Date:
Content Type: Movie
Synopsis:
Pierce Brosnan returns for his third outing as special agent 007 in his most dangerous assignment yet.
After the death of her father, Sir Robert King, a rich British oil tycoon, Elektra inherits his multi billion dollar fortune. Bond is assigned to protect her from harm. Especially from her father`s killer, Renard, a man who feels no pain and who`s only desire is to get his hands on her fortune and disrupt a major new oil pipeline system.
Special Features:
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Audio Commentry Featuring Director Michael Apted
2nd Audio Commentary featuring Production Designer Peter Lamont, Second Unit Director Vic Armstrong and Composer David Arnold
The Making of The World Is Not Enough documentary
Music Video By Garbage
Original Theatrical Trailer
Collectable Booklet
"Bond Cocktail" Documentary
"Bond Down River" Documentary
Tribute to Desmond Llewelyn
PlayStation game trailer
Video Tracks:
Widescreen Anamorphic 2.35:1
Audio Tracks:
Dolby Digital 5.1 English
Subtitle Tracks:
English
CC: English
Directed By:
Michael Apted
Written By:
Bruce Feirstein
Neal Purvis
Robert Wade
Starring:
John Cleese
Desmond Llewelyn
Denise Richards
Sophie Marceau
Judi Dench
Robbie Coltrane
Robert Carlyle
Pierce Brosnan
Casting By:
Debbie McWilliams
Soundtrack By:
David Arnold
Director of Photography:
Adrian Biddle
Editor:
Jim Clark
Costume Designer:
Lindy Hemming
Production Designer:
Peter Lamont
Producer:
Michael G. Wilson
Anthony Waye
Nigel Goldsack
Barbara Broccoli
Distributor:
United Artists
Metro Goldwyn Mayer
Your Opinions and Comments
The picture on the movie is fine, but a touch noisy in places, with the mearest hint of posterisation on flat background areas. In one or two high action scenes, you can see the quality dip slightly, but not too bad.
The major problem with the picture comes with the extras. They look to have been mastered on BetaSP, and show bad chroma noise on some of the saturated red graphics, and it has all been compressed too heavily leaving a heavily pixelated sub VHS quality image for most of the time and quite unwatchable. This is a pity as the actual content of the extras is quite nice.
The soundtrack of the movie is ok, but lacks the last word in dynamics and bass.
The menuing system on the disc is a little quirky in places and it can be hard to see where to go to find some of the extras.
If you`re going to buy this, buy it for the movie, and just listen to the extras. Watching them may give you a a headache.
I won`t say much about the plot, because as with every Bond movie, you know the plot by now :) However, I think this movie shows the emotional side of Bond.
Gadgets as always are evident throughout. Particuarly tasty is the BMW Z8 (Sadly we won`t see any BMWs in future Bonds, due to the mishandling of Rover), however the Z8 can`t exceed the BMW in the Tomorrow Never Dies, with remote control via mobile phone, which in my opinion is one of the best Bond gadgets of all time. Other gadgets include Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards) PDA running Windows CE (what else) and of course, from the opening sequence, Qs retirement present, his fishing boat.
Jokes. TWINE exceeds any previous Bond movies with many great one liners, especially at the start of the movie with the Swiss bankers and of course the inevitable sexual inuendo with MoneyPenny, Elektra (Sophie Marceau) and Dr. Jones (Denise Richards). The best line in the film appears right at the end, but I won`t spoil it for you.
Anyway, I guess its time I started discussing the actual DVD, because I`ve seemed to of waffled on a bit. Picture quality is superb as it should be with such a big budget release. The soundtrack is very effective, directed by Dave Arnold and some of the extra features mention how this compliments the movie.
Well Features, MGM have not let you down here. Cramming in as much as possible, and of course the shock of it all, some features don`t appear on the Region 1 version. Although I find this very pleasing, I can`t help feeling it is a clever marketing ploy by MGM to make you buy the Region 2 version and thus probably gaining them a bigger profit.
Most of the features are excellent, especially Bond Cocktail and "James Bond Down The River". Also included is directors commentary, original theatrical trailer, Garbage music video, a fitting tribute to Desmond Llewelyn and the worst feature of the lot, the secrets of james bond which is just excerpts from the movie coupled with pictures of the storyboard.
I read Graeme Ns review of TWINE and he complained about the picture quality of the extras, however it certainly was OK for me, maybe he expects too much :P
Anyway, to wrap up, this is without doubt one of the best DVDs you will come across, with plenty of features and a nice menu system and of course containing one of the best Bond movies ever produced. I bought my copy from Dixons for £15.99 which is a great bargain.
Roll on Bond number 20...
Some nice shots of the London Docklands area, the new MI6 building and the dreaded Dome. The new BMW Z8 was disappointing. Story line was average. Denise Richards was excellent as Dr Christmas.
As someone else has already said, the picture quality of the extras was very poor though the content was interesting (would rate Features video quality as a 2 but the content as a 5 thereby giving an overall 3 in this category).
The rest of the film was fine, although I am a bit concerned about the casting of another scots person playing a very un scots person. It was bad enough in goldeneye with Alan Cumming and Robbie Coltrane, but Bobby Carlyle aswell? Do the people that make this films think we cant tell a scots accent from a russian one? Mad as mad can be, madly.
Um , yes that was it, this film is alright in my book.
Of note is the wonderful "Farewell to Merlin" exit of Demond Llewellyn, putting in his last appearance as Q.
Robert Carlyle makes an unusually sympathetic villain, played, as is 007, like a violin at a sap`s convention by the real villain of the piece.
The DVD, as one of the first of the Special Edition releases, sets a high standard for the other disks in the collection. The extras on the disk are outstanding and you can spend more time watching them than watching the movie itself.
Noting Graeme N`s comments on the extras - I only noticed a little pixellation on one aerial shot of the Thames on the "Down The River" doco. As the picture quality of the movie is excellent, methinks he doth complain too much.
There are plenty of extras to back it up most notably in my opinion the secrets of 007 which have been copied on quite a few more recent discs (ex. M-I:2) as an effective way of showing how an scene was put together.
Sadly no deleted scenes. Press screenings ran at about 160 Minutes!
Another great thing about this movies is the score which is as good as if not better than the Tomorrow Never Dies score. Also by David Arnold.
1) Denise Richards’ criminal performance (I can hardly bring myself to use the word “acting” in the same sentence when describing her performance, and
2) The last line…. all I can say to that is… oh dear god, what were you thinking?!?
These two minor gripes aside, and this has all the makings of one the best bonds in the series. Performances (from all bar Miss Richards) are excellent, and suitably over the top, as they should be in a Bond film. Judi Dench as M and Robbie Coltrane steal every scene they are in. And of course, Desmond Llewelyn as Q is brilliant as always. Oh, and Brosnan’s pretty good too!
THE DISC: The picture is pretty much perfect, the soundtrack courtesy of David Arnold is outstanding, and the extras are pretty good too! We get an interesting and insightful commentary from the director Michael Apted and a second commentary from the Production Designer, Second Unit Director Vic Armstrong and Composer David Arnold, which I haven’t listened to yet.
The Making of The World Is Not Enough documentary. We also get 2 documentaries "Bond Cocktail" and "Bond Down River" as well as a wonderful tribute to Desmond Llewelyn. There is also a PlayStation game trailer, which is actually rather amusing! There is also a Music Video By Garbage, the Original Theatrical Trailer and an insightful Booklet.
This was the first Bond DVD to be released and it really set the tone for the future 007 releases, which have all been given top-notch treatment on DVD – nice one MGM!!!
Altogether, an excellent Bond and an excellent disc. If you like Bond – you’ll love this…. and if you don’t like Bond, get the hell out – you don’t deserve to cast your evil eyes on the wonderful DVD!
p.s. My first minor gripe about Miss Richards’ acting can be easily forgiven by the fact that it is Miss Richards…. dribble… dribble…