Things came up. I was watching TWINE, when a friend called. So right after the film, I went and picked up a pizza and we hung out drinking beer and watching DVDs (Bubba Ho-Tep and Versus). Yesterday I yakked with my mom on the phone for a while. Then I had to get down to REI so I could spend (most of) my dividend on their sale. A friend of mine in Tennessee called, and while I was talking to her I got a call from the friend I watched vids with on Saturday. So after talking some more with my TN friend, my other friend came over and we grabbed a bite to eat; then we came back to my place to watch Phantasm (Bubba Ho-Tep, being a Coscarelli film, made us want to see Phantasm again).
*SPOILERS COMING. But the intent is that you have already watched the film, so…
The World Is Not Enough opens in Spain, where Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is to receive recovered money for Sir Robert King (David Calder); money Sir Robert paid to obtain some reports stolen from the Russian Atomic Energy Department. Actually, Bond is looking for the assassin who killed an MI6 agent whose life the reports cost. The banker isn’t talking, and he offers Bond to “walk out of here with the money”. Bond counters with an opportunity for the banker to walk out with his life. Guns come out, and Bond’s is out of reach on the table. Using a transmitter hidden in his glasses, Bond detonates the gun – which is actually a small bomb. A melee ensues in which the henchmen are incapacitated or killed. Bond threatens to shoot the banker, unless the banker tells him the name of the assassin. The banker is about to tell him, but he’s hit with an instantly-deadly dart. The police are coming, and Bond looks out of the window. When he turns, one of the henchman is behind him with a gun. Before the henchman can kill Bond, he is hit with a bullet fired from across the street. Bond ties a cable around an unconscious henchman and around himself, then breaks the window with the money-filled suitcase. He jumps. The henchman revives and grabs hold of a stout table, leaving Bond dangling. Fortunately the table leg breaks and Bond is lowered to the ground. The police break in and the henchman sends them after Bond.
Back in London, the money is turned over to Sir Robert, who is an old friend of M’s (Judi Dench). While Sir Robert goes to a vault to retrieve his money, Bond and M share a drink. M explains that Sir Robert believed the reports had to do with terrorists who are attacking his oil pipeline. Bond puts some ice in his drink, and discovers the ice has caused a reaction with a residue that was on the money. Bond rushes down to stop King from reaching the money, but he’s too late. A small transmitter hidden on a pin that Sir Robert is wearing detonates a bomb. (We find out later that the money had been impregnated with urea, making it into a “highly compacted fertilizer bomb”.)
Bond makes off with Q’s (Desmond Llewellyn) gadget-boat to chase down a lovely female machine-gunner on a boat riding in the Thames. The boat chase is anything but exciting as, as has been mentioned, it’s been done to death. Incidentally, the boat is in a tank in Q’s lab. There just happens to be an open door in the exterior wall and, one supposes, a ramp built into the tank. The boat speeds through the door and flies a couple storeys to the river.
Anyway, there’s the chase. The woman (whose character’s name I don’t remember) escapes into a hot air balloon, and Bond grabs a rope. When Bond tells her she can’t escape, she blows herself up. Bond falls onto the Millennium Dome, injuring his shoulder.
Que titles.
Bond attends Sir Robert’s funeral where he sees Elektra King (Sophie Marceau). Elektra had been kidnapped by terrorists, but she managed to escape.
After having sex with the MI6 doctor, Bond is introduced to Q’s protegé R (John Cleese), and to the mundane BMW which will be his mount (well, his mechanical mount – heh) for this outing. R also demonstrates a suit coat that turns into a Mars Lander-like airbag.
So Bond is looking at news about Elektra King’s kidnapping and escape. The kidnappers asked for the same amount of money in ransom as he recovered in the pre-title sequence. Bond tries to access Elektra’s file, but finds it’s sealed. He confronts M. She explains that when Elektra was kidnapped, Sir Robert tried to negotiate with them on his own without success. So he approached his old friend M. The Crown has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists, and M tells him not to pay the ransom. She used the girl as bait. Given that the money in King’s briefcase was the same amount as the ransom, Bond surmises that the assassination is a message. “Your terrorist,” he says, “is back.”
The terrorist is Victor Zokas AKA “Renard the Anarchist” (Robert Carlyle) who, we find out in a holographic presentation, is a very naughty person. 009 was sent to kill him, but Elektra escaped before the mission was completed. A week later, 009 catches up with Renard and puts a bullet in his head. The bullet is woking its way to the centre of Renard’s brain, killing off his senses, and will eventually kill him. Until then, Renard is impervious to pain and will keep growing stronger until he dies.
Bond realises that Renard had three enemies in the kidnapping, and there was one he hadn’t touched – Elektra. Elektra has taken over her father’s oil pipeline operation near the Caspian Sea. Bond is sent to protect her. (“Remember: Shadows stay in front or behind. Never on top.”)
There is a protest going on at the pipeline. Villagers are upset that the pipeline will go through their homes. Elektra arrives and talks to the village priest (Diran Meghreblian) and tells him that the pipeline will go around their village. The people are happy. Elektra obliged with the villagers’ wishes because her lineage is from those people. Bond tells Elektra that he had been sent to protect her because her life is in danger, but he’s under orders not to tell her from whom. Elektra doesn’t want MI6’s help, since her “family has relied on MI6 twice. [She] won’t make the same mistake again.” Elektra rides a helicopter up into the mountains so that she can check the pipeline. Bond comes along.
While skiing, they are attacked by Bad Guys flying parawing ultralights known as “Para Hawks”. As amkeller noted, the ski chase was a bit stale. I liked the Para Hawks though. Bond uses his airbag coat to save the two of them from an avalanche.
Back at Elektra’s home, Bond goes to the local casino run by Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane) to find out why the Russian Secret Service Atomic Energy Anti-Terrorist Unit (the guys in the ultralights) tried to kill him and Elektra. Zukovsky tells Bond that the KGB cut Renard loose, and now Renard is working for whoever. He says that there are four competing oil pipelines, and a lot of people would be very happy to see the King pipeline disappear.
Elektra comes into the casino and accepts a $1,000,000 line of credit from the casino. She bets it all on one game of high-draw with Zukovsky, saying “There is no point in living, if you can’t feel alive.” She loses the million without batting an eye. Elektra invites Bond up to her bed, where the inevitable happens.
Meanwhile Elektra’s chief of security Davidov (Ulrich Thomsen) meets with Renard. Renard is upset that Bond is still alive. Renard kills Dr. Arkov (Jeff Nuttall) who had supplied the weapons to Davidov and who blamed Davidof for the failure of the assasination. “He failed his test of devotion.” Davidov now has to replace Arkov.
Bond sneaks out and opens the boot of Davidov’s car. Arkov is in it. Davidov gets in the car and drives to an airport. When Davidov comes to the boot, Bond has taken Arkov’s place. He kills Davidov and puts him in a dumpster. The aircrew approach too soon and Bond assumes the identity of Davidov. He finds himself on a plane to Kazakhstan, where nuclear weapons are being dismantled.
There he meets Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards) and becomes “Dr. Arkov”. Bond goes into the underground facility and comes upon Renard. Renard reveals that it was he who saved Bond at the Banker’s office. Bond can’t shoot Renard because it will bring half the army down. Renard tells him that if a certain phone call isn’t made within 20 minutes, Elektra will die. Bond attaches a silencer to his pistol and is getting ready to shoot Renard. Renard tells Bond, “There’s no point living, if you can’t feel alive.” Just then, Jones and an officer come down. Jones reveals that Bond is an imposter, and not the 63-year-old Dr. Arkov. Bond tells them that Renard is the imposter. Renard, now free, grabs Bond’s injured shoulder. How’d he know? The officer says there are too many new faces, including Renard’s. They will stop work until things are sorted. Renard shoots him. Renard escapes with a warhead and tries to seal Jones and Bond in the chamber. Bond leaps through an opening. Renard has set a bomb, and detonates it. Bond and Jones escape in the nick of time.
Elektra notifies M that Bond is missing. She requests that M come to her personally.
Bond confronts Elektra back at her villa. He tells her that she has Stockholm Syndrome, and that Elektra has been working with Renard all along. Elektra claims the injured party, accusing Bond of using her as bait. There is a phone call that there has been an attack on the pipeline. She tells Bond that she has called M, and that M is coming to take charge.
Bond gives M the locator device from the bomb (meaning they can’t track it) and warns M that he suspects Elektra of being “not as innocent as M thinks”. M wonders why she would kill her own father and attack her own pipeline. An “observation pig” is in the pipeline heading for an oil terminal. The bomb must be on it. Bond and Jones (who is needed because she knows how to defuse nuclear devices) fly out to the pipeline and take another “pig” to catch the bomb. They remove the plutonium, but Bond lets the triggering device explode. Crawling out of the ruptured pipeline, Jones says he could have killed them. Bond replies that he did kill them. The bomb only contained half of the plutonium necessary for a nuclear explosion. He surmises that the intent was to make it appear as if the bomb was a dud, with the evidence being the other half of the fuel scattered about by the explosion of the triggering device.
Elektra shows her true colours and captures M. Seems she’s a little miffed at M for adivsing her father not to negotiate with the kidnappers. Off to Istanbul…
Elektra presents Renard with M. Renard’s plan is to put the missing plutonium into the reactor of a Russian nuclear submarine. This will cause a chain reaction that will destroy the city, M, and Renard himself.
Bond finds Valentin Zukovsky to find out why she paid him off with a million simoleons. Zukovsky tells him that his son Nikoli (Justus von Dohnanyi), the captain of a nuclear submarine, is smuggling some machine parts to Istanbul for her. The plan is now clear. Renard plans to put the plutonium in the sub, making Istanbul uninhabitable. It will look like an accident. The oil from the existing pipelines go to a port on the Black Sea. The tankers take it to Istanbul. With that city out of the picture, the only way to transport oil would be on Elektra’s pipeline to the Med.
Renard has set a clock so that M can watch her time running out. M tricks Elektra into giving her the clock. She uses its battery to power the nuclear bomb’s tracking device, which she still has. The signal is picked up by Bond and Zukovsky. Zukovski’s henchman Bull (Goldie) sets a bomb, which explodes. A bloody Zukovsky lies on the floor; and Bond and Jones, who escaped outside, are captured. They are taken to Istanbul, where Nikoli and his skeleton crew have been poisoned.
Renard ensures that Elektra’s helicopter is ready, and takes his leave. He gives Elektra Nikoli’s hat as a souvenier. Jones is taken to the sub, and Elektra puts Bond into an ancient garrotte. Nothing like a strangulation erection to get the Evil Seductress off! Nikoli was not killed in the explosion. He comes into the room saying, “I’m looking for a submarine. It’s big and black, and the driver is a very good friend of mine.” He sees Nikoli’s hat and Elektra shoots him. Elektra is about to kill Bond, but Nikoli still isn’t dead. He has a gun hidden in his cane. He moves his aim from Elektra and shoots at Bond, hitting one of his bonds (on purpose). Elektra thought that he was shooting to kill. She says, “Zukovsky really hated you!” Bond overpowers Elektra, shoots her henchman Gabor (John Seru) and releases M. He runs back to to Elektra. Bond instructs her to call Renard off. She gets on the radio to call Renard, then tells Bond, “You wouldn’t kill me. You’d miss me.” Then into the radio: “Dive!” Bond shoots her dead, just as M walks into the room. “I never miss,” he says.
Bond leaps off of a balcony into the water near the sub. He climbs the descending conning tower and gets in just in time. He saves Christmas (just liked the way that sounded) and takes over the control room. Renard has had the plutonium fashioned into a control rod. There’s a fight, and the sub plunges to the bottom. (The intent was to surface it so that it would be picked up on radar.) Renard continues his plan to detonate the reactor.
Bond tries to stop him. Again with the fighting and the puching and the pain and the hurting! Renard is down. As long as the reactor coolant doesn’t burst, everyone is safe from the radiation. Oops. Renard is back up. He puts the rod into the reactor. More fighting. “You’re really going to commit suicide for her” asks Bond. “You forget,” replies Renard, “I’m already dead!” Bond says, “Haven’t you heard? So is she!” Renard proceeds to kick the crap out of Bond, and then traps him behind a grate while he returns to the plutonium rod. The reactor is heating up. Bond finds a pressure hose and connects it to the reactor. The rod shoots out and impales Renard. The pressure drops, but the “hydrogen gass pressure is too high”. The reactor is flooded, so it’s safe even if the gas explodes. Bond and Jones escape through a torpedo tube.
Bond and Jones are caught in flagrante delicto by a heat-sensitive satellite, Bond says he though Christmas only came once a year, and roll end credits.
The death scene was good; but I think it would have been nicer if she had given Bond a “Now, whattaya gonna do?” smirk, then Bond could really have been cold-blooded. Just a timing issue, but I think it would have made the audience uncomfortable (IMO, in a good way). I also liked Renard’s (Robert Carlyle) reaction when he finds out about it.