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Pierce Brosnan’s second Bond film proved to be an even bigger success than GoldenEye and there was no question that a third outing was in the offing. What was debatable though was the tone that the new film entitled The World Is Not Enough would take. Detractors of Tomorrow Never Dies claimed that it was all action with no substance, a view echoed by Pierce Brosnan himself.

To address these issues, the writing duo of Neal Purvis & Robert Wade were hired to bring a new perspective to the material. From the earliest days they hinted at a female villain who becomes emotionally involved with James Bond. This approach was to add ‘depth’ and to redress the perceived shallowness of Tomorrow Never Dies.

This approach was furthered by the hiring of Michael Apted as the director of the film. Known primarily as a documentary filmmaker for his series 7 Up and its sequels, Apted’s fiction films stuck pretty much to the drama genre. Apted’s brief was to deliver the requisite Bondian action but to have main characters that we cared about. Apted caused a mini-controversy in the early days of The World Is Not Enough by insinuating that there would be no ‘Bond Girl’ as we knew them. After fan uproar he clarified that there would be no Bond bimbos as we knew them. A fact rather contradicted by the presence of Denise Richards in the film.

But what of Pierce Brosnan in The World Is Not Enough? The tone of Brosnan’s performance is set in the first minutes of the film when James Bond confronts a Swiss banker in his Bilbao office over the return of an industrialist’s money. Getting the upper hand on the goons around him, the camera locks in on a close-up of Brosnan’s face in an angry sneer.

Why is Brosnan’s Bond so angry over this? Hasn’t Brosnan/Bond been in these kinds of situations many times before? You would think that he would be more blasé about it. This emoting carries over to the latter part of the pre-credits sequence as Bond flails through MI6 Headquarters trying to prevent an attack.

Trouble is also taken to emphasize the vulnerability of Pierce Brosnan’s Bond. This explicitly takes the form of the shoulder injury that Bond sustains at the beginning of the story. Wincing with pain throughout the rest of the film, the audience is continually reminded that this is a real man with real pains, both physical and emotional; all of this to contrast with the comic book superman of Tomorrow Never Dies.

Brosnan is on surer ground in his relation with Judi Dench’s M. Bond questions M’s handling of the Elektra King kidnapping to the point of being lectured about insubordination. Warming up to M though, he gets her to reveal her reasoning for using Elektra as bait in the kidnapping. The continued byplay between Brosnan and Dench remains a highlight of their relationship.

Warmness and gravitas are also on tap for the Q scene which was envisioned as Merlin’s farewell to King Arthur by screenwriter Bruce Feirstein. Knowing that Desmond Llewelyn would not be around forever the filmmakers wisely transitioned his Q out of the series in The World Is Not Enough. The scene between Llewelyn and Brosnan would play as the official goodbye to Desmond Llewelyn who died tragically in a car crash shortly after the film was released in 1999.

In the scene, Q treats Bond to some fatherly advice about “never let them see you bleed” and to “always have an escape route.” Q then sinks slowly through the floor in a trapdoor and out of the series. Great pains were taken to make this scene weighty and worthy of Llewelyn’s long running and audience appreciated role in the Bond series. The scene also affirms the respectful Brosnan/Q relationship as Brosnan wistfully inquires if Q is really going to leave the service. Purists point out though that the Bond of the previous films (namely Sean Connery and Roger Moore) rarely listened to anything Q had to say, and in fact usually smirked at the sight of him.