JAMES BOND 007 MAGAZINE | BILLION DOLLAR BOND!

Pierce Brosnan with Robbie Coltrane and Robert Carlyle in The World Is Not Enough (1999)

Making a second and much larger appearance in The World Is Not Enough is Robbie Coltrane as Russian gangster Valentin Zukovsky. Now a casino owner in Baku, Zukovsky becomes a shifty ally of James Bond. What Zukovsky also provides is a welcome return to the comradely foil for the Bond character in the tradition of Sean Connery/Pedro Armendariz, George Lazenby/Gabrielle Ferzetti and Roger Moore/Topol. The interplay between Brosnan and Coltrane hovers between suspicion, hostility and ultimately life-saving friendship. This relationship is probably the most believable one in the film notwithstanding the efforts to beef up the relationship between Bond and the female characters.

An example of Brosnan/Bond’s approach to women is seen in the bedroom scene with Sophie Marceau as Elektra King. After watching Elektra blow a million dollars in the casino, she and Bond share the night together. In post-coital exposition Elektra sheds some light on her kidnapping ordeal. Brosnan gets to look sensitive and even mouths some romantic platitudes about being a collector of great beauty. Nicely written, but a little too much of a movie line for James Bond.

Sean Connery mentioned many times in the past that he thought that James Bond was the ultimate sensualist, but having Brosnan’s Bond actually verbalize these sentiments somehow belies that. A character in a Barbara Cartland romance collects great beauty; James Bond just gets on with it. As Roger Moore’s Bond said, “Actions, speak louder than words.”

The one scene that has drawn the most flak from Bond observers occurs in the nuclear blast chamber when Bond finally meets the terrorist Renard played by Robert Carlyle. Renard taunts Bond about having sexually ‘broken-in’ Elektra King. Brosnan/Bond fumes at this and can be seen to be seething at Renard’s words. This totally contradicts Bondian behavior as we have been conditioned to see. As the pressure gets tighter, James Bond is supposed to get cooler. He is not supposed to fume at the villain to the point of physically trembling. This is a fundamental misread of the character by Brosnan, the writers and the director, and is Brosnan’s worst moment as James Bond.

Pierce Brosnan as James Bond between takes in The World Is Not Enough (1999)

Also dubious is the scene where Brosnan/Bond confronts Elektra King about faking her kidnapping and being in league with Renard. Brosnan again borders on over-acting as he hectors Elektra about the Stockholm syndrome. Connery/Bond would have slapped her around as he does to Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever. Lazenby/Bond coolly rejects Diana Rigg’s come-ons in the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service hotel scene and even Moore/Bond slaps Maud Adams around in The Man With The Golden Gun. Past experience has shown us that James Bond should not feel betrayed and let down by the venality of a woman. It’s happened to him before and he should not let it get under his skin as it apparently does to Pierce Brosnan in this situation.

Pierce Brosnan with Sophe Marceau as Elektra King in The World Is Not Enough (1999)

Brosnan does redeem himself in the torture scene with Elektra King when he can still spout double entendres about screwing at the point of getting his neck broken. But later still, Brosnan overplays it when he kills Renard aboard the nuclear submarine. Brosnan spews the line “she’s waiting for you” with that same misguided seething from the blast chamber scene. Bond should either say nothing at all or spout a trademark quip.

We have seen anger in previous 007s but it was always controlled and outwardly directed. Timothy Dalton had been criticized as showing too much anger in Licence To Kill, but Dalton/Bond’s anger was always of the slow burn kind rather than the tremor inducing kind Pierce Brosnan exhibits in The World Is Not Enough. And besides, Dalton/Bond is waging a personal blood feud in that film. Fleming’s Bond frequently gets angry (“fuck them all” he says, in the novel DR. NO) but that too is not the same as Brosnan/Bond’s anger.

The strange dichotomy of Brosnan’s performance in The World Is Not Enough was another reason for some to view the film as a lesser instalment in the series. The film did make a ton of money but the whole experience was somehow not as exhilarating as GoldenEye or Tomorrow Never Dies had been. The film had other problems besides the approach taken by Pierce Brosnan (Denise Richards anyone?) but the injection of too many self-consciously ‘dramatic’ scenes certainly did not help matters.

So at the end of the 20th century Pierce Brosnan took James Bond to some different places in The World Is Not Enough, both geographically and emotionally. The question stands though whether those were places that James Bond should have gone in the first place. If Tomorrow Never Dies can be criticized for having too much action then The World Is Not Enough can certainly be cited for its overwrought dramatics. If an audience wants drama, they watch dramatic films. We watch James Bond films for martinis, girls and guns. Drama is fine, but it should always be secondary.