Well into his stride now as 007, Pierce Brosnan's 3rd Bond movie brings the danger closer to home. "The World Is Not Enough" sees Bond sent to protect oil baron's daughter Elektra King after her father, an old friend of M's, is murdered right in MI6 HQ.
Robert Carlyle is suitably intense as Renard, a disfigured terrorist whose gimmick is that a bullet lodged in his brain renders him immune to pain. This gives him a real edge in his fights with Bond, as a labyrinthine plot to control Russian oil supplies is gradually revealed.
The twist here is that the real villain is not Renard, but Elektra, and Sophie Marceau is both seductive and evil as the former kidnap victim turned accomplice. This is probably the first time that the villain has been bedded by Bond!
Fortunately he gets another girl in Denise Richards' unlikely nuclear physicist Dr Christmas Jones (cue smutty line, "I thought Christmas came only once a year!"). Hanging around in Russian uranium mines, Jones is an unusual foil for our hero.
Best of all, though, Judi Dench's hardnosed M gets more directly involved in the action, getting kidnapped and locked up, then escaping in a fashion to make Bond proud.
It all climaxes in an action-packed final act aboard a sinking nuclear submarine, in a classic Bond underwater sequence in the old-style.
Finally, bid farewell to Q, as the old duffer finally retires. Tragically, Desmond Llewellyn died soon after, but "The World Is Not Enough" gives him a fitting sendoff.
石油王ロバート・キング卿の巨額の現金をテロリストから取り戻したボンド。だがその紙幣には爆薬が仕掛けられており、英国諜報本部内でキング卿を暗殺されるという、かつてない屈辱的な事態となる。次に狙われるであろう娘・エレクトラを護衛するためボンドはカスピ海へ飛ぶが…。
