A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: The World is not Enough

Date Viewed: 1/1/00

Details:

Pierce Brosnan

Sophie Marceau

Denise Richards

Robert Carlyle

Judi Dench

Robbie Coltrane

Director: Michael Apted

Score: +

The Review:

Yet another action-packed, eye-popping, non-stop Bond romp -- good though. This time, Brosnan goes into the main plot injured -- a handicap, one might imagine. This time a broken collarbone, perhaps next time a strained trigger-finger? This must be an attempt to give Bond some vulnerability, besides his predilections for (very) attractive women and witty banter throughout all manner of crisis. As befits the odd name of one of the female leads (Christmas Jones: Richards -- where were nuclear physicists like this when I was a student?!), there are a lot of Christmas puns and multiple entendres. The one that is excepted in the trailer is my favorite.

This time, the plot threads include an attempt to build an oil pipeline from Kazakhstan to the Black Sea, guided by the daughter of the murdered oil baron (Marceau), herself an ex-kidnap victim of the master criminal (Carlyle), who wants to steal a nuclear warhead for puzzling but nefarious purposes. At least all the plot coincidences are out in the open. We're treated to views of what might be the Kazakh mountains, the sturgeon beds of the Caspian Sea, the Bosporus Strait, London's Millennium Dome..., and several beautiful women.

Being a Bond villain has never seemed too difficult a task, and broadly played madness or malevolence seems the rule. Here, however, as befits her experience, Marceau lends a decent amount of subtlety to her role -- not just another Bond girl, and not just another cast-from-the-mold villain.

This is a good entry in the series, and care has been taken for a succession of sorts in one of the more interesting supporting roles. It bodes well for the future, with the retirement of "Q" and his replacement by "R" (the even more acidic wit of John Cleese!).

The science and engineering, however, leaves much disbelief to be suspended. Various protagonists blithely handle hand-sized half-spheres of plutonium (even if coated with some thin protective layer) as if they were merely so much metal, with no apparent concern for toxicity or radioactive exposure; perhaps they know they are villains in a Bond film, and won't last long enough for radiation sickness to set in. And then there's the plutonium reprocessing facility, conveniently built into the caverns of a nuclear powered submarine -- which not only converts the half-sphere into a rod, but does volume expansion and stainless steel cladding all in one swell foop; convenient for the plot, that is, because there is no such gear needed for normal operation of a submarine power reactor. And then there's the architecture of the control rod facility... And -- giving up early -- exiting a non-pressurized submarine and ascending to the surface would most likely not leave one with much excess pressure in one's lungs to exhale on the way up (this is true only when abandoning a pressurized breathing source and then ascending).

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