Is Elektra truly the villain, manipulating Renard for her purposes, or is it the other way around? Fans can't agree at all! For that matter, does Elektra actually love Renard (whether or not she's manipulating him) or is it all an act on her part?
Conversely, what is Sir Robert King's true nature? He was certainly no saint, being willing to quite literally bulldoze his way (metaphorically and literally) through any obstacle to his pipeline projects, including ancient churches, while using the military to quell backlash. However, Elektra portrays him as a thoroughly sleazy Gold Digger who stole her mother's fortune and company, abused them, and exploited his British nationality to exploit Azerbaijan. Of course, the person telling us this is someone who has spent the entire story remorselessly lying, exploiting, and murdering to almost anybodywhile playing the victim and who is objectively worse than the worst interpretation of Sir Robert. Moreover, the script indicates that Sir Robert King obtained the empire from his father-in-law Elektra's grandfather, making the "stole" allegation dubious.
Did Elektra resent her father all along, with her kidnapping and his refusal to pay her ransom only exacerbating her hatred? Or did his apparent abandonment of her completely shatter her trust and love and caused her Start of Darkness?
Garbage's theme, which is widely considered the best Bond theme from Brosnan's tenure (and among a few, the best since at least A View to a Kill). It would also appear to be the only Bond theme song sung from an in-universe perspectivenote Until Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name".; it's Elektra's Villain Song, complete with the movie's main Wham Line being worked in the lyrics.
From the soundtrack, Only Myself to Blame by Scott Walker. It was to be used in the film's end credits, but was unfortunately decided to be too glum a note to go out on.
Contested Sequel: One of the more polarizing Bond films. There are fans who consider this a great movie that deserves to have its value rediscovered, other fans consider it a good movie that has a lot of good things (Elektra, Bond being more humanized) but also some bad things (the weak villain Renard, the unnecessary Bond Girl Christmas Jones), and there are also fans who consider the film a complete mess and one of the weakest in the franchise. The general consensus today is that it's better than Die Another Day and inferior to GoldenEye, but no one can agree if it's better or worse than Tomorrow Never Dies. It should be noted that supporters of the film increased mainly after the release of Skyfall, which has several similarities in the narrative but is considered a far superior film.
Evil Is Cool: Say what you will about this film's faults, but few can deny it created a fantastic character in Elektra King. She's typically found near the top of people's Bond Girl and Bond villain countdowns, and amazingly enough accomplishes this without really having any "iconic" scenes like Ursula Andress or Honor Blackman did.
Fan-Preferred Cut Content: A scripted but unfilmed ending where Elektra survives being shot and ends the movie in a mental hospital, being treated for Stockholm Syndrome, has defenders who think it could have made the movie more interesting.
This was Desmond Llewelyn's last appearance as Q in the Bond movies. He died in a car accident shortly after the movie's premiere, and his last scene shows him descending through the floor on an elevator with a car. VHS home editions, DVDs and Blu-Rays of the movie lampshaded this with a tribute to Desmond Llewelyn.
Renard and his reasons for committing his Evil Plan, now that Robert Carlyle has played Rumpelstiltskin, whose plans were for the same reason. Also, both here and in the 2005 mini-series Human Trafficking he portrays a kidnapper/criminal mastermind, only the latter production didn't try to paint him as sympatheticwhatsoever.
Renard, a dying Death Seeker with a head wound, and Elektra, who has a personal vendetta due to M advising her father not to pay a ransom for her, kidnap M in the film's third act.13 years later, M would die thanks to the men of Raoul Silva, who also has a head wound and is a Death Seeker like Renard, and also has a personal vendetta against M due to her disavowing him after he was captured like Elektra.
Blowing up a pipeline for personal or political gain seemed like a campy, well, Bond movie thing back in 1999. Fast forward 23 years later, the Nord Stream pipeline got blown up in the midst of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
He's Just Hiding: Valentin, not helped at all by the DVD commentary saying on the subject, "It's only a flesh wound!" Of course, since the character did not appear in Die Another Day, and since the series was subsequently rebooted, it will never be known if Zukovsky in this continuity could have ever come back.
Hilarious in Hindsight: The rich, glamorous love interest of the hero, who is played by a French actress, is the real Big Bad and a Femme Fatale with Daddy Issues, while the person we thought was the Big Bad, a suicidal, anarchistic terrorist who is immune to pain, is actually her Dragon and is assisting her in her insane revenge plan to nuke a major city out of love for her. Are we talking about The World is Not Enough or The Dark Knight Rises?
It Was His Sled: Elektra King being the villain was supposed to be a surprise but now it's possibly one of the most famous plot twists of Brosnan's Bond films.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The mixed reception to TWINE served as an alarm bell that the Bond formula was making moviegoers restless. The Agony Booth puts it succinctly:
"That era of the franchise addressed the anachronistic aspects of the character, portraying Bond as a flawed, morally ambiguous throwback to an older era, almost a man out of time. This approach of self-awareness had mixed results. It certainly helped give older fans a taste of what they’d been missing in their Bond movies, but it wasn't very forward thinking, as it did little to adapt the franchise to its modern setting. It was merely a stall tactic."
Renard is an evil man, but it's hard not to feel a little pity for him. He's been given a death sentence, and is unable to feel, smell, or taste anything due to his deteriorating condition. When Elektra is killed, his grief and anguish is palpable. When Renard himself is killed, it almost seems like a mercy.
Elektra, as well. She was kidnapped, and her own father refused to pay her ransom, on M's advice. She develops a creepy attachment to Renard, and uses him to get revenge on M, her father, and the world in general. When Bond finally foils their plans and kills Elektra, it just seems like he's putting a hopelessly insane woman out of her misery.
Magnificent Bastard: Elektra King has her own father assassinated and his oil pipeline attacked to deflect suspicion and set up her own plans. Having once been abandoned to the terrorist Renard, Elektra seduced him to the point he is utterly loyal to her, using him to sow chaos while she remains behind the scenes. Intending on causing a nuclear meltdown to enrich her own pipeline, while also gaining revenge on those who abandoned her, Elektra easily outwits the heroes throughout the film, constantly a step ahead of all MI6.
As listed in the Funny section, the scene where Bond learns from Renard that Elektra just might be behind it all would probably be a bit more dramatic if Bond didn't react to it by saying "HUH?!" with a hilariously dumbfounded look on his face.
Brosnan's overstated performance in other scenes gets it fair share of mockery as well. The scene where he confronts Elektra, specifically his lines, "Knew all about my shoulder; knew exactly how to hurt me," stands out, as does his "pain face" when being garroted by Elektra.
Nausea Fuel: Elektra plucking a large glass shard out of Renard's bleeding hand.
Never Live It Down: The casting of Denise Richards as Dr. Christmas Jones is almost universally regarded among the film's fans and detractors as its greatest weakness. The fact that she won the first Golden Raspberry Award to be given to a Bond film certainly doesn't help either.
One-Scene Wonder: The Cigar Girl assassin. The director actually wanted her actress to be Elektra King, but upon realizing that her English wasn't up to par, he gave her this part instead which she happily accepted. With only a few minutes of screen time and exactly two lines, she manages to be one of the more memorable minor Bond Girls—her panicked, terrified response of "Not from him!" (when Bond promises that he can protect her from Renard) just before she kills herself is enough to provide an intriguing hint about just what kind of monster Bond is dealing with.
Questionable Casting: Denise Richards as Christmas Jones. In fairness to Richards, the character would likely have been very unpopular anyway for the other reasons described under her The Scrappy entry, but her completely unconvincing performance helped propel her to being one of the most universally hated Bond Girls ever.
Christmas Jones, due to being an uninteresting character in her own right, Denise Richards's acting and obvious miscasting, and getting in the way of the much more compelling relationship between Bond and Elektra. Fans almost invariably rate her as the absolute worst Bond Girl in the whole series, since she harms the credibility of an otherwise well-received movie, whereas the other widely disliked Bond Girls (Mary Goodnight and Stacey Stutton) appeared in films that would have been underwhelming regardless.
Mr. Bullion, who is played by Goldie, a British DJ whose limited acting experience becomes glaringly obvious on-screen. He doesn't get as much hate as Christmas due to her attracting most of the vitriol and Bullion's lesser role in the plot, but he has similar issues as a character.
After Bond sabotages and escapes the submarine as it is left to explode, it comes apart rather unimpressively like a toy.
When Bond pursues the Cigar Girl in Q's speedboat, he clearly fires the top missile first, but the immediate close-up shot shows the bottom missing gone first with the top one launching yet again.
When Bond flees the attacking choppers at Zukovsky's oil factory, the pipes visibly wobble as Bond takes cover.
The final battle between Bond and Renard leaves a lot to be desired, being shot inside a room that is turned sideways in a cramped space with them forced to fight around not just the many rods of the nuclear reactor but also while the room is partially flooding. The entire set and the way it is shot makes for a scuffle that fails to build any real tension leading up to the nuclear meltdown.
Strangled by the Red String: While one can hardly expect a relationship between Bond and his current Bond Girl to have any real substance, his fling with Christmas Jones is a glaring example of this. They have absolutely zero romantic interaction or flirtation (shockingly absent for a Bond film) before hooking up in the movie's final scenes. Her sole purposes in the film seems to be to completely botch Bond's first attempt to stop Renard's plot (making the second half of the movie her fault alone), and for Bond to have a warm body to be in bed with once Elektra is revealed as the villain and Bond kills her. Made all the more jarring by the fact that he does have chemistry with Elektra, and it's even implied that she's one of the few women he's considered settling down with which unfortunately ceases to be an option by the end.
Bond and M going up against a Machiavellian villain bent on revenge for failing to help them? Bond being pushed to the limit of his emotional and physical capacity, questioning his choices as an agent? If the movie had been braver, ditched Christmas Jones, and not gone for the typical Bond cliches (campy or otherwise) we could have had Skyfall 13 years early. As it is, The World Is Not Enough is a big ball of missed potential for some fans of the Bond franchise.
Bond could have rescued Elektra from her kidnapping and been the one to shoot Renard-giving him a connection to both characters. Instead the kidnapping is treated as an exposition dump and the events involved 009 rather than Bond.
When Bond returns to London, he presents a cigar to Miss Moneypenny, who replies that she knows where to put it. This could be seen as a reference to the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinski affair, which allegedly featured a cigar being used in foreplay.
The boat chase down the River Thames does not feature the London Eye (which had already been raised to its current position by the time the film was released) and passes a then-under construction Portcullis House (it was finished in 2001).
Bond watches a report on the conclusion of Elektra King’s kidnapping presented by Martyn Lewis, who had retired and The BBC had changed the appearance of their news broadcasts by the film's release.
Elektra King surveys her oil empire with a computer running Windows 2000 (and a beta version at that).
At the end, R switches off a screen showing a heat-sensitive image of Bond and Christmas Jones in flagrante delecto, pretending it’s an early occurrence of the Millennium Bug.
Vindicated by History: It's actually much less common nowadays to find people who hate this film. With the exception of Denise Richards' casting, people have largely warmed up to TWINE. It's also fondly remembered by people who miss the Brosnan era, and regret that it ended with the inferior Die Another Day. It probably helps that the highly-acclaimed Skyfall recycled a lot of ideas from TWINE (as seen in this post), so there's a greater acknowledgement that the latter had the potential to be a great Bond movie, but it got hampered for some people by some of its campier elements and a few questionable casting choices.
Video Game
Anti-Climax Boss: In the film's climax, Bond fought Renard in hand to hand combat before impaling Renard on one of the sub's plutonium rods. In the N64 game, the fight is skipped entirely and all the player has to do to kill Renard when they reach the core room is press a button. At least in the PlayStation version, he leads you on a chase and shoots at you.
Disappointing Last Level: In addition to the total lack of a proper boss fight, the final level in the N64 version is also a huge pain — the first part of the level is a swimming level, a mechanic you only used one other time in the entire game prior to this where you didn't even have to dive under. It's made even worse if you're using the default controls that prevent you from being able to move and look at the same time, which spells trouble in a level that is not only a Timed Mission but one where you also need to be on top of your oxygen meter, and the level is a maze. The second half of the level fares little better, mostly relying on the grapple hook gimmick with two important details that are easy to overlook — the button you need to push to stop the meltdown and the final grapple hook that is in the middle of a hallway instead of at the end with no obvious indicator of where it is unless you notice the opening in the ceiling. All around, the final level leaves a lot to be desired.
In both versions of the game, you can permanently get rid of the guards in "Night Watch" if you run out of darts by simply punching them, and you won't fail the mission for doing so (unless you attack Gabor). This doesn't work on the police officers in the N64 version of "Courier".
In the PlayStation version's "Russian Roulette", you're expected to win $100,000 playing Blackjack with a starting budget of $26,000. If you're having trouble making the money quickly, just go all-in twice from the beginning of the mission. It's risky, and you'll have to restart the mission if you lose, but if luck's on your side, this strategy makes it the fastest mission in the game by far.
Having trouble getting through "City of Walkways I" on N64 without using up all your ammo? You can steal a couple Soviet KA-57 rifles from Valentin's guards at the beginning of the mission by using your stunner on them. While it might not last you the whole level, it'll at least make some of the earlier parts a little more manageable since the only other weapons available to you are weak and/or inaccurate.
Good Bad Bugs: In multiplayer, the black London Policeman can clip through walls.
Harsher in Hindsight: The N64 version features a mission called "Underground Uprising", where James has to foil a hostage situation and bomb threat in the London Underground. Five years after the game was released, the London Underground was bombed in real life by terrorists.
Hilarious in Hindsight: The N64 version skirts around the copyright for the London Underground logo in the above-mentioned "Underground Uprising" mission by depicting it with a purple roundel instead of a red one. Over a decade later, and the real-world Elizabeth Line had the exact same idea for its branding.
No Problem With Licensed Games: Both home console versions of the game are considered solid shooters in their own rights. With the N64 version in particular being seen as a solid companion piece to the Killer App ''GoldenEye 007.
Polished Port: While Nintendo 64 version suffers from more simplistic A.I and far less voice acting, it’s more than made up for with 3 additional levels and multiplayer mode that the Playstion version sorely lacked.
Scrappy Mechanic: In multiplayer, characters with the Good alignment arbitrarily cannot fight each other or be assigned to the Red team. Absolutely no explanation is given for this restriction. Duplicate characters aren't allowed either, which can at least be imagined as a measure to avoid players getting confused, though the fact that it still applies when there are only two players makes even this kinda shaky.
For the N64 version, there's Night Watch. You have to sneak around Elektra's villa and you're not allowed to kill anyone. Sure, you can use darts and punch people's lights out all you want, but it does seem foolish running up to hit people armed with assault rifles and only being allowed to use said assault rifles to shoot locks and surveillance cameras. If that's not enough, Gabor has an annoying habit of showing up when you'd least expect him, and you automatically fail the mission if he spots you or if you attack him (even with your darts or fists). You might not even know he's nearby until you hear him shout "Bond is here!" and get the Mission Failed message. Capping it all off, the Forest multiplayer map is locked behind beating this mission in 2:20 on 00 Agent, and due to the randomness in where the guards and Gabor can spawn, whether or not you will be able to pull it off becomes a complete crapshoot.
For the PlayStation version, you have Masquerade. There is one part where you have to sabotage the power to sneak past a pair of soldiers and use a keycard on a lock. If the soldiers catch you, or if you come into contact with them in any way (and not doing so is much easier said than done), they'll open fire. You can't shoot back if this happens, because killing them will instantly fail the mission, and they can deal quite a bit of damage. Later in the mission, you have to protect Christmas Jones from Renard's henchmen while she opens the door out of the area. Said henchmen are armed with Munitions Belgique PS100 submachine guns, which can deal alarming amounts of damage, and they spawn in such large numbers that you'll have trouble juggling your attention between the terrorists attacking Christmas and the ones attacking you, resulting in either you or her getting killed quickly if you aren't careful. There is a trick, though – standing in a certain area of the room stops the terrorists from spawning, allowing you to pick them off at your leisure.
The two City of Walkways missions on N64 both qualify, but special mention goes to the first one, mainly for being brutally long. The majority of the mission has you facing large gangs of Renard's henchmen on the docks of Valentin's caviar plant, with little room for cover. They'll constantly attack you from multiple angles (often off-screen) before you are able to close in on them, and the weapons available to you are more or less limited to your starting P2K and the highly inaccurate Meyer TMP, plus ammo pickups are extremely scarce, especially on 00 Agentnote Though you can steal a Soviet KA-57 by using your stunner on one of Valentin's guards. By the way, there's no body armor, and some of the terrorists are armed with grenade and rocket launchers that can easily finish you off from the damage you'll more than likely sustain.
City of Walkways II isn't much better. Aside from your weapons again being limited to the same mediocre ones on City of Walkways I, you also have to fight a helicopter at the end with a laser-guided rocket launcher, whose controls are very cumbersome to use. Bear in mind, by the time you even reach the helicopter, you'll likely have less than half of your health remaining, and the helicopter itself has a ton of health and can dish out heavy damage. And even once you do destroy it, the game throws two last mooks at you before the end of the mission, and if your health is low, which it probably will be, you'll likely die at the finish line.
The GBC version's Night Watch and Masquerade are the two stealth levels of the game. Unlike N64, however, every guard seeing Bond results in mission failure. Knocking them out without the taser is a fool's errand as they'll more likely than not interrupt Bond's attacks to hold him up. The King Villa is also equipped with lasers that go on and off in a pattern you need to memorize with barely any space where the deactivated ones are to go through. Of course tripping them sounds the alarm but so can Bond's shadow so you better be pixel perfect in your movement. Outside the villa, you have to navigate a hedge maze with guards patrolling through. Both stealth missions are about 10-20 minutes and failure takes you back the start. Good luck!
The GBC version also has 2D platforming segments in Masquerade, City of Walkways, and Meltdown that can be described as Prince of Persia but broken. Two of them require you to get through them under a time limit lest you start the level all over again.
Vindicated by History: The Nintendo 64 version of the game was largely overlooked at the time thanks to the game releasing towards the end of the N64’s life and at very crowded time for the gaming industry, (The N64 game released in America just eight days before the launch of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and the PlayStation 2) with most assuming the game was merely a downgraded port of the already released Playstation version, as was common for the 5th Generation of Consoles. With those who did play it considering it a Tough Act to Follow from GoldenEye 007. However, with the benefit of hindsight, many now recognize the N64 game as its own beast that outdoes the Playstation version in many ways. With the game getting lauding the game for its rich level design, strong multiplayer, and being one of the most technically impressive games on the Nintendo 64. It’s common nowadays for players to consider the game on par, if not superior, to the much lauded GoldenEye.
in real life. And it is possible to fly a snowmobile with a paraglider