Eh, one more for the road; I think you\'ll appreciate this.
I saw The World Is Not Enough twice, once with my mom, and once with a rowdy couple of college friends. During the bit on the end where an endlessly long pole is being seemingly eternally inserted a few inches at a time into a reactor, we were joking about the phallic symbolism, and when Bond contrives to have it fired out of the reactor, impaling the bad guy through the chest, we burst out laughing for minutes on end.
Honestly, I never thought much about this movie. Having been disappointed with Tomorrow Never Dies (even if it\'s poignant as hell today) I went to watch this movie without many good expectations, and somehow, I was still disappointed because they killed Valentin. I really liked the dynamic between Bond (a sanctioned agent of the UK) and Valentin (a rogue mobster of the USSR), polar opposites who were still friends and could have cooperated a lot.
Anyway, reading your review did make me realize that, yeah, I agree, it could have been a great Bond movie. I do agree with all your points, though I feel the whole shebang about the plutonium rods was needlessly complex ending up goofy, though I chalk this to following trends and trying to surpass competitors. Fighting a guy that can feel no pain in order to stop a nuclear detonation with a simple bomb would be more than enough. Overall, Brosnan is my favorite Bond, but the material handled to him was just... sad.
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Too Much Caution Leaves a Potentially Great Film Mediocre
So here’s a film I have quite a bit more to say about. TWINE is a fascinating film to talk about because it could’ve been amazing, but wasn’t. It has so many great ideas, but it fails to commit to them. It could’ve been Brosnan’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, his Casino Royale. Instead it ended up retreating into the standard tropes of the series and settling for being mediocre.
Be warned, this will be filled with spoilers. If you care about that sort of thing, turn back now.
So let’s start with the basic concept of the movie. Bond falls in love with a woman who is secretly the main villainess. That is a fantastic hook. And it starts off extraordinarily well. Pierce Brosnan is on top Bond form in this film, capturing a human side of his Bond we haven’t seen this fully before while still being effortlessly stylish and cool. And his chemistry with Sophie Marceau is electric. The two are dynamite on screen together making for a very believable romantic tension at the beginning of the film.
Unfortunately, there’s a problem. Rather than committing to the idea that there’s a true romance between the two and Elektra is more than just Bond’s latest conquest, the movie fumbles the ball. At first Elektra is the one making advances on Bond, and he’s the one trying to distance himself from her both out of professionalism and a growing affection. But then the next scene we see them in, the two are inexplicably in bed together. This is a huge detriment because it leaves the movie without the scene that should be the emotional anchor of this story: Bond finally succumbing to Elektra. It makes their romance feel cheaper, it clashes with the established characterization, and it makes the twist less impactful. In short, the most important scene of the movie is missing.
But that’s only Strike 1. Strikes 2 and 3 come when they introduce the actual main love interest for the movie, Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards). Strike 2 is including another love interest at all when the dynamic between Bond and Elektra was so much more interesting. It further cheapens that relationship and adds in the problem of the movie walking back its risks. The third strike is the casting. Now, I don’t take issue with a young, beautiful woman like Denise Richards playing a nuclear physicist. The Bond franchise has a history of this sort of thing, and Bond himself isn’t exactly realistic in looks or age. My issue is that Richard's performance is just bad. It’s not the worst we’ll see in this series, but it is notably wooden. Some of her lines don’t help, but the fact is that she was clearly stunt casting.
Now, in a vacuum there’s nothing wrong with the Christmas Jones character (besides the name, of course). The problem is that her character is the embodiment of the film’s failure to commit to its bolder ideas. Bond falls in love with a villain! Except not really because there’s another love interest waiting for him. Bond starts off the movie badly injured and vulnerable! It doesn’t really end up mattering beyond a handful of token mentions. Bond has to face a villain who feels no pain! And it doesn’t really matter because their fight ends up being pretty standard. There are so many points where this movie could’ve been so great, and instead it got in its own way.
And that’s pretty much TWINE in a nutshell. A great story that kneecapped itself into being mediocre. It isn’t a bad movie. It’s a disappointing movie. And in the end, that’s almost worse.