As Bond movies go, this one is okay. I was hoping high-class, high-cred director Michael Apted could do something interesting with this installment, but... well... stuff blows up real nice. Pierce Brosnan is, as usual, very good, and John Cleese, as Q's replacement, is a most welcome addition to the series. Robert Carlyle is good as master villain Renard, though he doesn't have much screen time.
I know I'm not of the right sexual persuasion to judge the, er, assets of the Bond girls (Apted noted wryly, "I had to deliver jiggle, or it would have been my ass"), but this pair really isn't very good. Sophie Marceau, as the misnamed Elektra (check your mythology, guys), is running neck and neck with Julie Delpy for the title of Most Annoying French Actress (actually, she's slightly in the lead, but only because Delpy hasn't made a movie for a while). And Denise Richards playing a nuclear physicist? What are they trying to be, The Saint? I never thought I'd see the actress who could make Elizabeth Shue look believable as a rocket scientist... Besides being dressed to lead an aerobics class rather than defuse bombs, she needs about 10 years to look believable as someone who's got a degree in nuclear physics. Oh well, at least her name -- Dr. Christmas Jones -- is a fine throwback to the days of Honey Ryder, Plenty O'Toole, and Pussy Galore. (And at least she says "nuclear" and not "nuke-u-lar.")
And I know it's a Bond movie, but is it asking too much for it to sustain a little internal logic? In the opening sequence, Bond meets with representatives of a Swiss bank -- in Bilbao, Spain, for no apparent reason other than to show off the new Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim museum (looks fab, by the way). And I must have blinked and missed the part where Bond gets an injection that suddenly, in the middle of a fight, makes him an expert on nuclear submarine reactors.
(By the way, if you read the Washington Post's review, I think the reviewer must have walked out halfway through the movie. There's a lot in the beginning that doesn't seem to make sense, but it mostly comes together at the end. Mostly.)
What the hell -- these things are review-proof anyway. Either you want to see it or you don't, and nothing I or anyone says is going to make a difference. Still, if it means anything, I had a fun time.
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