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The recurring characters are given particularly nice bits. This is the first time Samantha Bond has made an impression as Miss Moneypenny (though nothing can keep me from pining for Lois Maxwell). Judi Dench's M has been given a bigger role to play, the better for us all to bask in her authority. I can't think of another actor who could deliver the line "We will follow them to the furthest ends of the Earth if need be and bring them to justice," and not sound like a cardboard cutout. In a lovely nod to the actor who proceeded her in the role of M, an oil portrait of Bernard Lee hangs over her desk.

I wish there were more for Michael Kitchen as M's assistant, but someone had the very bright idea of casting John Cleese as the protégé of Desmond Llewelyn's Q. It's an inspired choice: They share the same dotty disdain. And Llewelyn has been given a charming, fleeting scene with 007 where he seems to be taking the bow he's earned after 17 appearances and nearly 40 years in the series.

Brosnan's another matter. He could probably play Bond at a masquerade party or in a comedy sketch. But it's almost about impossible to detect any of the character's cool sadism or sensual gusto or just plain dirty-mindedness in him. You don't even get any of the self-parody that finally made Roger Moore rather endearing. Brosnan delivers the double-entendres in the manner of a man who's trying to teach himself to swear; you just feel embarrassed by him. Imagine Sean Connery delivering the line Brosnan hands Richards as they sit on a balcony in Istanbul -- "I've alwaysh drr'eamed of having Chrishmash in Trr'key" -- and you'll be laughing for days. Brosnan was so good in "The Thomas Crown Affair" because the role allowed for his finicky quality. As Bond, he continues to be a good-looking stand-in rather than a star.

You wouldn't want to see a top-flight director with a distinctive personal style at the helm of a Bond movie. You want someone whose work is clean and efficient, adept at keeping the thing moving along and balancing the ratio of silly to serious. Apart from the ongoing documentary series (whose latest entry is "42 Up") and the first half of "Coal Miner's Daughter," Michael Apted has never had a style that is either distinctive or personal. I was grateful in the early scenes that, unlike Roger Spottiswoode in "Tomorrow Never Dies," Apted shot and cut the action sequences so you could follow what was going on. But it doesn't take long for his dull, somewhat somnambulant anonymity to take over.

The movie feels about a half-hour longer than its 128-minute running time, and though the story is fairly simple, it's complicatedly told. By the time Apted launches into the big, final set piece, it feels as if you've been in your seat for hours, and yet it all happens before you've had a chance to care. He's also not especially gifted at violence. Maybe in deference to the wrongheaded attempt to make the series more "realistic," the fight scenes have a lot of grunting and thudding rather than the swift painlessness that should characterize a Bond fight.

How hard can it be to make a good Bond movie? The best are little disreputable miracles, the lucky combination of craft and keying into the pop moment. There must be brisk, efficient directors out there who are capable of finding the right pace and tone. And there must be screenwriters who can come up with the right mix of smut and sophistication. There are plenty of worse disappointments this year than "The World Is Not Enough," but those disappointments don't have nearly four decades of audience affection built into them. Maybe it's time to start saying "God Save James Bond." The new Bond films bear the same relation to the originals as those MCI ads do to the original Looney Tunes.
salon.com | Nov. 19, 1999

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