James Bond in review - The World Is Not Enough (Michael Apted, 1999)

"I could have given you the world"
"The world is not enough!"
"Foolish sentiment"
"Family motto!"

The 19th Bond adventure, released in November 1999, allowed Pierce Brosnan's Bond and his audience to say goodbye to the century that saw the birth of our fictional hero and 37 years of the Bond films. The promise over the end titles was for Bond to inevitably return in the new Millennium (in foresight we now know that Bond's 20th adventure left a lot to be desired and kind of made us wish we could just have The World Is Not Enough on repeat!) but onto the film itself.

Bond bids an unprecedented goodbye to Desmond Llewellyn's long standing Q

Brosnan actually feels at home with the character in his third outing. It's a fairly tight story but with enough fluidity and creativity to allow for movement. There are some well rounded characters, a thrilling extended pre-credits sequence (to date, still the longest in the series' history and probably will remain that way) and some superb action sequences and final bows for a couple of characters, including one obvious stalwart who made his first appearance back in 1963 in From Russia With Love; the beloved and dearly missed Desmond Llewellyn. It was Barbara Broccoli who realised the plot elements - oil tycoons in the East. The story dominated the news in the late 1990s and would seem to provide a different and complex narrative for the latest Bond adventure. The film is a game of cat and mouse - Bond trying to work out whether the captive and the captor are in alliance or whether Renard is actually out to get Elektra. Carlyle and Marceau in that respect are some of the best villains in the Brosnan Bond films. The idea of a character feeling no pain until the day he dies seems fairly unique for this franchise and most of all it seems believable in the Bond macrocosm.

Robert Carlyle plays Renard with understated menace but is he the main villain?

There are some negative elements. Though far from the worst Bond girl in the series, Denise Richards' aptly named Christmas Jones is one little present you would only want to unwrap once a year. To have her around you for too long would drive you insane with her screeching accent and her nonsense dialogue - if she is supposed to be a nuclear scientist then I could be the next James Bond! Goldie playing Zukovsky's side man is also another highly superfluous character who is a waste of screen time when you'd rather be seeing more of the wonderful Judi Dench, who incidentally has the most to do here in any of Brosnan's Bond films.

Denise Richards and Sophie Marceau as the film's female leads - Christmas Jones and Elektra King

Whilst this isn't amazing Bond fare, it's also far from the worst as some have described it. We have an often taut and intelligent Bond film with some eye candy, exotic locations, good humour and once again some of the finest actors working in the business. As regrettable as it sounds, before the reboot with Casino Royale we have to watch Brosnan's swansong in Die Another Day. Suddenly, TWINE seems like a masterpiece!