134 replies to this topic

[Qwerty]

Still an average film. Nothing much has really changed about it for me personally. I think Brosnan played the role fair enough. I'm quite fond of the delicious performance by Sophie Marceau as Elektra King, although I consider Renard to be strongly underdeveloped and a bit wasted at times.

The plot works enough for me, although it could have been better -- how exactly I'm not sure. A bit dramatized at times, but I don't condemn the film like the majority.

[Jim]

Still an average film. Nothing much has really changed about it for me personally. I think Brosnan played the role fair enough. I'm quite fond of the delicious performance by Sophie Marceau as Elektra King, although I consider Renard to be strongly underdeveloped and a bit wasted at times.

The plot works enough for me, although it could have been better -- how exactly I'm not sure. A bit dramatized at times, but I don't condemn the film like the majority.

So, sitting on the fence for a change, then?

[Tarl_Cabot]

We make a stand now or there will be no one left to go back to the chopter.

[Qwerty]

Still an average film. Nothing much has really changed about it for me personally. I think Brosnan played the role fair enough. I'm quite fond of the delicious performance by Sophie Marceau as Elektra King, although I consider Renard to be strongly underdeveloped and a bit wasted at times.

The plot works enough for me, although it could have been better -- how exactly I'm not sure. A bit dramatized at times, but I don't condemn the film like the majority.

So, sitting on the fence for a change, then?

Call it what you desire. I'm not one of the many that dislikes all bits of it.

[Bon-san]

I do, however, seem to have an internal barometer that trips when enough is enough.

Fair enough, Bon-san, but then again, where is the gun being held to your head forcing you to read this thread?

Not that I'm saying you're not welcome. But how about some counterargument, not just complaint? I presume you consider TWINE at least okay. Very well, then: tell us why you think it's good.

Oh, I'm going to be held accountable for my pretentious posturing am I?

Well, it is rather a chore to mount a formidable defense of TWINE. Earlier this year, I posted this:

"TWINE seems to be the whipping boy of the moment. I don't resent it like so many here seem to. In fact, there's a lot I like in it [Some actual plot, a lot of good stuff at Mi6, Coltrane, Carlyle and Sophie, Sophie, Sophie]

It seems to get dinged primarily for two things:

1) lacking fluidity;

2) Denise Richards.

As to the former, Moonraker was reviled for years by CBN'ers and it's the most fluid of all Bond films. While Thunderball has always rated highly, yet it is ssslllooowww.

As to Denise, I say, get over it. It's a Bond film. Is she really any less convincing as a scientist than, say, Daniela Bianchi was as a spy? And does it really matter anyway? I mean, crying foul over this lack of "realism" in a series where every bartender on earth knows the preferred drink of a "secret" agent.... "

Which is actually a pretty lame post, and it doesn't really address all of your and Tarl's list of beefs.

Perhaps I'll come up with something a bit more compelling later!

[Loomis]

It seems to get dinged primarily for two things:

1) lacking fluidity;

2) Denise Richards.

As to the former, Moonraker was reviled for years by CBN'ers and it's the most fluid of all Bond films. While Thunderball has always rated highly, yet it is ssslllooowww.

Seems to me that there are plenty of CBners who prefer MOONRAKER to THUNDERBALL, and I myself enjoy the former more than the latter. What do you mean by "fluidity"? A fast pace? It's true that THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH is comparatively "ssslllooowww", but that's not the problem for me (and I don't think it's the problem for most CBners who dislike the film, either) - so are FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. The problem is that it's messy and incoherent, or is that what you're referring to by a lack of fluidity?

As to Denise, I say, get over it. It's a Bond film. Is she really any less convincing as a scientist than, say, Daniela Bianchi was as a spy? And does it really matter anyway? I mean, crying foul over this lack of "realism" in a series where every bartender on earth knows the preferred drink of a "secret" agent.... "

Yeah, I have absolutely no problem with Denise Richards/Dr Christmas Jones. The lack of "realism" in TWINE doesn't annoy me; in fact, I wish the film had less "realism" in it. Bond films should be fun, escapist romps, full of bright colours, for rainy Sunday afternoons - TWINE is a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Hope that's not too pretentious/OTT for you, Bon-san.

[Simon]

As to Denise, I say, get over it. It's a Bond film. Is she really any less convincing as a scientist than, say, Daniela Bianchi was as a spy?

I don't think it is just Richards per se, so much as Richards in a Bond film purporting to be FRWL.

If she was in Mr, then the whole is consistent. It's the mish mash of content that includes stupidity with Drama.

Also, she totally clashes with Marceau who exudes sensuality and maturity, when all Richards can muster, obvious beauty notwithstanding, is squeaky clean adolescence.

[Simon]

Call it what you desire.

Could I call it the "medium sliced white bread of posts"?

ie. bland, devoid of content, but fills a gap.

Marks out of ten?

[Loomis]

I don't think it is just Richards per se, so much as Richards in a Bond film purporting to be FRWL.

If she was in Mr, then the whole is consistent.  It's the mish mash of content that includes stupidity with Drama.

Agreed. There's also the point that Richards is in the film purely because MGM insisted on the presence of an American Bond girl played by a reasonably well-known American actress (see also Teri Hatcher in TOMORROW NEVER DIES; no doubt there are other examples, such as Halle Berry in DIE ANOTHER DAY).

Oh, well, I still don't mind Richards in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH. As freemo stated on another thread recently, not only is she not the worst thing about the film, she's not even the twelfth worst thing.

[Turn]

Denise Richards spouting lines like "Somebody's gonna have my butt" and save the jokes about my name and all that is far more defined and less in-your-face than Jinx with her "Your mamma" and other lame lines throughout DAD. Eye candy hot babe to bring in the younger audiences in the wake of Wild Things. Plain and simple.

[Simon]

There really should be a thread detailing what is good about the film - I feel it would be focused, concise and to the point.

[Jim]

It's the mish mash of content that includes stupidity with Drama.

Bang on.

And whilst other Bond films aren't free of this problem, it's probably because these two characteristics are overemphasised that the seams begin to unravel and it collapses.

Is this a film where:

The consequences of being brutally abandoned by an inconsiderate father engineers psychopathic revenge, a film where damaged persons, Bond included (both literally and figuratively), search for meaning and define themselves by their reactions and inactions to and with others, where the culpabilities of the organs of the state lead to sociopathic predispostions amongst the innocent and everyone comes off as compromised in some way?

or

A film where a big fat man falls into a vat of caviar and a little speedboat does cartwheels and a big-chested lass with an absurd name does fings wiv bombs?

It just doesn't know what it is. Schizophrenic (and unless this is life imitating (cough) "art" by making the film and the leading female "character" dual natured - that would be a joke too far), whilst there are moments in either of the two films that it appears to be that more or less work (-ish; the acting ain't hot, especially that toe curling "I curldn't leev in fear" guff or whatever it is that the Shockingly Obvious Villain says, and the action sequences don't make much sense when thought about for more than a minute (and because they tend to drag out, there is time to think about them)), it's editing these two films together that just doesn't work. Given the self-confidence on show in the preceding two films, which pretty much do exactly what they say on the tin, the producers simply overreached themselves with this one and it shows. Whilst the idea of making a low-key "Bond story" appeals to me, it's making a low-key $100 million "Bond film" with approximately seven explosions in the first ten minutes alone and some gratuitous perving with x-ray specs and some grotty tricked up ladies' car that renders it all a bit...hopeless, really.

On reflection, it was probably worth a go and I only write that because it wasn't my $100 million they were spending, but it ain't much of a Bond film. With DUD, they still made two films but didn't keeping swapping between the two, just a serious hour then a catastrophically stupid hour, so the constant varying in tone doesn't render one dizzy. Accordingly, a bit more successful. Perhaps next time they'll make a totally serious one or a totally stupid one.

[Jim]

There really should be a thread detailing what is good about the film - I feel it would be focused, concise and to the point.

The burst of the Bond theme when the boat leaps from MI6 into the water.
Denise Richards behaving as if she were in a Bond film - the only one who does.
The nice music and quasi-epic photography in the skiing bit before the parahawks arrive for some unknown reason.
The fun torture scene.

Can't think of anything else but to give it credit, that was more than I was expecting when starting this post. I might be a "secret TWINE liker" and simply in denial. Or maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome.

[Simon]

Well, I guess that's that then.

And I was going to give Qwerty a chance to hammer the bullet points home.

[Loomis]

A terrific post by Jaelle (http://debrief.comma...pic=12573&st=90):

People keep raving about (Bond shooting Elektra) but I just don't get it. Not for one moment do I ever believe that Bond loved this woman (or cared for her in any substantive way) nor do I for one moment believe that he felt anything in particular when he had to kill her. The whole "relationhship" between them never rises above a lot of histrionics and phony poignancy and emotion. The scene where he shoots her just comes off as wholly empty, hyped up into something that supposedly has emotional impact but that never rises above empty, vapid cliche.

Tale the scene where Bond watches her on the computer screen talking about her kidnapping--I'm supposed to believe he's somehow touched by her and what she went thru. It reeks of fakery, obvious pedantry, totally unsubtle, pretentious, sophomoric writing. Something out of a Star Trek fanzine. I just think "why am I supposed to believe that Bond is suddenly so emotionally touched by this woman's experience?"

...

I've seen the film five times now and I STILL can't figure out Elektra in the least. I can't feel for her, I don't understand her. She's the most pretentious bit of nonsense I've yet seen in a Bond film. Like most of the film, I'm told a lot of confused, idiotic psychogibberish about her character but I never see anything except a lot of vapid acting from Marceau. I've read praise about Marceau's acting skills (including from Tim Dalton when he dated her in the early 90s) but I saw none of it in TWINE. I find her incredibly opaque and prosaic a performer, I laugh at her when she goes on about "my people" (that whole scene looks and sounds like something out of a Buck Rogers comic book from the 30s) and she never, ever convinces me for one minute. I don't believe for one moment that she's an heiress of a Central Asian tycoon, she never comes off as just some beautiful European actress playing a mess of a part. I still don't fully understand her whole character, her motivation, her supposedly diabolical plan, and so on. At least I get Christmas Jones.

...

Renard? Oh please. Another mess of a character. The only good thing I can say about him is that this is a rare Bond film in which I actually ROOT for the villain -- Renard, not Bond. Carlyle successfully makes Renard so pathetic and pitiful that I can't help but feel sorry for him. I'm supposed to believe that he's this incredibly dangerous anarchist terrorist, when he's just a big phony. Nick Nack was more scary than this guy.

...

The problem overall has to do with the weakness of the script, which seems to me to be a first draft that never got re-written. There are some interesting character development ideas in the script but they never get fleshed out into anything I can grasp or make sense of, anything that resonates as real or genuine. It all proceeds like a couple of high school students wanting to make a more meaningful Bond film with real character development. They have some interesting ideas but their hamstrung by a lot of conventional, half-baked notions that they just pour into the script without much thought, hoping it'll all make some sense. It's an incredibly amateurish script.

...

Other things that just make me want to cringe are the awful, awful dialogue -- the terrible puns and jokes come one after another after another without mercy (especially in the first section of the film) that I just want to turn off the sound! There's another thing about TWINE that I really can't stand, and that's the ideological pedantry and self-righteousness.

In none of the previous Bond films did you ever see M or the defense minister or Bond himself launch into a self-righteous speech laced with ideological morally upright claptrap. In TWINE we get this cr-p about "we never negotiate with terrorists" (which western governments always do and sometimes successfully) and a lot of moralistic dialogue about Renard's activities. Yet we barely see any real evidence of his evil nature. He mostly stands around spouting forgettable dialogue.

Contrast that with, say, the early Connery films when the no-nonsense M, Bond and company just busied themselves with getting the job done, fighting a ruthless enemy, and didn't pause to hit the audience over the head with morally self-righteous BS. I hate that kind of writing and I hate listening to someone spout it.

[Jim]

Well, I guess that's that then.

And I was going to give Qwerty a chance to hammer the bullet points home.

Well, I wouldn't want to deprive the lad of having the opportunity to shine, so I withdraw from the conversation.

[Turn]

...

Renard? Oh please. Another mess of a character. The only good thing I can say about him is that this is a rare Bond film in which I actually ROOT for the villain -- Renard, not Bond. Carlyle successfully makes Renard so pathetic and pitiful that I can't help but feel sorry for him. I'm supposed to believe that he's this incredibly dangerous anarchist terrorist, when he's just a big phony. Nick Nack was more scary than this guy.

Hey, he's got a big scar on his face and a buzz haircut. He has a bullet in his head and can hold hot rocks and put his fist through tables. You aren't scared of this?

[Jim]

...

Renard? Oh please. Another mess of a character. The only good thing I can say about him is that this is a rare Bond film in which I actually ROOT for the villain -- Renard, not Bond. Carlyle successfully makes Renard so pathetic and pitiful that I can't help but feel sorry for him. I'm supposed to believe that he's this incredibly dangerous anarchist terrorist, when he's just a big phony. Nick Nack was more scary than this guy.

Hey, he...can hold hot rocks.... You aren't scared of this?

Ooh...hot rocks...

No.

Compared to metal teeth biting thru yer jugular, it's not much of a talent is it?

[Loomis]

He can hold the hot rocks and not feel any pain. Okay, I'll buy that, since he has a bullet in his brain and, according to the film, that's something that turns people into indefatigable superheroes.

(And it's moving through the medulla oblongata, we're told - how come the ****er's moving? Do we have any doctors or ballistics experts here at CBn?)

But I have a small question: why no burning, smoking flesh when he wraps his mitts round these rocks?

Wait! I guess I'm calling for "realism" in this Bond film - silly me.

[Turn]

EON likely hired Carlisle off his performance of Begby in Trainspotting. That is a truly frightening character. Maybe because he was based somewhat in reality, and I'm sure most of us have known or seen guys like him.

They throw on some makeup and tell us these scary stories and we're automatically supposed to be afraid of Renard. Funny that I still find Red Grant the most frightening Bond villain of all, mostly because he stalks silently and doesn't say anything until the final third of the film. You can tell without having to be given too much information.

[Loomis]

I still find Red Grant the most frightening Bond villain of all

Same here. He has quite an amount of backstory in the novel, which the film does without very nicely. Not saying that what Fleming wrote re: Grant is bad, but I reckon that if they were adapting the book today they'd thwack us over the head with all that business about being driven crazy by the moon.

[Jim]

Wait! I guess I'm calling for "realism" in this Bond film - silly me.

You big naughty, you.

So - it's your fault, is it?

[Max Zorin]

The problem with Renard is he (like much of the movie) is inconsistent. Take the final fight for example, a scene that could have been so much more than it was. If the man feels no pain, why does he flinch and stagger every time Bond hits him? Why does he allow himself to be knocked out? And here's an idea I've always liked...when Renard takes the pipe in the stomach, I always thought it would have been cool for him to simply pull it back out, and resume putting it back into it's place. Impossible? Absolutely. But a stomach wound, while fatal, takes a long time to kill a man. And if a man feels no pain, it shouldn't really bother him. (However I'm aware that it probably pierced a vital organ, or may even have broken his spine...but still, it would have been a cool scene.)

[Tarl_Cabot]

great Post from Jealle. I don't recall reading it before...

[Double-Oh-Zero]

S'ok, I suppose (the fillum, not Jaelle's post, which is very well stated).

I enjoy the movie less than when I first saw it in theatres, although admittedly, I was a wide-eyed newcomer to the world of Bond at the time, and it was the first one I saw at the 'pictures. I was pretty much just caught up in the experience.

Anyway, I've come to accept it as a dreary, melodramatic soap opera jiggered into a Bond film. It has it's moments, even though most of 'em don't present themselves until the end of the film. The torture scene springs to mind, as well as Bullion and Zukovsky's final reappearance.

There are some good action sequences, although they are all horrendously out of place with the slow, deliberate pacing of the film. Except for, fittingly, the opening credit sequence. The bunker, skiing, and caviar factory action sequences are all well done, but are marred by their lack of reason for being there (the ski chase especially).

One funny thing I just realised was the sheer absurdity in the scene when we cut to Elektra in her room, and we hear a thunk. The camera cuts to Bond standing over Gabor, who is now unconscious. It's really quite funny when you take into account Bond is legally handicapped for the majority of the film and acts like a wuss, and the fact that the guy he took out is twice his size.

Anyway, there's me two cents, for whatever it's worth. Less than two cents, I anticipate.

[Qwerty]

Still an average film. Nothing much has really changed about it for me personally. I think Brosnan played the role fair enough. I'm quite fond of the delicious performance by Sophie Marceau as Elektra King, although I consider Renard to be strongly underdeveloped and a bit wasted at times.

The plot works enough for me, although it could have been better -- how exactly I'm not sure. A bit dramatized at times, but I don't condemn the film like the majority.

Call it what you desire.

Could I call it the "medium sliced white bread of posts"?

ie. bland, devoid of content, but fills a gap.

Marks out of ten?

Well, I guess that's that then.

And I was going to give Qwerty a chance to hammer the bullet points home.

Looks like it's your choice anyways Simon.

I don't have a problem with this film. Maybe that's the problem here, I'm one of the few on CBn that likes this movie. I like Pierce Brosnan in this film as James Bond. I like Pierce Brosnan, as simple as that. He looks very good as Bond in this film having lost a bit of weight. I think he has some great chemistry with Sophie Marceau, that's how I see it. There is good tension between the two of them leading up to when her real intentions are understood by Bond.

I used to condemn Denise Richard's Christmas Jones as being an incredulous character in this film, but I'vw grown to like her more. In the time where we've had the Bond women that "can do anything" that Bond does, Jinx being the example, Christmas Jones is a Bond girl delivering nothing more than she promises. She's attractive, more of a Bond girl than a Bond woman and gets generous screentime. I'm not saying she's a great Bond girl, or one of the better ones, she isn't. But I don't think her character is a full on terrible mistake in this film. I don't like Renard much, I do not believe the "feel no pain" theory was fully developed in this film and I would have liked to see a better effort. Doubt we will though now that we've had this. As I see it, Elektra is the better villain of the two and clearly the devious and more mysterious of the two.

The action sequences of the film appear at times to just be in the film...to just be there I guess. Yes, I think some better editting could have been done. The ski chase is okay I suppose, nothing spectacular.

I think the film is over dramatized as times, and it does get a tad bland compared to the past two Bond films GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies which I favor more. That said, I like to watch The World Is Not Enough and it doesn't pain me to do so.

[Max Zorin]

That's a fair assessment there, Qwert. I think the main problem with TWINE isn't that it was a "bad" film...it was that it was a "nothing" film. It's certainly not up to the standards set by other Bond films, but it's not quite bad enough to be a "fun" film either. (Re: John Waters.)

Oh well. If nothing else, at least it's marginally better than DAD. The second half, anyways.

[[dark]]

Y'know, for all these complaints against The World Is Not Enough, I'd think we were talking about For Your Eyes Only.

Think about it.

For Your Eyes Only is, in my opinion, far more unbalanced. Bond kicks a car off a cliff in the same film as a teenage girl hits on him. Bond scales a cliff face in a dead serious sequence in the same film he drops Blofeld down a chimney stack complete with a slide whistle effect [but not before patting his head and telling him to keep his hair on]. A woman is brutally mowed down by a car on the beach in the same film that Bond relies on a talking parrot to complete his mission. You get my point. These are far sillier than Zukovsky falling into a vat of caviar or Christmas coming more than once a year.

And on that note, am I the only one who finds For Your Eyes Only's Cassandra Harris far more irritating than Denise Richards? Looks, mannerisms, voice... Richards has it in spades over Harris, even if her acting is pretty poor. For what it's worth, I'd rather her character didn't exist and the film ended with Bond alone, having killed Elektra.

And on that note, I admire the filmmakers attempts to craft a film that pushed the envelope in terms of the Bond character, but at the same time retaining the hallmarks of the more famous Bond films - the one-liners, the big action sequences. Yes, the ski chase pales in comparison to anything in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me, A View To A Kill and probably even For Your Eyes Only, but at least it tried something new. As did the helicopter bit [Arnold's accompanying score is my all-time favourite Bond cue], the bunker sequence and the terrific pipeline setpiece. I don't have a problem with the film's balance at all, either. It's far more lively than For Your Eyes Only and the finely-acted scenes [particularly those featuring Brosnan and Marceau] are highlights of the film, as well as the action scenes.

And on that note, the acting in the film is, on the whole, wonderful. Sophie Marceau steals the show as the mischievious Elektra and Brosnan turns in his best Bond performance of his era [nothing against Rog's in For Your Eyes Only]. He looks his best in this film, and he's finally found his own interpretation of the character. It mightn't be Fleming, but it's a damn side closer than Roger Moore [nothing against Rog himself]. Robert Carlyle's Renard is, yes, underdeveloped, but he still makes a fine impression. Robbie Coltrane effortlessly picks up where he left off in GoldenEye ["I'm looking for a submarine; it's big, black and the driver is a very good friend of mine!"]. And I may be the only one, but I welcomed a larger role in Dench's "M". Goldie may have been a slightly lacklustre henchman, but Maria Grazia Cucinotta is memorable as the Cigar Girl.

In all, in my opinion, a fine - and different - Bond film. Not flawless, but it works. I hope that, in time, fans will re-appraise the film to give it its due.

[Jim]

For Your Eyes Only is, in my opinion, far more unbalanced.  Bond kicks a car off a cliff in the same film as a teenage girl hits on him.  Bond scales a cliff face in a dead serious sequence in the same film he drops Blofeld down a chimney stack complete with a slide whistle effect [but not before patting his head and telling him to keep his hair on].  A woman is brutally mowed down by a car on the beach in the same film that Bond relies on a talking parrot to complete his mission.  You get my point.  These are far sillier than Zukovsky falling into a vat of caviar or Christmas coming more than once a year.

Not untrue; FYEO does suffer from very similar problems (as does Octopussy). However, TWINE in its "serious" bits takes itself so very terribly seriously whereas the other two don't quite fall into the trap of the descent into such introspective melodramatics.

But everything's subjective anyway.

[Qwerty]

And on that note, am I the only one who finds For Your Eyes Only's Cassandra Harris far more irritating than Denise Richards?

Definitely not.