Once again, nobody had recommended this flick to me, broadly or personally. Nor was I interested back when it came out, if only because I hadn't really "discovered" James Bond yet. But after some pretty depressing viewings in a depressing period, I wanted to return to a franchise that usually avoided such a feeling -- pre-reboot, anyway. Disappointment was still possible, of course.
In the off chance that you're interested in the plot, it begins with James (Pierce Brosnan) stealing back the cash of old millionaire Sire Robert King (David Calder), only to realize too late that the thieves wanted him to take it back in order to trigger a subtle death trap. King was funding an extensive Southwest Asian oil pipeline that rivals would want to sabotage, so M (Dame Judi Dench) assigns James to stay close to King's daughter, Elektra (Sophie Marceau). We all know how close James likes to get to a beautiful woman, but he may get more than he bargained for....
From said trap, James gets a shoulder injury that should perforce relieve him of duty, but he is determined to make up for his failure and has a way with Dr. Molly Warmflash (Serena Scott Thomas), don't you know. Turns out he'll be up against another injured man, one who uses his own injury to his ironic advantage: Terrorist Renard (Robert Carlyle) has a bullet in his brain that makes him feel neither pain nor a will to live much longer. Yup, yet another physically abnormal Bond villain. So much for the derision I'd heard about this entry being overly PC. (Looking back, that source may have been envisioning a facetious Bond flick rather than claiming that the latest fit the bill.)
And since two carnal interests with extraordinary names aren't enough for one Bond flick, we have Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards), who shows full awareness of her name's quality. As an American nuclear engineer, she kinda sticks out among the predominantly Russian workers.
On that note, if anything other than Bond being wounded for most of the story stands out here, it's the final appearance of Desmond Llewelyn as Agent Q, who's retiring and selecting a goofy replacement (John Cleese, whom I'd see in Die Another Day). Incidentally, Llewellyn died a month after the U.S. release, so this was just in time. I'm afraid neither quartermaster actor is at his funniest herein, nor are their gadgets especially innovative.
Another notable facet is the extended appearance of Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane). Formerly a bitter enemy of James, he gets his hands dirtier and lends more support than he did in GoldenEye, however reluctantly. I dare say the tortured James would have been hard pressed to win otherwise. (For those who have already seen it, I didn't intend a pun there.)
Speaking of puns, James doesn't drop any tasteless one-liners after killing a henchman. He makes a hint of one right before the henchman survives for the moment after all, but that's it. This may have to do with a lack of particularly horrible deaths.
I'm not complaining. Brosnan may not be quite as Bond-like as before, but he makes up for it in resourcefulness and emotion. Furthermore, the movie makes up for it with decent action sequences, a rare twist I didn't see coming, and the last theme song in the series that I truly liked. The '99 CGI hasn't aged well, but at least the concepts it conveys work for me.
Would I put TWINE in the upper half? Maybe, maybe not. It's hard for me to judge when I did most of my viewings in my teens and early 20s. But it gave me what I came for.
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