Special Category

To the credit of James Bond film producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, they realized that recycling a storyline with Russian antagonists or other satellites of communism, was stale even several years after the Berlin Wall fell. But in its place, the big Bond villain was a Serbian national of sorts named Renard, who was shot in the head, and the bullet, still lodged in his brain, made him magically impervious to pain.

When it comes to The World is Not Enough, the ideas and aspirations (the script was written by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade) were fairly lofty, and the directing choice (Michael Apted of Gorky Park fame) was interesting. In this installment, Pierce Brosnan reprises his role as 007, this time following the death of a wealthy English businessman whose daughter (played by Sophie Marceau, Braveheart) was kidnapped and held for ransom. How does Renard play into it? Well, he's holding the daughter for ransom, part of a larger plot to control the world's oil supply.

Admittedly after George Lazenby left the James Bond franchise when On Her Majesty's Secret Service was released, producers Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli wanted to go with a more American-based Bond in their seventh film, and were pretty serious in their intent. At one time, Adam West (yes, Batman) was even involved in negotiations to play the part. Actor John Gavin (Psycho) was signed and sealed for the role a week before principal photography started. But Sean Connery was pitched for it, a bunch of money was thrown at him, and he went upon his merry way to reprise the role that made him famous.

In this film, which was adapted from Ian Fleming's novel by Richard Maibaum (Goldfinger) and Tom Mankiewicz (Live and Let Die) and directed by Guy Hamilton (The Man with the Golden Gun), James finds himself at the beginning of the film thwarting yet another attempt at world domination, this time by Blofeld (Charles Gray, who ironically played a Bond ally in You Only Live Twice). SPECTRE does make a larger plan though, with the planned kidnapping and impersonation of a mysterious and reclusive Las Vegas-based millionaire, in order to proceed with nuclear testing with the goal of mutually based destruction.

Once Roger Moore left the Bond franchise (some would say three or four films too late), quite a few things left with him. When Timothy Dalton, whose most well-known work before this was an excellent supporting turn in The Lion in Winter, was brought in, several things seemed to change. First and perhaps most notably, the return of a James Bond that smoked cigarettes was most startling. Second, supporting characters like Lois Maxwell (who played Miss Moneypenny) and Bernard Lee (M) were replaced with younger, fresher (?) perspectives. Was all this change in the perspective of "modernizing" Bond worth it? Well, Dalton's role in The Living Daylights was the first of two Bond films, so easy come, easy go I guess.

In this installment, based on an Ian Fleming story that was adapted to a screenplay by current Bond producer Michael Wilson and Richard Maibaum (Diamonds are Forever), James helps a Russian general (played by Jeroen Krabbe, The Fugitive) defect to England from Russia, but he is unfortunately reacquired by the KGB and kidnapped. James is dispatched to Russia to kill the Russian general that was presumably behind it (played by John Rhys-Davies, The Lord of the Rings), and along the way encounters a beautiful musician named Kara Milovy (Maryam D'Abo, White Nights), who is also reaching out to the defecting general.