'Bond 19' Script Review
Will 007's next movie adventure out-do the lackluster Tomorrow Never Dies? Is the Bond movie franchise on the slide? Is the strong cast assembled for The World Is Not Enough a sign that this film has something special going for it? In attempt to answer those questions, yours truly presents a review of what is said to be Dana Stevens' re-write of Neal Purvis and Robert Wade's Bond 19 script done by ‘Vick Halen’. Vick’s review does have potential SPOILERS, so if you would rather not know anything about the film, skip this section.
As with any script review, what you read below will not be entirely reflective of the final product that ends up on film (especially since Bruce Feirstein worked on the script after Stevens), but it may give you some idea of what to expect. Once again, it does have some potential SPOILERS, so, if you are very sensitive to even the lightest sprinkling of plot details, you may want to move on to the next story just to be safe.
Here’s Vick’s review:
Recently, I had the opportunity to thumb through Dana Stevens' rewrite of Purvis and Wade's Bond 19 (that's the title on the script, though it's since been changed to The World Is Not Enough). While I don't consider myself an avid Bond fan, I have enjoyed a number of the films in the 007 series. Of the Brosnan Bonds, I felt that GoldenEye was pretty good, but Tomorrow Never Dies was dreadful. As I cracked open the Bond 19 script, I began to wonder whether the most prolific action franchise ever had finally run out of steam.
It hasn't.
Based on the Dana Stevens draft, I'm proud to report that The World Is Not Enough has the makings of a Bond classic. Two things are at the heart of why TWINE works. One: The villains are engaging characters. Two: Both MI6 and James Bond are vulnerable entities this time around... they can and will come to harm in Bond 19.
Two new and interesting players are introduced into James Bond's world in TWINE: Elektra, the beautiful and cunning daughter of oil tycoon Sir Robert King, and Renard, a feared international terrorist who has bested MI6 a number of times. Elektra and Renard aren't shockingly original characters; elements of their personalities and back stories certainly reflect 007's past nemesis. However, unlike the bad guy from Tomorrow Never Dies (Rupert Murdoch-as-megalomaniacal-psychopath derivative Elliot Carver), they are three-dimensional and you can actually relate, on a certain twisted level, to why they do what they do.
TWINE also establishes dramatic credibility quickly.
In the past I've found some Bond movies hard to enjoy because 007 comes off as a modern day Achilles minus the vulnerable heel. In the Bond 19 pre-titles sequence, the MI6 headquarters is bombed and James Bond himself suffers a serious injury in pursuit of the bomber. Later, M herself is in peril. Couple that with the fact that Renard has a nasty vendetta against M and a knack for knocking off MI6 agents, and the reader gets the impression that the villains can do some real damage in this picture. Sure, 007 isn't going to die, but who is to say, for example, that other series regulars like M will survive ... (Speaking of M, Dame Judi Dench will happily have a much more important role in this film than in the last two).
Okay, I know all of this talk of character development and dramatic credibility must have some Bond fans bored ... so let's talk about the action sequences. Frankly, I found them a little stale in Dana Stevens' draft. Although the sequence where 007 fends off a team of assassins who have come to kill him and presumably Elektra while they are on a skiing outing is well-done and exciting, some of the other action set pieces are a bit flat. But perhaps that's what GoldenEye and TND scribe Bruce Feirstein was brought on to beef up. I realize now that I may have given some of you readers the wrong impression: Don't take all this talk of drama and characters to mean there isn't a truly Bond-ian level of derring-do and explosions in the script -- there certainly is – but that sort of thing doesn't always come across well on paper anyway, so I'll reserve judgment on the action until I see the film itself on the big screen.
Whatever Feirstein does (or perhaps more correctly at this point in time, did) in his rewrite of Dana Stevens' script, I hope he didn't sacrifice the character stuff for even more action. The real strength of The World is Not Enough is the vulnerability of MI6 and the (relative) depth of the villains. The film is also bolstered by a strong cast of actors: Sophie Marceau is an ideal choice for Elektra, and Robert Carlyle is (in my mind) a bit small in stature for Renard, but he can act past that. John Cleese should be a pleasure in the bit part of R and Robbie Coltraine's Valetin Zukovsky has some very good scenes in the film. The only flat character is Denise Richards' Dr. Christmas Jones, but I think theatergoers will forgive the filmmakers for it anyway.
The World Is Not Enough script has re-kindled my interest in the original international man of mystery, and could very well breathe new life into the Bond franchise. I expect that, assuming no dramatic changes have been made in the shooting script, Bond 19 will go down as one of the better movies in the series, and that it will do quite well at the box-office.

Until next time...

"Vick Halen"