THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH Ultimate Edition

DVD Review by David Blackwell

DETAILS: 128 minutes, two audio commentaries, deleted scenes, extended and alternate boat chase scenes, featurettes, interactive TIWNE guide, featurettes, trailers, music video, and more

STUDIO: MGM. EON/ SPHE/ TCFHE

RELEASE DATE: 11-7-2006

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH is one of the two great James Bond films starring Pierce Brosnan (the other is TOMORROW NEVER DIES). It has a great boat chase, other great action sequences, deception, two beutiful bond girls, and a little mroe character depth than usual for the James Bond films.

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH has James Bond out to protect an oilheiress, Elektra King (Sophie Marceau), from the terrorist Renard (Robert Caryle) who once kidnapped her. Renard wants to disrupt the oil pipeline to the Black Sea while stealing a nuclear warhead. He feels no pain as a bulet stuck in his brain slowly kills him. James Bond gets help from a nuclear physicist, Christmas Jones (the beautiful Denise Richards who is the weak link of the cast).

Many people come down on this underrated entry in the Bond series, but it is one of the better and more realistic entries. James Bond is a little more human in this film while charcter development takes it's time in fleshing out who everyone is and their motives. The Thames boat chase is the big action highlight, but the 19th entry is a solid entry that never falls apart except for the bad Christmas puns. Sadly, this was the last film for Desmond Llewelyn as Q before Desmond's death. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH showed Q still had it despite his limited screentime. Maybe some look down on this entry because the James Bond did become too campy and cheesy. Before DIE ANOTHER DAY, I think the James Bond films were returning to form. I herad CASINO ROYALE continues the tradition of the old films and reboots the franchise in a great way.

VIDEO: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic Widescreen)

AUDIO: English 5.1 Dolby Surround, French 5.1 DS, English 5.1 DTS

Subtitles: English, gfrench, Thai, Mandarian Chinese, Korean

The picture and sound is fantastic. I don't think it will pop out like the restoration of earlier bond films, but I do think improved MPEG technology also had a hand in improving the transfer on this film (even though I have never seen the earlier DVD release). DTS fans will love the inclusion of a DTS track.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

DISC 1- The two audio commentaries (one by director Michael Apted and the other with Peter Lamont, composer David Arnold, and action director Vic Armstrong) provide a few details on the production of the film and are better than the making of featurettes on disc 2 which I will get to in just a minute.

DISC 2- The extras on this disc are mostly a disappointment. The highlights are the deleted scenes and the alternate/extended stuff on the Thames boat chase (and the James Bond Up River featurette covers the making of the chase which took six weeks to shoot). Director Michael Apted introduces many of these and even gives audio commentary to soem of the deleted scenes. I do wish he kept some of the extended sequence of where Bond is on his way to stop King (like the reference to other Bond films in M's office).

Most of the making of featurettes and the Hong Kong press conference amount to mostly PR fluff. The tribute to Desmond Llewelyn is a montage and I would have loved to seen something more on the actor besides three minutes and change. The release trailer is nice, but they should have included TV spots and the teaser trailer (instead of just pairing it with featurette on the making of the teaser trailer). The music video by Garbage for THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH is another missed chance. They should have included the MTV episode of Making The Video which goes behind-the-scenes of this one. The extras on this disc do not represent an ultimate Edition. I know the extras aren't 20th Century Fox's fault since the Ultimate Editions were overseen by Sony Picture Home Enntertainment while they had the rights to distribute MGM DVDs. It might even be the fault of EON productions a little bit. I just wish they tried harder to include more extras.

FINAL ANALYSIS: THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH is an underrated gem, but the ultimate EditioN DVD of the title could have done with more extras.   I do wish MGM had more options on how to own this DVD instead of being part of a collection with four other mix and match Bond films.   I wish they had each of the 20 films available seperately or paired the movies better in the four collections (collection 3 and 4 come out on Decmeber 12th).

this review is (c)12-2-2006 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission (except for excerpts and a link to the review). Look for additional content at http://enterlinemedia.livejournal.com and send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com