In 1995, everyone was counting on Pierce Brosnan to revive the Bond film series. After two box-office disappointments starring Timothy Dalton as the British super-spy, the series took its longest hiatus. Then came Brosnan as 007 in Goldeneye, in my opinion one of the worst Bond films ever. This was followed-up by Tomorrow Never Dies, a significant improvement, but still not a return to form for the Bond series. Finally, with the new film, The World Is Not Enough do we have a film that deserves to be classified as a true Bond movie.

The World Is Not Enough begins strongly with a long pre-credit sequence that establishes important elements of the plot (yes, there is a real plot here). Bond heads to a Swiss bank in Spain (?) to recover some money for an associate of the MI6, Bond's employer. After returning to London, the batch of money explodes, taking the rightful owner, a man named King, with it. Bond then chases down the villain responsible for the explosion during a terrific speedboat chase down the Thames River. The highlight of this chase comes during a brief moment when Bond is forced underwater, and he casually straightens his tie. Classic.

As the film continues, the MI6 operatives are tasked with tracking down those behind the killing of King. All suspicions lead to a man named Renard, who kidnapped King's daughter Elektra, only to have her escape his clutches. It is believed that the killing of King was revenge and Elektra is next. Bond is sent to protect Elektra King, played by the beautiful Sophie Marceau. Elektra is now busy overseeing the construction of her family's oil pipeline from Russia to the West. I will say little more about the plot except to note that this pipeline plays an integral role later in the film.

There are many reasons that The World Is Not Enough is the strongest Bond film since the vastly-underrated The Living Daylights. Primary among these is Brosnan's performance. After trying too hard in the first two attempts, he finally eases into the role and does the part the justice it deserves. He even manages to do a bit of real acting in the film (but only a bit). Marceau, whose dark good-looks fit firmly into a tradition of beautiful Bond girls, is the film's other strong acting asset. The strongest asset of all is that this Bond film actually has a semblance of a plot, complete with some twists and surprises. Small elements which seem unimportant at first (such as a dislocated shoulder) come back to play important roles. Hey, that's almost like a real movie.

This is by no means a perfect film. Renard, played by Robert Carlyle of Trainspotting and The Full Monty fame, looks great and is a pretty good villain. But the plot goes out of its way to explain that a bullet lodged in Renard's brain has dulled his senses so that he feels no pain, a point which means shockingly little as the film moves forward. Bond also encounters a "brilliant nuclear physicist" named Christmas Jones, played entirely unconvincingly by Denise Richards. The film goes to great lengths to put Richards in skimpy outfits or to get her tee-shirt wet. Normally this isn't a complaint, but it is just far too obvious that Richards is here for her looks and surgically-enhanced breasts than for anything else. I gotta be honest, I'm not optimistic about her career. Sure, she is on a lot of magazine covers now, but maybe she should take a look at how the last Bond film didn't do too much for another weak actress, Teri Hatcher.

Finally, there is the real reason we go to see a Bond movie, the action. This is a controversial point among the people I saw the movie with. Some felt that the action lacked one terrific set-piece, a la the attack on Fort Knox from Goldfinger. This is a fair point. However, I felt that the action in The World is Not Enough had something the past few films didn't: it was genuinely exciting. The explosions and stunts in the past few Bond films were often impressive, but they were not particularly exciting. I found some of the actions scenes in this film to be quite suspenseful, particularly a great scene in which Bond and Dr. Christmas Jones whiz through an oil pipeline in an attempt to defuse a bomb. Indeed, this Bond film features the most exciting action scenes since Timothy Dalton fought a villain while hanging outside an airplane in The Living Daylights.

All in all, The World Is Not Enough is not one of the best Bond movies, but it is certainly a step in the right direction for Brosnan as Bond and the right direction for the series as a whole.