So I caught the second half of The World Is Not Enough (1999)
Caught it at the part where Elektra give M that box, shows her true colours and expresses her bitterness over M's 'compassionate advice' as the King's family friends.
It's...okay, mostly I want to watch it from start to finish now for the really fucked up Renard/Elektra factor, even considering her last speech, I think there totally are Stockholm Syndrome at work. What's the name for the captor part of it though? In domestic violence, the abuser does become dependent on the victim over time, and I totally got that from Renard, how he's surprisingly tender to the withdrawn (thanks to him) Elektra, and when he accused M of being the monster for leaving Elektra to the mercy of a man like him years ago, when M adviced Elektra's father not to pay the ransom. (...and what's with the oil theme in so many movies? The King Family controls the pipeline and the plot was to contaminate all the other sources.
Judi Dench also rocked hard in her portrayal as M, her guilt over what happened to Elektra, how /patient/ she was when she asked Elektra what the time was when she was in the cell, and her awful expression as she watches Bond leaning over Elektra. In Bond's place, I wouldn't have been able to shoot her, at last I'll like to think that I'll be the kinda person who couldn't. There was something about Sophie Marceau's portrayal of Elektra that would make anyone feel really guilty about causing her suffering in anyway.
Renard (Robert Carlyle) is certainly an interesting villain, a former KGB agent, he had to be 'let go' when he became mentally unstable, and then, there was this part where he was shot in the head, but survived. The bullet will eventually kill him, but for now, it takes away his senses of pain. He has become really...attached to Elektra in the end, it's really, fucked up. There is this scene of them in bed together, all tender, until Bond's (supposed) death is brought up. He asked, wasn't it what she wanted? Electra said something about not feeling anything, Renard gets this looks on his face, gets up and smashes something at the other end of the room.
Most Painful Moment of the Movie: When Elektra told Bond that she could have given him the world, it's painfully obvious that he's going to say "The World Is Not Enough", and the expression on his face! It's as if it took Pierce Brosnan every fiber of will in his body NOT to roll his eyes.
Second Most Painful Moment of the Movie: At the end, we learn the drive behind the choice to name this movie's bond girl, "Christmas Jones", it's so that Bond gets to quip at the end, "I thought Christmas only comes once a year?", seriously, "007!", is there /one/ movie where he doesn't manwhore himself at the end? Where did they find condoms where they were, for one thing? If they were using it...because I remember this parody where 007 has to call up every single one of his former lovers to inform them that he has contracted VD.
...but awful moments above aside, James Bond remains my guilty pleasure, I did like watching it even as much as I get annoyed by it, both for the Unreal in an Unfunny way part (why didn't Bond break Renard's neck in the submarine the way Jack Bauer would have?), and the insult towards women, and especially female operatives. It's improving somewhat though, we have Judi Dench as M, and as far as I recall, partly out of a healthy fear of respect towards China as well, the Chinese agent didn't sleep with Bond at the end of Tomorrow Never Dies (I totally think they should have struck with the original title, Tomorrow Never Lies).
It's...okay, mostly I want to watch it from start to finish now for the really fucked up Renard/Elektra factor, even considering her last speech, I think there totally are Stockholm Syndrome at work. What's the name for the captor part of it though? In domestic violence, the abuser does become dependent on the victim over time, and I totally got that from Renard, how he's surprisingly tender to the withdrawn (thanks to him) Elektra, and when he accused M of being the monster for leaving Elektra to the mercy of a man like him years ago, when M adviced Elektra's father not to pay the ransom. (...and what's with the oil theme in so many movies? The King Family controls the pipeline and the plot was to contaminate all the other sources.
Judi Dench also rocked hard in her portrayal as M, her guilt over what happened to Elektra, how /patient/ she was when she asked Elektra what the time was when she was in the cell, and her awful expression as she watches Bond leaning over Elektra. In Bond's place, I wouldn't have been able to shoot her, at last I'll like to think that I'll be the kinda person who couldn't. There was something about Sophie Marceau's portrayal of Elektra that would make anyone feel really guilty about causing her suffering in anyway.
Renard (Robert Carlyle) is certainly an interesting villain, a former KGB agent, he had to be 'let go' when he became mentally unstable, and then, there was this part where he was shot in the head, but survived. The bullet will eventually kill him, but for now, it takes away his senses of pain. He has become really...attached to Elektra in the end, it's really, fucked up. There is this scene of them in bed together, all tender, until Bond's (supposed) death is brought up. He asked, wasn't it what she wanted? Electra said something about not feeling anything, Renard gets this looks on his face, gets up and smashes something at the other end of the room.
Most Painful Moment of the Movie: When Elektra told Bond that she could have given him the world, it's painfully obvious that he's going to say "The World Is Not Enough", and the expression on his face! It's as if it took Pierce Brosnan every fiber of will in his body NOT to roll his eyes.
Second Most Painful Moment of the Movie: At the end, we learn the drive behind the choice to name this movie's bond girl, "Christmas Jones", it's so that Bond gets to quip at the end, "I thought Christmas only comes once a year?", seriously, "007!", is there /one/ movie where he doesn't manwhore himself at the end? Where did they find condoms where they were, for one thing? If they were using it...because I remember this parody where 007 has to call up every single one of his former lovers to inform them that he has contracted VD.
...but awful moments above aside, James Bond remains my guilty pleasure, I did like watching it even as much as I get annoyed by it, both for the Unreal in an Unfunny way part (why didn't Bond break Renard's neck in the submarine the way Jack Bauer would have?), and the insult towards women, and especially female operatives. It's improving somewhat though, we have Judi Dench as M, and as far as I recall, partly out of a healthy fear of respect towards China as well, the Chinese agent didn't sleep with Bond at the end of Tomorrow Never Dies (I totally think they should have struck with the original title, Tomorrow Never Lies).