A Few Words About A few words about...™ The World is Not Enough -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

The World is Not Enough is number 19 in the Bond series, 20 if you include Never Say Never Again. It is the third of four placing the Bond character in the capable hands of Pierce Brosnan, who many Bond fans placed second to Mr. Connery. Mr. Craig, who has his own take on the character, would be Bond number eight, not counting radio performances.

With MGM making a major push to bring all of the Bond films to Blu-ray in record time, and giving us a nice sampling of different eras as they go, TWiNE fits in nicely, especially in terms of image and audio quality which is superb, even for what some may consider an "older" title. How many can recall the good old days of 1999? As such there are no "age related artifacts," and grain, which may have been occasionally toned down, looks just fine.

I'm awaiting copies of Goldfinger and Moonraker, and will report on them some time next week, but everything that I've hearing is positive, with the exception of discussions referencing windowboxed main titles on Moonraker.

With half of the Bond titles now in Blu-ray release, and offered at terrific prices, the Bond completist can indeed by happy. I noted a ten pack of Blu-ray Bonds yesterday at a local Costco for $159. It doesn't get much better than this.

Recommended.

RAH

I very much enjoy this 007 outing and I'm glad it's a worthy addition to this very impressive catalogue.

I haven't had the time to watch TWINE yet, but I'll be doing so soon.

Can't wait to see what's in store for Bond after the May titles.

This is my first post but I've read this site for years. Mr. Harris, you do a great job in your "A few words about...". Thanks for your opinions. I haven't opened my copy of The World Is Not Enough but it's good to hear the positive review.

This film is one of those films that is hard for me to place in the Bond Lexicon. It's neither great, nor terrible but comfortably on the favorable side.

I know for many this isn't their favorite Bond and I can clearly see why. Denise Richards is terrible, maybe the worst Bond girl since Tanya Roberts (and that's really saying something). Renard is a boring character. Outside the pre-credits boat race the action is mediocre, not horrible, but certainly not interesting. A very "by the numbers" type of actions scenes that lack danger or excitement. I admit on my first viewing I was not impressed.

However as I saw the film again I began to see it in a new light. Sophie Marceau is fantastic in this film and honestly one of the most effective villians in Bond history. I loved the idea of Bond nearly falling in love and almost being duped by the person manipulating events. Sophie was very effective for this. There was also good chemistry between she and Brosnan. I thought the story was timely even today given the world's oil supply situation. The film took you to parts of the world that hadn't previously been filmed. So many Bond's have a far-fetched villian, this one was more grounded in reality.

As for the disc video, I have to say i'm not too impressed. This was never my favorite transfer on DVD and it remains that way here on BD. Don't search for fine detail cause you won't find it here. I'm not saying the film has been DNR'd, I think it may mostly be the transfer itself. While there are no artifacts that I saw and while a reasonable sharp picture, it's not impressive.

As for the audio, I found it a real disappointment. For a film in 1999, this has a rather subdued mix for an action picture. I wasn't really impressed with the sound during the action scenes nor the mix of the score. I guess the easiest way to describe it is as less than expected. Still and all i'm grateful for the lossless track. There were a few more details I picked up than before, particularily the background at the Casino. I never noticed that the Bond/Elektra "love theme" was playing in the background in the Casino scene.

All in all, a decent but not too exciting release.

I didn't think the video quality was so eye popping myself, not compared with some of the other Bond Blu-rays.

I watched this last night. I thought the sound quality was more of an achievement than the picture quality. Maybe I was overexpecting, but I found the video quality good but not great, certainly not compared to being blown away with the gorgeous video detail in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and GOLDFINGER.

The PQ is definitely on the softer side, but I think that might be more the result of the cinematography more than anything else. Haven't watched the film all the way through on BD. The last time I saw it was in 2000 when it first hit DVD.

My one question for all of these releases is this: where's the theatrical poster art for the covers? Did the studios lose the rights to the artwork after the original VHS/Laserdisc releases? These covers for the non-Craig Bonds are horrible.

I expect that MGM decided that they'd rather have a consistent look across the entire range.

Epk released in 1999 to promote the film...

http://www.the007dossier.com/007dossier/post/2015/09/26/James-Bond-The-World-Is-Not-Enough-Electronic-Press-Kit