My favourite Brosnan Bond film. This starts off his run on the series, pitting Bond against an enemy from the past with a satellite weapon. Brosnan is suited to the role, establishing himself well here. Judi Dench makes the first appearance in her time as M, a hardnosed boss who butts head with 007. Izabella Scorupco is a good Bond girl, a Russian computer programmer finding herself caught up in the affair. And the villains are well cast. Sean Bean as the ruthless former MI6 agent turned terrorist leader is a menacing presence, Famke Janssen is exceptional as the henchwoman who gets off on causing pain, and Alan Cumming is amusing as a hacker with an overdeveloped opinion of himself. The film is only slightly marred by the music score... which just doesn't work in a Bond film.

Encore

The first Bond film with Pierce Brosnan, although mostly written for Jeremy Dalton's grim, focused approach. This begins with quite possibly the most ridiculous stunt ever conceived: Bond leaps off a cliff driving a motorcycle, uses the inertia of the forward movement (although the physics for 007 is always suspect at the best of times) to propel him to terminal velocity more rapidly, permitting him to streamline himself and fall at a greater speed so as to arrive at a falling æroplane (which, due to its greater drag caused by larger area exposed to "down" makes it accelerate as a lesser increasing rate than Bond) in enough time to gain access to the cockpit, control of the 'plane, and pull the plane into a more horizontal flight direction and thus save his own skin. Bah. Looks excellent, though. The rest of the thing looks excellent as well, with a big old Soviet train (well, it's actually UK rolling stop with some plywood strapped all over it, but it looks ugly enough to get away with it), plus some incredible helicopters, some jet-fighters, and some fantastic kicking and punching in the middle of Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. There is a MASSIVE plot hole in this, caused when Izabella Scorupco (as "Natalya Simonova") states that she saw Gottfried John (as "General Ourumov") and Famke Janssen (as "Xenia Onatopp", although one loved her "OverTheTopp" performance) fired the titular laser canon and killed everyone in the Severnaya weapons station. she didn't see a thing, being in the middle of getting some more tea in the kitchen at the time, thus only hearing the shooting itself. In fact, she wasn't even in the control room when the General arrived for his "inspection" when accompanied by his leather-clad sadist, and it's likely Natalya didn't even see Xenia attempt to kill her, as she was already hiding by the time her would-be assassin entered the room. There is, in fact, no one alive who could swear truthfully they saw the coupe take place. So let's ignore that and carry on with the flying around and shooting people campaign. Joe Don Baker is better used as the US operative in Moscow than he was as a would-be Bond Villain, quite unknowingly insulting Bond by continually referring to him as "Jimmy" or even "Jim-bo". Brosnan is the perfect foil for this, taking it all calmly in stride whilst quite perfectly not resembling anyone who should even be referred to as "Jim", never mind any of the other options. Brosnan's mix of humour and severity is good here, and something that Dalton lacked was the lighter side of things. This Bond does lean toward the Roger Moore era more than the Connery era, but it's got that feel of a 'romp' without losing track of the fact that anyone being shot at isn't supposed to enjoy themselves. Alan Cumming ought to have been used more, but one always thinks that (except for "Josie and the Pussy Cats" which was something for which he was hopefully well-paid and let's all move on now). The plot is a tad complicated, but the betrayal of Bond by Alec Trevelyan (aka "006", played by Sean Bean) ought to have been a film on its own. The extra Russians, the laser weapon, the observatory-base on Crab Key (or Cuba... or something... bit of a cloud there) could have been used far less for the same weight of impact. So, as a result, we end up having to accomplish more in the final half-hour than is possible without a director and careful script development, and thus totally unrealistic. I think this is the third time I've seen it, and the bit at the very start on the top of the damn is enough to make me cover my eyes to prevent an attack of vertigo [note to self: add "Vertigo" to list of films to watch]. The arrival of Brosnan is also something which makes me smile. Worthwhile.