| 88 |
Chicago Sun-Times
A splendid comic thriller, exciting and graceful, endlessly inventive.
|
| 83 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Despite a few places where the air of déjà vu is a bit too thick, it's a class act, with a textured script, one of the series' more stunning title sequences.
|
| 80 |
Film.com
Puts the Bond film series (this one makes number 19)-- back on track by stressing the fundamentals and applying a bit of authentic drama for a change.
|
| 80 |
Dallas Observer
Whatever its flaws -- and it has some lulus -- it's a textbook model for how to structure action of this kind.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
A thoroughly satisfying, completely entertaining film that's also, rather surprisingly, an emotionally full experience.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
That's what Bond is all about -- dazzle, some really bad puns and the kind of sexy fun that satisfies high-school urges while masquerading in tux and tails.
|
| 75 |
USA Today
Fans will appreciate not only that the film is predictably solid and surprisingly sharp but that parts of it are just plain bad.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
There's the script -- and that's the problem.
|
| 75 |
Miami Herald
You can't beat a Bond film for adventure on a grand scale.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
Comes closer to what a Bond movie should be and once was.
|
| 70 |
LA Weekly
The formula, with its comforting arrangement of familiar elements, is what we're after, and The World Is Not Enough certainly comes through on that front.
|
| 70 |
Film.com
Isn't quite enough to save the Bond franchise -- but it does prove that 007 is Y2K-compliant.
|
| 70 |
Los Angeles Times
Not enough to add up to a fully satisfying movie.
|
| 67 |
Portland Oregonian
Apted ("Gorillas in the Mist," "Coal Miner's Daughter") keeps things low-key and low-tech, which makes some of the cliched Bondisms a bit easier to swallow.
|
| 63 |
Charlotte Observer
Fair, overlong James Bond from the second shelf.
|
| 63 |
Boston Globe
This 19th Bond installment is passable, but only just.
|
| 63 |
Baltimore Sun
The movie's already peaked, even before the opening credits.
|
| 63 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Spoofing James Bond in the '90s may lack an original comic bite, but making James Bond in the '90s is positively toothless.
|
| 60 |
Variety
007 is undone by villainous scripting and misguided casting and acting in a couple of key secondary roles.
|
| 60 |
Chicago Reader
This keeps one reasonably amused, titillated, and brain-dead for a little over two hours.
|
| 60 |
Newsweek
Andrea C. Basora
There still is enough tightly staged action and sly humor to earn this latest installment a memorable place in Bond canon.
|
| 60 |
The New York Times
Janet Maslin
In his third and most comfortable effort to model the Bond mantle, Pierce Brosnan bears noticeably more resemblance to a real human being.
|
| 50 |
Salon.com
If Bond long ago became part of your fantasy life or your pop iconography, then the anticipation of a good Bond movie would probably survive even if The World Is Not Enough were worse than it is.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Examiner
The World Is Not Enough, like a 19th version of anything, is inanely self-parodic. So much so that one wonders why Austin Powers need have bothered in the first place.
|
| 50 |
Entertainment Weekly
The hero himself has been denatured for a young, late 1990s audience with little appreciation for real suavity or sex play.
|
| 50 |
Slate
The movie is better than you've heard, although that's not saying a lot.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
If moviegoers really thought about the violence, sexism, and materialism at the core of the series, the whole shebang might vanish overnight.
|
| 50 |
Washington Post
The new Bond movie is pure nonsense art of the dadaist school; it follows the rules of the ridiculous as it turns narrative convention, thriller formula and special-effects set pieces into a manifesto of the purest gibberish.
|
| 50 |
Village Voice
Makes the strongest case for retirement since late-period Roger Moore.
|
| 45 |
TNT RoughCut
James Bond hasn't been this boring since Timothy Dalton carried the license to kill.
|
| 40 |
TV Guide
Bond spends an awful lot of time being rescued from peril by supporting characters.
|
| 40 |
Austin Chronicle
Solid 007 entertainment -- not as bad as some of the recent Bonds but not as spunky as some of the series' originals.
|
| 19 |
Mr. Showbiz
If you're desperate for a James Bond fix, skip the movie and blow your 007 bucks on a copy of the soundtrack.
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