The World Is Not Enough Contains Pierce Brosnan’s Darkest Kill As James Bond

The World Is Not Enough contains perhaps Pierce Brosnan’s most sinister kill as James Bond. Brosnan’s exciting introduction as Bond in GoldenEye was met with considerable acclaim, and his further three films as 007 proved financially successful, though none of them truly lived up to the standard set by his debut. GoldenEye featured themes of deceit and betrayal and can be credited as one of the initial attempts to give the character more grounding.

The 1995 film did nevertheless maintain some of the franchise’s absurdity: the opening sequence ended with Bond driving a motorcycle off a cliff, only to enter and successfully pilot a free-falling plane. The film managed to maintain truly ludicrous scenes in a relatively logical and engaging plot – with Bond nonchalantly driving a tank through St Petersburg clear evidence of this. However, a penchant for the spectacular would plague much of Brosnan’s Bond era. Plotlines often seemed nonsensical and simply an excuse to provide extravagant action scenes and gimmicky gadgets. The World Is Not Enough, Brosnan’s third film as 007, was arguably a refreshing deviation from the normative procedure; attentive to elements of drama and featuring rather authentic villainous incentives.

The World Is Not Enough is a rather realistic espionage thriller as a result but it nevertheless suffers through action scenes that do not seem properly integrated into the rest of the movie. True to the gritty atmosphere of GoldenEye, The World Is Not Enough features Brosnan’s darkest kill as Bond. This comes toward the end of the film when the villain Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) declines to order her associate Renard (Robert Carlyle) to stop their attack. Elektra says, “you wouldn’t kill me, you’d miss me,” but upon her refusal Bond swiftly executes her while she is unarmed. He follows the kill with a sinister quip, replying “I never miss,” and leans over her dead body as Judi Dench’s M watches on with a worried expression.

Pierce Brosnan’s Bond era is considered rather light, especially as it is bookended by tenacious and hard-edged portrayals from Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig, but this scene showcased the darker side of Brosnan’s 007. It is not the only scene of its kind, with Bond also killing Dr. Kaufman while he is unarmed in Tomorrow Never Dies, but Elektra’s status as a significant love interest makes her execution even more chilling. Brosnan’s Bond is generally most reminiscent of Roger Moore’s tongue-in-cheek 007, but this scene from The World Is Not Enough encapsulates the ruthless element of the character in a truly dark kill.

This side of Bond would not prompt inspiration for Brosnan’s final outing in Die Another Day as the 2002 film, perhaps partly inspired by the success of the Mission: Impossible franchise, was extravagant without the quality of direction to back it up. An invisible car and impromptu surfing in a tsunami would prove unfashionable implementations of CGI that made the film seem more of a spoof than a modernized take. Though the more realistic The World Is Not Enough rather underwhelmed audiences it certainly rings true to a typical spy thriller, and Elektra’s execution remains a rather uncharacteristically ruthless element of Brosnan’s portrayal.