Metascore

Mixed or average reviews - based on 33 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 30 Ratings

  • Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau
  • Summary: Bond (Brosnan), feeling responsible for the death of a British oil tycoon friend, takes the position as bodyguard to the daughter (Marceau) of the slain man, while trying to catch his killer.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 33
  2. Negative: 1 out of 33
  1. 88
    A splendid comic thriller, exciting and graceful, endlessly inventive.
  2. Reviewed by: Janet Maslin
    60
    In his third and most comfortable effort to model the Bond mantle, Pierce Brosnan bears noticeably more resemblance to a real human being.
  3. Reviewed by: Cody Clark
    19
    If you're desperate for a James Bond fix, skip the movie and blow your 007 bucks on a copy of the soundtrack.

See all 33 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 9
  2. Negative: 2 out of 9
  1. MattM.
    10
    A fantastic addition to the James Bond series - easily one of the best ones every made. It's quick, clever, graceful, and ingenious. Pierce Brosnan makes a perfect Bond once again. Sophie Marceau takes a terrific turn as Elektra, the oil heiress that Bond must protect. Robert Carlyle expertly plays the villain Renard. Denise Richards is not entirely believable as nuclear physicist Christmas Jones, but she does her best with the material she is given. Great action sequences help bring the film to excellence. Expand
  2. [Anonymous]
    7
    Not a bad movie, but compared to Tomorrow Never Dies and Die Another Day, somewhat dissapointing. Tries for a more ambitious story involving old friends and M being some sort of Godmother, but faulty writing and scripting causes a plot that doesn't flow very well and is sometimes hard to follow. The action ain't all that exciting in this installment, although the boat chase and parahawk chase show creativity. Sophie Marceau's gorgeous presence is more than welcome, far outdoing Denise Richards. Expand
  3. This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The nineteenth James Bond film, third for Pierce Brosnan as 007, and the only one directed my Michael Apted. When Bond unknowingly retrieves a bomb hidden in a suitcase full of money, and returns it to its wealthy owner Sir Robert King, a construction billionaire whose company is building an eight-hundred-mile-long oil pipeline in Azerbaijan, and is a life long friend of "M"'s (Dame Judi Dench), at MI6 headquarters in London, the bomb explodes and kills King and blows a hole in the side of the building. After figuring out that the terrorist Renard (Robert Carlyle) is behind the bombing, Bond is sent to protect King's beautiful daughter Elektra (Sophie Marceau), who had been kidnapped by Renard several years earlier and held for ransom, but at "M"'s urging he never received the ransom money, and Elektra claims to have escaped on her own. 007 then finds out that Elektra suffers from Stockholm Syndrome, and is in love with Renard, and has plotted with him to kill her own father, and kidnap and kill "M". Then they will steal a nuclear device and plant it on a Russian sub and blow it up destroying three competing Russian oil pipelines, to which Elektra's family pipeline would profit exponentially. So 007 must chase after Elektra and Renard, to stop their plan and rescue "M", with the help of nuclear specialist Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards). This is the worst of four Brosnan 007 films. Not that it is his fault, he is great as usual, but what a waste of a potentially great bad guy in Renard. He really isn't in that much of the film, and Elektra comes out actually being the top villain. And let's face it, Denise Richards as a nuclear specialist is a joke, because she is a horrible actress and probably can't even spell the word "nuclear" (she's only good to look at). Dame Judi Dench is wonderful as usual, plus we see Desmond Llewelyn's departure as "Q", and the introduction of his successor John Cleese as the "New Q". A scene that is very ironic, since Desmond Llewelyn died not long after the release of the film. We also see the return of Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane) from "GoldenEye". And one last note, Sophie Marceau is one of the most beautiful women to ever be in a James Bond film. Expand

See all 9 User Reviews