December 2006

(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
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Rent Movie.com movie reviews presents Licence to Kill movie review a 1989 film starring Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell and directed by John Glen James Bond leaves Her Majesty’s Secret Service to stop an evil drug lord and avenge his best friend, Felix Leiter. Shortly after an important drugs bust, CIA agent Felix Leiter is married, but when the drug lord he arrested escapes, kills his wife and mutilates Leighter his old friend British agent James Bond seeks revenge. When “M” orders 007 to drop the matter and start a new assignment, Bond deserts Her Majesty’s Secret Service and embarks on a world wide personal vendetta to kill those responsible. Timothy Dalton’s second and last shot at playing James Bond isn’t nearly as much fun as his debut, two years earlier, in the 1987 The Living Daylights. This time Bond gets mad after a close friend (David Hedison) from the intelligence sector is assassinated on his wedding day, and 007 goes undercover to link the murder to an international drug cartel. Robert Davi makes an interesting adversary, but as with most of the Bond films in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s–and especially since the end of the cold war–one has to wonder why we should still care about these lesser villains and their unimaginative crimes. Still, Dalton did manage in his short time with the character to make 007 his own, which neither Roger Moore did nor Pierce Brosnan did. –Tom Keogh

(8 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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Rent Movie.com movie reviews presents GoldenEye movie review a 1995 film starring Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean and directed by Martin Campbell James Bond teams up with the lone survivor of a destroyed Russian research center to stop the hijacking of a nuclear space weapon by a fellow agent believed to be dead. Bond, while on holiday, meets the beautiful but deadly Xenia Onatopp, a member of a Russia mafia group and attempts to stop Xenia and another person taking the ‘Tiger’ helicopter, a new design and protected against any form of jamming. Meanwhile, Natalya Siminova, a Russian computer programmer is shocked when her team is wiped out by Xenia and Natalya’s boss General Ourumov who steals the top secret space weapon Goldeneye, a satellite which triggers a nuclear pulse in the target area which destroys all electronic equipment. Bond is sent to discover who’s got control of the weapon and teaming up with Natalya finds that the real villain is someone who knows Bond of old. An old friend of Bond, Alec Trevelyan, plans to destroy London using Goldeneye to gain revenge on Britain and he is even more dangerous as Alec is an ex-00 agent himself… The 18th James Bond adventure was a runaway box-office success when released in 1995, thanks to the arrival of Pierce Brosnan as the fifth actor (following the departure of Timothy Dalton) to play the suave, danger-loving Agent 007. This James Bond is a bit more vulnerable and psychologically complex–and just a shade more politically correct–but he’s still a formally attired playboy at heart, with a lovely Russian beauty (Izabella Scorupco) as his sexy ally against a cadre of renegade Russians bent on–what else?–global domination. There’s also a seductive villainous with the suggestive name of Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), and the great actress Judi Dench makes her first appearance as Bond’s superior, M, who wisecracks about 007’s “dinosaur” status as a globetrotting sexist. All in all, this action-packed Bond adventure provided a much-needed boost the long-running movie series, revitalizing the 007 franchise for the turn of the millennium. –Jeff Shannon

(19 votes, average: 2.79 out of 5)
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Rent Movie.com movie reviews presents The World Is Not Enough movie review a 1999 film starring Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau and directed by Michael Apted James Bond protects an oil tycoon’s daughter while battling her former kidnapper, a terrorist who can’t feel pain. When British oil tycoon and M’s friend Sir Robert King is killed in a bombing at the MI6 headquarters, it becomes James Bond’s new assignment to protect his daughter and heir Elektra from further harm. Renard, a man who can’t feel physical pain due to a bullet in his head, seems to play an important role in the sabotage of the ongoing construction of the new King pipeline, which can give oil to all the world for the future. The three competing pipelines all end up in Istanbul, whereas the King pipeline is being laid elsewhere, and therefore is an easy goal to anonymous attackers. James Bond involuntarily teams up with emancipated Dr. Christmas Jones, and they soon find out that there is more threat to the situation than just some pipeline sabotage. In his 19th screen outing, Ian Fleming’s superspy is once again caught in the crosshairs of a self-created dilemma: as the longest-running feature-film franchise, James Bond is an annuity his producers want to protect, yet the series’ consciously formulaic approach frustrates any real element of surprise beyond the rote application of plot twists or jump cuts to shake up the audience. This time out, credit 007’s caretakers for making some visible attempts to invest their principal characters with darker motives–and blame them for squandering The World Is Not Enough’s initial promise by the final reel. By now, Bond pictures are as elegantly formal as a Bach chorale, and this one opens on an unusually powerful note. A stunning pre-title sequence reaches beyond mere pyrotechnics to introduce key plot elements as the action leaps from Bilbao to London. Bond 5.0, Pierce Brosnan, undercuts his usually suave persona with a darker, more brutal edge largely absent since Sean Connery departed. Equally tantalizing are our initial glimpses of Bond’s nemesis du jour, Renard (Robert Carlyle), and imminent love interest, Elektra King (Sophie Marceau), both atypically complex characters cast with seemingly shrewd choices, and directed by the capable Michael Apted. The story’s focus on post-Soviet geopolitics likewise starts off on a savvy note, before being overtaken by increasingly Byzantine plot twists, hidden motives, and reversals of loyalty superheated by relentless (if intermittently perfunctory) action sequences. Indeed, the procession of perils plays like a greatest hits medley, save for a nifty sequence involving airborne buzz saws that’s as enjoyable as it is preposterous. Bond’s grimmer demeanor, while preferable to the smirk that eventually swallowed Roger Moore whole, proves wearying, unrelieved by any true wit. The underlying psychoses that propel Renard and Elektra eventually unravel into unconvincing melodrama, while Bond is supplied with a secondary love object, Denise Richards, who’s even more improbable as a nuclear physicist. Ultimately, this World is not enough despite its better intentions. –Sam Sutherland