The first thing to do was to get a Bond, so the reigning Bond at the time, Timothy Dalton was approached to see if he would participate. Surprisingly he declined the role and resigned as Bond stating that it was 5 years since his last film and the audiences may not accept him as Bond after this time.

The cast is made up of multi national actors, Sean Bean as 006, Joe Don Baker making his second appearance in Bond as another character. He was seen previously as the main villain in The Living Daylights. X-Men star Famke Jansen as the homicidal Xenia Onatopp (!!!) as well as Alan Cummings as Boris and the brilliant Robbie Coltrane as Valentin Zukovsky, someone that Bond has met before in the past.

As this is a new style of Bond film due to the end of the cold war with the fall of the Berlin Wall. To reflect reality there is a new M and the new M is a women. Dame Judy Dench plays the part of M in a new and fresh way which has never been seen before. She faces off Bond in a great scene where Bond is effectively told off by his boss. Also Desmond Llewellyn looks well as Q in a great scene with Bond, which has a healthy amount of humour. As with M a new Moneypenny has been cast and is played by Samantha Bond who verbally is a match for Bond and fills the role very well. Having a rogue agent as a villain in a Bond film that knows every thing that Bond does is a dark twist, and Sean Bean plays the role well and gives Bond a good run for his money. The character depth is bought out on the screen, and he goes well with Xenia Onataopp who quite literally get s a thrill from what she does as shown in the sauna scene and earlier in the Severnaya Station.

After the success of GoldenEye, Brosnan's second outing went bigger. From the opening pre-title sequence featuring Dench's on screen partner of Geoffrey Palmer as Admiral Roebuck to the climatic fight with the main villain, this one is a non stop roller caster ride that doesn't allow you to catch your breath.

Martial arts star Michelle Yeoh makes an absolute blinding Bond girl who is effectively a female counterpart of Bond and is able to escape Bond's charm until the end of the film as well as having her own scene in which she displays her amazing martial skills . Jonathan Pryce as the main villain and plays the role totally over the top. This is something that we have not seen in a Bond film for a while as a villain going for world domination. His wife is played by Desperate Housewife's star Terri Hatcher. The character she plays of Paris Carver is an old flame of Bond as she shows how she felt about his sudden departure when she slaps him, this blows Bonds cover. M also shows her support Team in the opening scenes, characters such as Charles Robinson played by Colin Salmon work well as this is a fresh addition.

One interesting fact is that Bond also changes his weapon of choice from a Walther PPK to a Walther P99 I this film.

David Arnold wrote the soundtrack and this is a revisit to earlier Bond films with a 60's feel such as the Bond theme played when Bond make his first appearance. This felt fresh and elevated important moments of the film.

Robert King, a British Oil tycoon, was assassinated whist inside MI6 by a bomb, Bond is sent to protect his daughter Elektra King from outside terrorist forces so that the completion of a trans Europe oil pipeline can be completed. Bond senses that something doesn't seem right and investigates further.

The main villain is played by Robert Carlisle has no sense of touch at all across his body and is unable to feel pain. He is slowly dying due to a bullet moving through his brain which has caused this loss of sensation. He is played well and is always there in the story and not necessarily visible.

The pre-title sequence is one of the best in the series. It starts out in Bilbao, Spain and finishes with a boat chase down the Thames to the Millennium Dome in Greenwich. This sequence sets the pace for the rest of the film. You do see Bond in more predicaments than usual, especially the scene where he hesitates to kill in cold blood and the fact that he is taken off the active list due to injuries he received when landing on the Dome. There are a number of twists in the story with the final battle taking place in a submarine, you do get a feel of claustrophobia and I think that was a good decision based on the previous villain climaxes of the previous films. On thing that is noticeable is that there are different things being added to the story in this film, Bond doubting himself, M being kidnapped. It is also the first time since 1985 that we see Bond ski when inspecting the pipeline with Electra that leads into a very good sequence. There is more character depth than seen before.

Director of the film was Michael Apted and to be honest I though the direction was stylishly done for the film. It is the simplicity of his direction that creates the ambience and you do get the full picture as to what is happening.

This was the 20th Bond film and was Brosnan's last. The film was released as part of the 40th Anniversary of the Bond films.

The cast is led by Brosnan with the usual M, Moneypenny and now john Cleese as R.
The supporting cast is made up of Toby Stephens who plays the main villain of Gustave Graves, Halle Berry as Jinx and Rosamund Pike who plays Miranda Frost.
Although all these are strong on screen, you do get the impression that the focus is bigger and better than before and although an enjoyable film this does let the film down.

As it is the 40th anniversary there is a nod to previous Bond films throughout the series and the most obvious one is in Q room in the disused underground station. The Acrostar Jet from Octopussy and the poisoned tip shoe used in From Russia with Love as well as the jetpack from Thunderball can all be seen.

There are some tweaks which have not been tried before; the opening gun barrel has been changed to have a bullet coming towards the screen from Bond and the opening titles continue the story of Bond being tortured. A very good example is the battle of the gadget cars on the ice lake, The Vanquish versus the Jaguar. The stewardess on the BA plane was actually Roger Moore's daughter. It was also interesting to see that Bond was held captive for 14 months as this means that he was not around when the World Trades Centre tragedy happened. A similar thing was done with Superman Returns.

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