Cinema

The World Is Not Enough (12, selected cinemas) Onegin

(12, selected cinemas) Millennial Bond

Kim Fletcher

Thank heavens Peter Mandelson got his role as special agent to Northern Ire- land. He would have found it unbearable to watch from the back benches as his beloved Millennium Dome took a starring part in The World Is Not Enough. Now the man who went en brosse when Pierce Brosnan was still in a side parting can sit with gun- toting minders and enjoy the fun.

And what fun it is, whirling us around England, Scotland and the Caucasus by way of a series of highly explosive sets, bril- liantly choreographed action and a perfor- mance of searing sexiness from Sophie Marceau. There is also — for never accuse the Bond team of failing to give the audi- ence what they expect — a Russian subma- rine, a nuclear bomb and an unexpected instrument of death.

Marceau is Elektra King, heiress to all the oil in Azerbaijan, and Bond must pro- tect her from the violent and cruelly deformed Russian terrorist Renard (Robert Carlyle, shooting straight for the summit of the Bond villainy league). The good news is that Renard has a bullet lodged in his brain and is dying. The bad news is that he can no longer feel pain. Or think straight, for he imprisons rather than kills the captured Bond. By now every bad- die knows that is merely storing up trouble.

Of course, if he topped Bond immediate- ly it would be a short film, and we wouldn't get three bed scenes — Serena Scott Thomas, Sophie Marceau and Denise Richards (marvel at the director Michael Apted's ability to avoid the stray nipple that would push the film up to a 15 certifi- cate) — an extended role for Dame Judi Dench as M and the traditional beat-the- clock mayhem that takes place in the inevitable control room with blinking warn- ing lights on every wall.

Nor could we welcome back the British repertory cast: Samantha Bond as Miss Moneypenny, Robbie Coltrane as the Rus- sian villain Valentin Zukovsky and Desmond Llewelyn, supported by John Cleese, as Q.

Q, who surely yearns to work again with Aston Martin, supplies a BMW — how much do the Germans pay for that? — and an ingenious pair of X-ray specs that Bond uses to great effect in a casino where all the men wear guns and all the women stockings and suspenders. I said it was a good film.

Brosnan has grown in the role, adding to the wry irony of Roger Moore a physical robustness that wouldn't survive three rounds with Sean Connery but might plau- sibly win a punch-up with Robert Carlyle. It takes a man in control of his eyebrows to survive double entendres that would have made Kenneth Williams blush: Cigar Girl: 'Would you like to check my figures?' Bond: 'I'm sure they are perfectly round- ed.' Or, in Istanbul and speaking to Dr Christmas Jones, the nuclear scientist played by Denise Richards: 'I've always wanted to have Christmas in Turkey.'

Amid the bravura camera work and exot- ic locations, it is good to see the Dome, Docldands and the Thames eclipsing Bil- bao, Istanbul and all points East. The Labour government will be delighted that London is restored to its rightful place at the centre of world espionage. Sadly, Terry Farrell's MI6 headquarters suffers serious damage in a terrorist attack by Cigar Girl. But then we always said that post-modern architecture wasn't built to last.

While Ian Fleming is fair game, film- makers who turn to older English classics know how easy it is to estrange those demanding viewers who have actually read the books. The most tasteful lesbian embrace, the merest hint of sado-masochis- tic longing and Austen fans are baying for blood. Much safer to look abroad, where you can find 19th-century novels that are more raunchy and less well-known. That way you upset only foreigners, in this case a Russian population celebrating the bicente- nary of their favourite poet.

Ralph Fiennes read Pushldn's Evgeny Onegin and quickly rounded up his family — sister Martha to direct, brother Magnus to write the music, lover Francesca Annis to offer a sexy cameo — to join him in Onegin, a film of such monumental good taste that the only proper response is to split its title in two and pronounce it defi- antly in English, as in sloe gin.

In the list of great and good collabora- tors — Michael Ignatieff, Peter Ettedgui, D.M. Thomas — the only surprise is the absence of Min Hogg, whose World of Inte-

riors ethic so informs the film. Russia, shot for real and at Shepperton, has never looked more ravishing. The effect stuns but ultimately wearies. You can take the direc- tor out of commercial videos but you can't ... etc. Someone should at least have hid- den the slow motion button.

Liv Tyler is beautiful and haunting as Tatyana, the young woman spurned by Onegin when she writes her letter profess- ing love, Toby Stephens is attractive as Onegin's poet friend LensIcy, though one misses the excitement that he has brought to the London stage. Fiennes as Onegin, the world-weary urbanite, appears to have embraced the Method in his emotional and physical deterioration. 'It's the first time I have seen Ralph Fiennes and not fancied him,' said my wife. And in a film this hand- some, that is a shame.