When Pierce Brosnan made his 007 debut with GoldenEye, it was the perfect action thriller to introduce his incarnation of James Bond and take the franchise into the ’90s. Unfortunately for Brosnan, his subsequent Bond films throughout the late ’90s and early ’00s failed to recapture the same critical acclaim and fanfare. The last Brosnan film, Die Another Day, would end his tenure on a dull note, leading the franchise to make the gritty reboot Casino Royale.
Many fans were disappointed with the lackluster Die Another Day, especially given it was Brosnan’s swan song as Bond. However, he actually had one more appearance as the British superspy following Die Another Day, that being EA’s critically acclaimed original Bond video game Everything or Nothing.
Everything or Nothing was the culmination of the Bond video game boom that started with the legendary GoldenEye 007 in 1997. Electronic Arts would take over the Bond video game license shortly after the success of Goldeneye and video game tie-ins to Brosnan’s films Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough. The first modern Bond game under EA, 2001’s Agent Under Fire, carried on much of the previous game’s aesthetics, but with an original design and voice actor for Bond.
The success of Agent Under Fire led to the release of James Bond 007: Nightfire the next year, the first Bond game to use Brosnan’s likeness in an original story. While Nightfire may not have been a critical darling, its success paved the way for 2004 Everything or Nothing, a video game treated like a big-budget Bond film, for which Brosnan lent both his voice and likeness.
But not only did Brosnan voice his cinematic character, but a number of actors from the film series would voice their characters as well, including Judi Dench’s M, John Cleese’s Q and Richard Kiel reprising his iconic henchman character, Jaws. The talent they got to voice original characters is more impressive with Heidi Klum as the game’s Bond girl Dr. Katya Nadanova, singer Mya Harrison (who also sings the game’s theme song) as another Bond girl named Mya Starling. However, the headline would be Willem Dafoe lending his likeness and voice to the game’s villain Nikolai Diavolo, a former KGB agent who was trained by Max Zorin, the Bond villain from Roger Moore’s Bond swansong A View to a Kill.
The script for the game was also written by Brosnan-Era Bond screenwriter Bruce Feirstein. The talent involved with Everything or Nothing is impressive enough to be translated into a Bond movie, but it takes advantage of the video game medium to push its story to even bigger levels and locations. The player gets to be Bond in places such as Tajikistan, Egypt, Peru and Russia through 29 missions of one game, making this one of the more well-traveled Bond stories to date.
With all those names attached to the game and the advanced graphics for the mid-2000s, it’s easily the most praised James Bond game since GoldenEye. Unlike previous and future Bond games which feel no different than the typical third-person shooter, Everything or Nothing has more to do in the spirit of Bond. Even today, Everything or Nothing is still worth checking out despite its age. The game is surprisingly high quality considering the era and the voice cast is still impressive for its time. Its likely the success of Everything or Nothing paved the way for today’s modern high-budget video games that feature movie stars and high-caliber screenwriters.
Everything or Nothing would prove to be the true finale for Brosnan, as two years later Daniel Craig’s Bond would make his debut in Casino Royale. Still, Everything or Nothing feels like the lost movie that older Bond fans should absolutely check out. The game is an admirable farewell to Brosnan’s Bond, and in the context of Bond’s history, the perfect ending before he passed the torch to Craig.
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