Spectacular settings, spectacular action and ingenious gadgets.

Bond 19, The World Is Not Enough, comes replete with the usual array of gadgets (reading glasses which create a blinding flash - plus a spare pair of specs which can X-ray scan for hidden weapons; a set of bagpipes which are in fact both a gun and a flame-thrower; a watch fitted with a miniature grappling hook; a ski-jacket equipped with its own airbag...), girls (French star Sophie Marceau and Denise Richards from Starship Troopers lead the charge this time, with a cameo appearance from Il postino’s Maria Grazia Cucinotta as the mysterious Cigar Girl) and exotic locations (Turkey, Azerbaijan, France, Spain, the top of London’s Millennium Dome...).

On the villain front, Robbie Coltrane makes a comeback as ex-KGB controller turned casino-owner Valentin Zukovsky (whose freelance terrorist agency made things difficult for Bond in GoldenEye). Except that, this time around, Zukovsky is not 100% on the side of evil.

The same cannot, however, be said for Full Monty star Robert Carlyle, who plays Renard, a literally ruthless terrorist bent on world domination. He is literally ruthless because an earlier 00 mission placed a bullet in his brain and rendered him impervious to pain.

“Walking into a Bond film is like coming into a family,” says Carlyle, who recently starred in Antonia Bird’s Ravenous and will be seen in Alan Parker’s Angela’s Ashes this Christmas. “Most of the crew have worked on as many as 13 or 14 Bonds, which is quite incredible.” That may, of course, also go some way to explain the consistent quality of the series.

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Oscar-winner Dame Judi Dench returns in the role of M, with Samantha Bond back as Miss Moneypenny. Additionally, the new movie features John Cleese as the assistant Desmond Llewelyn has long insisted Q ought to have; drum-and-base star Goldie as Zukovsky’s driver, Bull; Fijian-born John Seru - Vulcan in Gladiators - as Gabor, Sophie Marceau’s bodyguard; and Ulrich Thomsen, star of the 1998 Danish Cannes hit The Celebration, as ex-Mossad man Davidov.

As that eclectic line-up suggests, Bond 19 is set very much in the modern, pre-millennial world. Having effortlessly survived the demise of the various Eastern-bloc agencies which furnished its hero with his most fearsome nemeses, the Bond movies now have to operate in a world without an Iron Curtain. But there are, of course, other problems - like dwindling natural resources and the huge and somewhat ill-guarded stockpile of nuclear weapons lying around in the former Soviet Union.

In The World Is Not Enough, Renard’s target is apparently the pipeline being built to channel the oil from a major new field under the Caspian Sea to the West. But, as Bond gets closer and closer to his latest rival, this turns out to be only a comparatively minor part of his new adversary’s evil scheme.

And, reckons director Apted - making his Bond debut after a 30-year career which has included features such as Coalminer’s Daughter, Gorillas in the Mist and Gorky Park, plus documentaries like the award-winning Seven Up-to-Forty-Two Up series - this is what gives The World Is Not Enough an extra edge.

“With Bond,” he says, “I’m inheriting a very successful franchise, but we have to decide which elements to keep and what to change just a little, so that the film is fresh and modern. This Bond has a very topical narrative, on the cutting edge of the news. It’s still escapism - Bond with all the trappings - but it’s an interesting dynamic to have the Bond atmosphere, the Bond ethic, in a contemporary story.

“Whenever it came to decisions about what we should or shouldn’t change in the Bond mythology, I always deferred to Michael and Barbara. They are steeped in the history of the franchise yet are always open to new ideas. It’s a fine balancing act to know how to preserve what’s powerful from the past and when to inject new blood to keep the films alive for this and future generations.”

But on one thing all the Bond people are agreed: it is the casting of Pierce Brosnan as 007 that has really revitalised the series. Brosnan, as was widely reported when GoldenEye came out, had been odds-on favourite for the part back in the mid-eighties, but hadn’t been able to get out of his Remington Steele contract. When the second chance came around almost a decade later, the Irish actor leapt at the opportunity.

Everyone, from Wilson to Apted to his co-stars and crew, agrees that Brosnan makes the ideal Bond. But perhaps the ultimate tribute to his playing of the role comes from the franchise’s oldest participant: 84-year-old Desmond Llewelyn, who has been in an amazing 17 of the 19 films, having started with From Russia With Love in 1963.

“Pierce has really made the role of Bond his,” says Llewelyn. “He’s got something Sean never had: Irish charm. I’m a Welshman, but I think the Irish can outdo both the Scots and the Welsh with their odd charm. There is something there that I don’t think any of the other Bonds have had. I may be prejudiced, but it has been absolutely marvellous working with him.”