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| Despite having the stupidest name of any of the franchise, Tomorrow Never Dies has a lot going for it. There's a spectacularly action-packed pre-title sequence at a terrorists' arms bazaar. Bond is sent as recconaissance for British and Russian Intelligence, but discovers some nuclear torpedoes and has to get them out before the Navy's missiles arrive and blow the place up. The main plot concerns meida mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) and his attemot to start a war between Britain and China in order to boost the ratings of his news reporting network. M sends Bond to investigate Carver when it is discovered that the HMS Devonshire was brought off-coutse by a GPS signal from one his satellites. Unfortunately one of the problems of the Brosnan movies begins to suface in this film. He seems to want to add some depth to the character of Bond. For his second outing he wanted to have a Bond girl that 007 has feelings for. So the character of Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher, right), who is Elliot's trophy wife, is revealed to have previously been in a relationship with Bond. Although I prefer to believe that he only tells her that they got too close in order get off with her. He gets over her death pretty quicky anyway, and is minutes later having a great time driving his BMW round a multi-story carpark from the backseat using the car's remote control in his mobile phone. this is a really cool scene, and that's why I'm prepared to overlook the fact that Bond is driving something with backseats at all. It's great to see Bond making puns after he kills people again too. There's a nice bit where he throws a henchman into a printing press, and waits a couple of seconds longer than usual, so you think maybe he hasn't got a line, then quips, "They'll print anything these days." Less acceptable is Bond's use of Americanisms, like "elevator" and "station break". And there are no suggestively named women in this one either. To complete his mission Bond teams up with the film's other Bond girl, Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh). She is his Chinese equivalent, with some nifty martial arts skills, and some Q-style gadgets. Carver has a Stealth boat, with which he plans to ignite the conflict, which doubles as his evil base for the climax, with plenty of containers of explosives lying around. A break with Bond movie etiquette has the villain dying before his main henchman, Stamper (Gotz Otto). An improvement from GoldenEye is that the Bond theme is used liberally throughout Tomorrow Never Dies, but the film's theme, by Sheryl Crow, is a bit insipid. I like the traditional style, that consist basically of (someone you've at least heard of) shouting the name of the movie a lot. A great Bond movie which cements Brosnan's place as the best Bond since Connery. |
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| Director: Roger Spottiswoode Producers: Michael G. Wilson & Barbara Broccoli Screenplay: Bruce Feirstein 1997 |