Media Mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) sinks a Royal Navy battleship and frames the Chinese for it, thereby generating headlines for his news outlets. Bond is sent to investigate.

The franchise returns to its customary two year gap between films, and brings Brosnan back in the frame as the super spy. This is also the first film since the death of Albert Broccoli, the producer who made the franchise grow from Dr. No to where we are now.

It’s hard to explain exactly why, but the gap between 1995 and 1997 feels far too short a time to make a noteworthy film and sure enough, Tomorrow Never Dies is a rush job in many ways.

We dive into the plot head first and within the first five minutes it’s clear what Carver’s sinister plan entails. For seventeen films this moment has marked the final third of the story but here we have 110 minutes left to fill! This could probably be made to work with some care but instead Tomorrow Never Dies opts for endless running, driving and shooting.

It’s competently made of course, every car chase, bike chase, helicopter chase & boat chase is entertaining on its own merit. By now the Bond franchise knows how to film a chase. Things just get a little tedious when one segues into another, with no break or thought for what is actually going on.

The dialogue is weaker than usual too. None of these films have been Casablanca but there’s always been a certain idiotic charm to Bond’s dad jokes. Here everything is clumsy and misses the mark. Same goes with the back and forth between M (Judi Dench) and the Army General (Geoffrey Palmer). We’ve seen the two in As Time Goes By (well… some of us have), they have a proven on screen record together showing they can be funny; here they joke about balls.

On the plus side, Brosnan is really sinking into the part now and has a much more relaxed demeanour. He’s fun to watch and draws you in, making the film bearable and many of his scenes quite memorable. There’s something odd and affected about his style that sticks in your mind and makes you want to see more of him.

Jonathan Pryce is always a joy to watch, despite his poorly written character. There’s some attempt at satire here, perhaps a jab at Rupert Murdoch, but it’s too blunt and silly to really stick. Still, he does his best to light up the screen when he can.

Michelle Yeoh is another wasted talent. She’s personable and interesting, but for whatever reason Bond only properly talks to her at the end of the film. As they plan the final act together we are left wishing they’d met up earlier on.

Tomorrow Never Dies is a careless, stupid attempt to quickly make some more money off the back of the far superior Goldeneye. It’s a bad idea for a film, and it seems to make no attempt to hide this. We feel like we’re treading water until the next episode. Brosnan is the only thing saving it from being a forgettable disaster.

http://benoliver999.com/film/2015/08/22/tomorrowneverdies/

A pretty solid Bond entry. I think the overall premise and aesthetic is something that is incredibly evocative of the time. Modern technology existed, but it was fairly nascent, and therefore print media was still prevalent and important. It's a neat little time capsule in that way. Of course, pretty much all of the Bond movies are time capsules in their own ways. It's part of why I enjoy watching the older ones so much.

I think the plot begins great, but ends up being underwhelming. At the beginning, it seems like Carver is a lunatic who wants to create and control the news. But then, at the climax, it's revealed that he's doing all of this so some Chinese general can step in to foster peace, and Carver will get Chinese broadcasting rights in return. That's incredibly disappointing! How mundane. It would've honestly been more satisfying if Carver was just crazy.

- My favorite part about the remote control car is how Bond's hands are not even properly on the controls for a good 80% or more of the time during the whole parking garage sequence, yet it still is driven flawlessly.
- After the motorcycle chase/helicopter explosion, there is naked baby butt on the screen in the foreground for like 8 seconds. Why they do that.
- Near the end, after Wai Lin takes out the engine, Bond comes on screen and fires his pistol. It visibly has a silencer on it, yet they used regular non-silenced gunshot audio for it. (Not that Hollywood silenced gunshots are ever realistic, but this wasn't right, either.)
- Very weird application of slow-mo for some of the action shots in the finale. It sticks out because it's not used regularly, and it also didn't really serve a purpose...
- Wai Lin _could have_ been a good character... but they dropped the ball hard by not even trying. She just randomly shows up wherever Bond happens to be, unexplained, until they finally are forced to work together, and then they just keep working together out of momentum more than anything. How did she end up scuba diving to the shipwreck _at the exact same time_ that Bond was there?! They don't even bother trying to explain this! They could've had a few establishing shots showing her tailing him, but the problem there is that they had Bond HALO dropped in by the CIA because they wanted the token Joe Don Baker appearance, so it would've been impossible for Wai Lin to know that Bond was going to be there when he was there. It was just pure random chance. Stupid.

This era is the Bond I'm most familiar with. I was a teenager when Brosnan started in the role and I think he was a fantastic casting - and seeing this after all these years only proves that.

All those years on TV mean he is masterful at using his facial mannerisms, glances, slight posture changes to make an impact... A fine actor.

At the darker side of Bond's nature, he is fantastic. He is extremely elegant but there is a believability to his nastiness - after all, take away the martinis and casino games, he is just a government assassin is he not?

And what about the female castings of Teri Hatcher (the best Lois Lane we've ever had) and Michelle Yu (his equal or his superior?) Inspired and extremely compelling, they add so much to the usual disposable casts we have become used to.

The casting of Jonathan Price however is unforgiveable. He's dreadfully overacting - chewing up the scenery like he's in an episode of Blackadder. And the director deserved to never work again when he allowed Price to clatter on a keyboard like a drummer pounds the skins. Ridiculous - and in the world of the Bond megalomaniac, that's saying something.

The stunts are good. The plot is interesting, though of its time - it feels a little naive now. And the opening has a real menace and tension to it.

However, it is infuriating that after the debut of a harsher, leaner, more modern Bond that we get an almost immediate desire to bring in so many of the overly comedic Moore tropisms... Brosnan can deliver a line for sure but it is unnecessary and weighs down the flow of what is quite a brisk film.

Without the stupidity and fixing the casting of Price, this would likely be the best Bond of all time. As it stands with its flaws, it is better than Goldeneye because it is fleshed out with a higher budget - sadly it is at the expense of its brutality.

A special shout out to the awful electronic impulses of David Arnold and his music. He does more harm than good though not as bad as Bill Conti's effort that one time!


8/10

Pierce Brosnan wasn't my favourite James Bond by any means, but somehow I think that might be as much to do with the fact that he was given some really weak storylines to deliver. This one centres around megalomaniac media mogul "Carver" (Jonathan Pryce) who manages to engineer a deadly conflict between the Royal Navy and the Chinese military over a mis-directed destroyer. Next thing we know, "007" is drafted in to find out just what happened before the world finds itself facing an international conflagration that seems designed to ensure that "Carver" gets media rights in the hitherto unwilling China. They, too, are suspicious at the turn of events, so despatch their top agent "Wai Lin" (Michelle Yeoh) and together they must combine their resources to combat the menacing henchman "Stamper" (Götz Otto) and the quirkily engaging "Dr. Kaufman" (Vincent Schiavelli) whose film-stealing scene as the dapper, yet lethal, assassin does raise a smile. Teri Hatcher provides the short-lived love interest. An unremarkable actress at the best of times, she brings a little glamour but very little else to this frequently rather (contrived) dialogue-heavy enterprise. Dame Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer renew their long established partnership for a few scenes, and Desmond Llewellyn gets a few extra ones which is nice to watch. Otherwise, this is just another fairly charm-free, factory produced instalment of a franchise that is struggling to make impact amongst an increasingly more competitive genre that is out-writing and out-impressing this tried looking series.

Solid second entry for Brosnan who still is charming. Not a great story but still timely with news and manipulation. Does make me appreciate the slower, more character driven nature of the Craig run, that this one was lacking, That said, Pryce made for a fun Bond villain. **3.5/5**