Tomorrow Never Dies 1997

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

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/

When war horns bellow between China and the UK, MI6 sends their resident super-spy to get to the bottom of the grievance. It doesn't take much detective work to discover the man most likely to profit from such international conflict: media mogul Elliot Carver, who just so happens to have launched a 24-hour news network in time to broadcast the opening volleys.

It's a forward-thinking concept for the franchise, asking pertinent questions about the rooting interests of the press, but the whole affair is painted in rather broad strokes, every dilemma solved with the same rudimentary answer: shoot bullets until the problem goes away. Preferably in a big, round, satisfying fireball. Carver is a role that could have been really interesting, a menacing mash-up of Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch, and I would've loved to see Anthony Hopkins tackle it, as originally cast. Alas, his departure after a mere three days left the part to Jonathan Pryce, who really hams it up (even by Bond villain standards) and spoils the character's potential. Not that the thin, rushed script did him many favors. His henchmen are severely lacking, too, a rather pedestrian clan without much in the way of muscle or panache.

So we've got James, plus special guest-star Michelle Yeoh (a highly stereotypical, but effective, shot of adrenaline), mowing through a crowd of red shirts en route to a lackluster final showdown with the scrawny, intellectual owner of a media empire. It's not without merit - the chase scenes are still quite good and there's a renewed emphasis on gadgets this time around - but in the pantheon of 007, I would consider Tomorrow Never Dies middling at best.