Well, that was a bit of a delay, to say the least. Almost exactly 3 years since I reviewed Goldeneye [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.395627-Bond-Reviews-Presents-Goldeneye-spoilers]. But, with the recent release of Spectre, what better time to get up and get on with it? But first, some background information on the movie.
Tomorrow Never Dies was released in 1997, under director Roger Spottiswoode (best known for directing Turner and Hooch and The 6th Day) and producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli (who have produced every Bond movie starting with Goldeneye). The film was fairly well received commercially (although it was the only Brosnan Bond movie to note open at number one in the box office, mostly because it was released the same weekend as Titanic), but reviews were a bit mixed, though it did earn a Golden Globe nomination. Does it still hold up?
The plot of the film follows James Bond (Pierce Brosnan again) as he tries to prevent World War III. See, a British ship, the HMS Devonshire, was seemingly torpedoed in international waters by Chinese MiG fighters, who claimed the ship was in Chinese territorial waters, and the survivors of the sinking were machine-gunned with Chinese weaponry. At the same time, a sea-to-air missile downed one of the 2 MiGs who were sent to alert/warn the HMS Devonshire. Interestingly, a newspaper by the name of Tomorrow picked up the story earlier than anyone, even the Vietnamese government that picked up the machine-gunned bodies, and when the Devonshire sent her last known coordinates, a strange signal was picked up from a satellite owned by Carver Media Group, the same conglomerate that runs Tomorrow. With this lead, Bond is sent to investigate CMG, given 48 hours before the British fleet heads to Chinese waters for retaliation.
Overall, the plot does its job pretty well, keeping the movie going at a quick pace without seeming rushed. In addition, the idea of using media and techno-terrorism significantly in the plot is a quite interesting one. However, the techno-terrorism element was somewhat glanced over, being used but only as a tool for the main villain. The impact of media on the plot, however, does work pretty well. One of the quotes from the villain sums it up pretty well, although to put the exact quote up would somewhat spoil the movie. Not that there is a lot to spoil. Simply by reading the plot above, you could probably guess at least WHO the villain is. As for the WHY...well, let's just say you'll probably be rolling your eyes. See, there is an on-screen villain, and an off-screen villain. Which villain has the more understandable goal? The one who isn't giving the speeches.
That said, the acting in the movie is pretty good, with one glaring exception. Pierce Brosnan as Bond does his thing pretty well. Throughout the movie, he seems almost obsessed with protecting the women he is close to, touching on an aspect that was mentioned in Goldeneye, and the movie suggests several times that behind all the smart comments and gadgets, Bond has not quite "matured" past his "boys with toys and chivalry" phase, which is not an aspect commonly touched on in a Bond movie.
The main Bond girl is a Chinese secret agent named Wai Lin (played by Michelle Yeoh, she of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). To be fair to the character, she is portrayed as being highly capable for the most part, being presented as almost a female Bond and given several opportunities to show off Michelle Yeoh's martial arts. However, there is almost no chemistry at all between Bond and Lin, and their subsequent hook-up feels like it is checking off a box on the list, rather than feeling organic. The secondary Bond girl is Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher, of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman fame). She shows up, delivers plot elements with an almost audible thump, poorly acts her way through a tryst with Bond, a former lover, and then vanishes from a movie. This is the exception to the overall good acting.
There are three villains to really mention, although I'll be talking about 4 total, because one of them doesn't do much, but is awesome at it. The main villain, pictured above, is Elliot Carver, owner of Carver Media Group (played by Jonathan Pryce, who has been in a LOT of stuff, but you might know him as Governor Swann in Pirates of the Carribean). This character is actually a pretty solid Bond villain, using his media role to support his ambitions, and clearly having a blast doing so. To quote the character: "There is no news...like bad news". The main downside to this villain is that his ultimate goal is...really petty. Why is he doing all this? To quote his response to Bond asking what he gets out of this: "Oh, nothing, really...except exclusive broadcasting rights in China for the next hundred years." That's right. The villain in this movie is doing all of this...for television ratings. As I said, he's played quite well, but the motivation is ridiculous, even by Bond movie standards.
He has two main henchmen throughout the movie, and one that only shows up for a scene. His muscle is Stamper (played by Gotz Otto, a primarily German actor), who is played quite effectively. He is shown as quite enjoying his work as Carver's muscle, and is quite tough to deal with, shrugging off knives to the arm and chest like they were nothing, and Otto plays him quite well. My only real issue with Stamper is that he is one of several attempts to mirror From Russia with Love's Red Grant, and Stamper is arguably the most transparent.
The second henchman is his techno-terrorist, Henry Gupta (played by Ricky Jay, who is primarily a stage magician). Ricky Jay plays his role quite well, acting as someone who does rather horrific things without caring all that much about the ideology, just his paycheck. If he was given more to do, I'd like him a bit more, but he basically shows up, does his thing with the box doohickey/computer, then vanishes until the next scene. He did have a scene utilizing Ricky Jay's real-life skills as a card-thrower, which could have made Gupta seem like more of a threat, but that scene was ultimately cut, leaving Jay with nothing to be but be an evil hacker.
The final henchman is Dr. Kaufman (played by Vincent Schiavelli, known for playing Mr. Vargas in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, among many other roles). While he is only on-screen for one scene before facing the fate of almost any Bond villain foolish enough to try to kill Bond, he milks it for all its worth, resulting in one of the most memorable scenes in the movie. His character looks at being a torture technician and goon for Elliot Carver as a job, nothing more. He even shares in some of his frustration with Bond when he is called in the middle of his informing Bond of what Kaufman is going to do, because his goons are unable to break into Bond's car. He has an impact on the movie far beyond his screentime, and that is a good thing.
This movie does do one thing extremely well, and that is the action scenes. The entire third act of the movie is an action scene, basically, broken up by various dialogues. That's not necessarily a good thing, but the action scenes are done quite well (mostly). Amongst the various action setpieces are a motorcycle chase between Bond/Wai Lin and Carver's goons while the former are handcuffed together, a shootout in a newspaper factory, and a hand-to-hand fight on top of a missile. There are some questionable choices (see: every time the action goes into a slo-mo shot for Wai Lin doing something cool), but overall, the action in the movie delivers quite well.
The Bond theme in this film is done by Sheryl Crow and...I wasn't all that fond of it. It's harder than her other work, fitting in with Bond themes tonally, but Sheryl Crow's voice isn't quite up to it, straining on the vocals in the chorus. That said, the instruments, which sounded quite similar to "House of the Rising Sun" in the slower verses, were quite good, and she did quite well in those slower verses as well. Also, the lyrics themselves, sung from the point of view of a murdered fling of Bond's, works quite well with the general feel of his character in the movie. If Sheryl Crow didn't sound like she was blowing out her vocal cords on the chorus, I would have liked it quite a bit better.
Overall, Tomorrow Never Dies is not exactly a bad Bond movie, but it is one of the most frustrating. It has great action scenes, solid acting from the majority of the cast, and some interesting ideas for the villains, but all the Bond girls in the movie lack any chemistry with Bond, the cool ideas for the villains are overridden by the sheer silliness of Carver's goals, and the plot itself is a bit too predictable from the word "go". Again, it's not bad, and I wouldn't say I regretted re-watching it. In fact, it was better than I remembered it being. But it could have been so much better with a few tweaks.
Girls Bonded With: 3 (Danish professor, Paris Carver, Wai Lin)
Total Girls Bonded With So Far: 49
Average per Movie: 2.7
Best Bond One-Liner: (after throwing someone into a printing press) "They'll print anything these days."
Tomorrow Never Dies was released in 1997, under director Roger Spottiswoode (best known for directing Turner and Hooch and The 6th Day) and producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli (who have produced every Bond movie starting with Goldeneye). The film was fairly well received commercially (although it was the only Brosnan Bond movie to note open at number one in the box office, mostly because it was released the same weekend as Titanic), but reviews were a bit mixed, though it did earn a Golden Globe nomination. Does it still hold up?
The plot of the film follows James Bond (Pierce Brosnan again) as he tries to prevent World War III. See, a British ship, the HMS Devonshire, was seemingly torpedoed in international waters by Chinese MiG fighters, who claimed the ship was in Chinese territorial waters, and the survivors of the sinking were machine-gunned with Chinese weaponry. At the same time, a sea-to-air missile downed one of the 2 MiGs who were sent to alert/warn the HMS Devonshire. Interestingly, a newspaper by the name of Tomorrow picked up the story earlier than anyone, even the Vietnamese government that picked up the machine-gunned bodies, and when the Devonshire sent her last known coordinates, a strange signal was picked up from a satellite owned by Carver Media Group, the same conglomerate that runs Tomorrow. With this lead, Bond is sent to investigate CMG, given 48 hours before the British fleet heads to Chinese waters for retaliation.
The poster. Seems a little too similar to Goldeneye's, for my liking.
Overall, the plot does its job pretty well, keeping the movie going at a quick pace without seeming rushed. In addition, the idea of using media and techno-terrorism significantly in the plot is a quite interesting one. However, the techno-terrorism element was somewhat glanced over, being used but only as a tool for the main villain. The impact of media on the plot, however, does work pretty well. One of the quotes from the villain sums it up pretty well, although to put the exact quote up would somewhat spoil the movie. Not that there is a lot to spoil. Simply by reading the plot above, you could probably guess at least WHO the villain is. As for the WHY...well, let's just say you'll probably be rolling your eyes. See, there is an on-screen villain, and an off-screen villain. Which villain has the more understandable goal? The one who isn't giving the speeches.
That said, the acting in the movie is pretty good, with one glaring exception. Pierce Brosnan as Bond does his thing pretty well. Throughout the movie, he seems almost obsessed with protecting the women he is close to, touching on an aspect that was mentioned in Goldeneye, and the movie suggests several times that behind all the smart comments and gadgets, Bond has not quite "matured" past his "boys with toys and chivalry" phase, which is not an aspect commonly touched on in a Bond movie.
The main Bond girl is a Chinese secret agent named Wai Lin (played by Michelle Yeoh, she of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). To be fair to the character, she is portrayed as being highly capable for the most part, being presented as almost a female Bond and given several opportunities to show off Michelle Yeoh's martial arts. However, there is almost no chemistry at all between Bond and Lin, and their subsequent hook-up feels like it is checking off a box on the list, rather than feeling organic. The secondary Bond girl is Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher, of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman fame). She shows up, delivers plot elements with an almost audible thump, poorly acts her way through a tryst with Bond, a former lover, and then vanishes from a movie. This is the exception to the overall good acting.
[img height= 200 width=350]http://surprisinglycompetentmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/tomneverdies_badguy.jpg[/img]
The villain! I'd say I'm spoiling it, but the movie makes it clear from scene 1 that he is the villain.
There are three villains to really mention, although I'll be talking about 4 total, because one of them doesn't do much, but is awesome at it. The main villain, pictured above, is Elliot Carver, owner of Carver Media Group (played by Jonathan Pryce, who has been in a LOT of stuff, but you might know him as Governor Swann in Pirates of the Carribean). This character is actually a pretty solid Bond villain, using his media role to support his ambitions, and clearly having a blast doing so. To quote the character: "There is no news...like bad news". The main downside to this villain is that his ultimate goal is...really petty. Why is he doing all this? To quote his response to Bond asking what he gets out of this: "Oh, nothing, really...except exclusive broadcasting rights in China for the next hundred years." That's right. The villain in this movie is doing all of this...for television ratings. As I said, he's played quite well, but the motivation is ridiculous, even by Bond movie standards.
He has two main henchmen throughout the movie, and one that only shows up for a scene. His muscle is Stamper (played by Gotz Otto, a primarily German actor), who is played quite effectively. He is shown as quite enjoying his work as Carver's muscle, and is quite tough to deal with, shrugging off knives to the arm and chest like they were nothing, and Otto plays him quite well. My only real issue with Stamper is that he is one of several attempts to mirror From Russia with Love's Red Grant, and Stamper is arguably the most transparent.
The second henchman is his techno-terrorist, Henry Gupta (played by Ricky Jay, who is primarily a stage magician). Ricky Jay plays his role quite well, acting as someone who does rather horrific things without caring all that much about the ideology, just his paycheck. If he was given more to do, I'd like him a bit more, but he basically shows up, does his thing with the box doohickey/computer, then vanishes until the next scene. He did have a scene utilizing Ricky Jay's real-life skills as a card-thrower, which could have made Gupta seem like more of a threat, but that scene was ultimately cut, leaving Jay with nothing to be but be an evil hacker.
The final henchman is Dr. Kaufman (played by Vincent Schiavelli, known for playing Mr. Vargas in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, among many other roles). While he is only on-screen for one scene before facing the fate of almost any Bond villain foolish enough to try to kill Bond, he milks it for all its worth, resulting in one of the most memorable scenes in the movie. His character looks at being a torture technician and goon for Elliot Carver as a job, nothing more. He even shares in some of his frustration with Bond when he is called in the middle of his informing Bond of what Kaufman is going to do, because his goons are unable to break into Bond's car. He has an impact on the movie far beyond his screentime, and that is a good thing.
Oh, right, action movie.
This movie does do one thing extremely well, and that is the action scenes. The entire third act of the movie is an action scene, basically, broken up by various dialogues. That's not necessarily a good thing, but the action scenes are done quite well (mostly). Amongst the various action setpieces are a motorcycle chase between Bond/Wai Lin and Carver's goons while the former are handcuffed together, a shootout in a newspaper factory, and a hand-to-hand fight on top of a missile. There are some questionable choices (see: every time the action goes into a slo-mo shot for Wai Lin doing something cool), but overall, the action in the movie delivers quite well.
The Bond theme in this film is done by Sheryl Crow and...I wasn't all that fond of it. It's harder than her other work, fitting in with Bond themes tonally, but Sheryl Crow's voice isn't quite up to it, straining on the vocals in the chorus. That said, the instruments, which sounded quite similar to "House of the Rising Sun" in the slower verses, were quite good, and she did quite well in those slower verses as well. Also, the lyrics themselves, sung from the point of view of a murdered fling of Bond's, works quite well with the general feel of his character in the movie. If Sheryl Crow didn't sound like she was blowing out her vocal cords on the chorus, I would have liked it quite a bit better.
Overall, Tomorrow Never Dies is not exactly a bad Bond movie, but it is one of the most frustrating. It has great action scenes, solid acting from the majority of the cast, and some interesting ideas for the villains, but all the Bond girls in the movie lack any chemistry with Bond, the cool ideas for the villains are overridden by the sheer silliness of Carver's goals, and the plot itself is a bit too predictable from the word "go". Again, it's not bad, and I wouldn't say I regretted re-watching it. In fact, it was better than I remembered it being. But it could have been so much better with a few tweaks.
Girls Bonded With: 3 (Danish professor, Paris Carver, Wai Lin)
Total Girls Bonded With So Far: 49
Average per Movie: 2.7
Best Bond One-Liner: (after throwing someone into a printing press) "They'll print anything these days."
