Tomorrow Never Dies

Brosnan's arc of quality over the course of his 4 films as the super spy is a fairly gradual decline, and by movie two, Tomorrow Never Dies, the decline is certainly noticeable (and nowhere near the avalanche of nonsense in his final film), as it hues too close to its predecessor. What it lacks in innovation, it makes up for with wonderful prescience as to its villain, and bombastic non-stop action.

Let's talk plot and prescience first. Tomorrow Never Dies, nicely mixes Bondian spectacle - having a third act evil villain assault, and car chases - together with a wonderfully satirical stab at the power and influence of mass media. The film was originally entitled Tomorrow Never Lies, in a reference to the chief bad guys paper "Tomorrow," but it is alleged that in faxing the title to MGM, a typo occurred and the film instead earnt the more grim name. 

Elliot Carver is our chief villain, played with scenery chewing glee by Jonathan Pryce, sporting a classic evil genius nehru jacket, and doing everything he can to scream "I'm meant to be like Rupert Murdoch!" For Carver's plan is grand in execution yet simple in objective - concoct a war between the UK and China for ratings, wipe out the Chinese leadership, and install a new leader who will give Carver the one thing that is eluding his empire: exclusive broadcasting rights in China for the next 100 years. 

The idea of a global mass media corporation starting conflict for its own benefit, and actively involving itself in the stories it puts out (often manipulating or outright manufacturing those stories) may have sounded a bit outlandish in the 90s. Now, cut to the late 2010s, and this apocalyptic start to the 2020s, and it doesn't sound so far fetched. Throughout the film, Carver gets to carve up the bodies of innocents before squeezing every drop of blood out of them into his headlines for his own use. A scene involving him delivering a speech after his latest satellite goes on line, stating that he wants "World wide domination..." but for the betterment of illuminating mankind, is intercut with his thugs giving Bond a thrashing is a knowing smart wink to his "fake news."

And Pryce seems to be having the time of his life. The writers wisely let Carver have plenty of screen time to gloat, monologue, and explain his master plan to Bond. Whilst there are moments of comedy with him (most notably his potentially problematic "martial arts" impression") he is still fairly sinister. Watch his glare upon finding out that his wife has betrayed him to Bond, and him then coldly handing down her death sentence "I think we should set an appointment for my wife with the doctor." 

The wife in question is Mrs Paris Carver, played by Teri Hatcher, who in a first for a Bond film is actually an old-flame of the spy. She learnt that he was a spy, and clearly grew out of the sort of childish relationship that you'd imagine would be the case with anyone and Mr Bond, and instead upgraded to megalomaniacs with designs on starting WW3. Despite persistent rumours that Hatcher and Brosnan couldn't stand each other, the few scenes they share together spark and you buy the history between them (although those rumours may explain why her reintroduction slap to Bond works so well). What doesn't work so well is the speed at which she is dispatched from the film, as well as the fact that you never get a sense of what she sees in Carver. This undermines her betrayal significantly, although her resignation to the fact that she is giving him up will lead to her death is quietly sombre. 

With Mrs Carver leaving the film at the midpoint another has to step in to replace her (the aftermath of her death being a darkly comic scene with her assassin Dr Kauffman - Carver's hitman of choice, who takes great pleasure in regaling his skills, describing his skill in torture as "more of a hobby"). Enter martial arts expert Colonel Wai Lin, played by real life martial arts expert, stuntwoman, and actress Michelle Yeoh. Bar a last minute fumbling of having her play damsel in distress, this is likely, at this point in the series, the closest the series has gotten to making Bond's equal. In the many action scenes in the film she either shares the limelight of the action with Bond, or gets to go it alone - most notably fighting multiple assailants with ease in her Saigon hideout. Where Lin loses some points is in a lack of personal motivation. Unlike say Melina Havelock in For Your Eyes Only, she is purely in the fight as it is her duty. However, I struggle calling this a real con when I'm reviewing a series where the protagonist gets through nearly all 25 of his films without any personal motivation other than to complete the mission. 

And in this mission, Bond, still played with charm by Brosnan, gets to jump through many a flaming hoop of an action scene. Whether it is piloting a harrier carrying nukes out of an arms bazaar before it is blown up, to a punch up with the seemingly inhuman Red Grant-lite Mr Stamper atop a soon to launch nuke, the action rarely lets up in this film, perhaps to the detriment of the film. Once Bond breaks into Carver's Hamburg lab there is barely a let up in action over plot for the remainder of the film. The action is consistently dramatic and explosive, if not a bit exhausting. At times it also feels like retreads of past movies, including the movie before it with the pre-credit sequence having a similar setting and ending as Goldeneye, and the Saigon motorbike chasing taking place at roughly the same spot in the film as the tank chase in Goldeneye, and also serving a similar function as escape from captivity (although Bond is also on the hunt at the same time in Goldeneye). There's also been some criticism to the more Rambo-esque tone of the final siege aboard the stealth ship, with Bond, a one-man-army, duel wielding a pistol and machine gun against Carver's army. To some extent, I'd agree that this isn't quite the usual for Bond (in the past these final lair sieges often had Bond working with a friendly army), yet it is still fairly spectacular and certainly puts Bond through the wringer. 

Despite the fairly formulaic plotting, Tomorrow Never Dies gets by with a turbo charged villain, explosive, albeit it exhausting action, some nuance with its female leads, and almost psychic prescience in themes. Tomorrow Never Dies is a Bond for the Trumpian era without it knowing at the time.