TOMORROW NEVER DIES
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: Media mega-tycoon and megalomaniac
Jonathan Pryce matches wits with the Pierce
Brosnan's James Bond. The film is long on action
sequences and short on plot. Brosnan's
interpretation of Bond gets more and more like
Roger Moore's. There is less and less effective
under all the polish and instead we have plot
contrivances to make sure things work out for the
best. TOMORROW NEVER DIES ranks about 12th of the
18 James Bond films from United Artists and (now)
MGM. Rating: 5 (0 to 10), high 0 (-4 to +4)
If one looks at FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, there is a lot that happening in the film. The plot involves British intelligence, Russian intelligence, Turkish intelligence, and SPECTRE. Within SPECTRE there are competing agents chess champion Kronstein vs. Rosa Klebb. There is a false seduction and other double crosses. There are also fights and chases, but they are each relatively short in duration. When Bond fights Grant it is a believable fight and Grant is dispatched in three or four minutes. Then the plot starts moving forward again. The result was that FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE was a James Bond thriller. If you have James Bond captured by the nasties and twenty minutes later he is still escaping and the plot is still at a standstill, it does not matter how many cars have been blown up, how many people have been shot, or how many helicopters have crashed. What you have may be a James Bond action film, but it is not a thriller. If Bond has to do some clever deductive work to realize what the villain is up to, you may have a thriller. If Bond's success just happens because by coincidence he is in the right place at the right time, you might have an action film, but you do not have a thriller. TOMORROW NEVER DIES has an unfortunate shortage of plot complexity. It is an action film with James Bond, but it is not a James Bond thriller.
After a shaky start in his first film, Pierce Brosnan is every bit the James Bond that Roger Moore was, for whatever that is worth. TOMORROW NEVER DIES reminds on of a Roger Moore Bond film. After a mostly irrelevant opening sequence we have a British battleship first buzzed by Chinese MiGs, then chewed up by some sort of mechanical device that combines aspects of a torpedo, a tunnel borer, and a lamprey. It goes to the bottom much like the Titanic, the film about which was released in the same weekend. (I wonder if the allusion could have been intentional.) The British and Chinese governments are on the point of war and James Bond is sent off to figure out another puzzle. It seems that while sea-water was still leaking into the battleship, news of the attack had already leaked out. It was on the news channel before anyone could have possibly known unless they knew in advance the attack was to happen. The news channel is ruled over by magnate Elliot Carver (played by Jonathan Pryce). Pryce seems to comprise the worst aspects of Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates, and a lamprey. Can it be that Carver is actually creating the news-- WAG THE DOG style--for his own ends? Wait till you hear the reasons why! But Bond has to get his information pumping Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher), former Bond lover and now Mrs. Elliot Carver. The plot works like a too-well-oiled machine taking us from one fifteen-minute action sequence to one that is possibly twenty minutes without ever slowing down for the audience to ask if it all makes sense, which it does not.
Along for the ride this time are Judi Dench as M, trying to look as much as possible like Bernard Lee with two X-chromosomes and frighteningly succeeding. Desmond Llewelyn is trying to give the impression that a job in the Secret Service is for life. He is probably there mostly for continuity as is Joe Don Baker's superfluous Jack Wade, formerly of GOLDENEYE. Jonathan Pryce is a great actor who makes a nearly colorless Bond villain. Two characters are not colorless and should have been used to considerably advantage. One was a Chinese agent played by Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh, a sort of female Jackie Chan who could well have out-performed Brosnan in the action scenes. The other was a terrific small role for Vincent Schiavelli as Dr. Kaufman, expert in torture and other infamous arts. Schiavelli has one short delectable scene in a role that cried out to be expanded. Also there is a totally lackluster and boring acting job by Bond's car. The scenes in which the car appears look like second rate automobile ads, which by an odd coincidence is exactly what they are. (I would not mention that here, but since the filmmakers accepted all that nice money from the manufacturer to pose the car so much more carefully than they pose any of the human characters, I feel obliged to review the car's performance.)
As a director Roger Spottiswoode is, well, spotty. His UNDER FIRE was a very solid political film. His made for cable adaptation of AND THE BAND PLAYED ON was a high-point of its year. Let us not, however, dwell on his STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT. As a director of a Bond film he was only middling successful. He should have exerted more control on the script, making it more intelligent and refusing the product placements. David Arnold has written an acceptably John Barry-sounding score built around Barry's James Bond theme (credited falsely to Monty Norman).
TOMORROW NEVER DIES is below average for the Bond films to date. They never even bother to tell the viewer what the title means. I rate the new Bond film a 5 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high 0 on the -4 to +4 scale
Just so the reader can know what my values are in Bond films I would rate the Bond film best to worse as: 1. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE 2. ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE 3. THUNDERBALL 4. DR. NO 5. LICENSE TO KILL 6. GOLDFINGER 7. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY 8. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE 9. THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS 10. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME 11. OCTOPUSSY 12. TOMORROW NEVER DIES 13. GOLDENEYE 14. DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER 15. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN 16. A VIEW TO A KILL 17. MOONRAKER 18. LIVE AND LET DIE
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1997 Mark R. Leeper
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