Screen Vistas: BONDATHON: TOMORROW NEVER DIES

I often wonder about the minions in the Bond universe. I don't mean the 2nd tier muscle men that Bond often deals with, but the low level employees. Do the thousands of technicians working on those plots know why their boss wants to build a super-laser in a hollowed out volcano? Do they know he's evil? Do super-villains ever worry about their plans leaking?

The answer, according to Tomorrow Never Dies, is that everyone is indeed in on it, to some degree at least. It's villain, Eliot Carver (Johnathan Pryce) is a media mogul who want's to start a war between Britain and China by basically reenacting the Gulf of Tonkin incident but with different countries. Carver makes no bones about his evilness to his employees (as if the platinum crew cut wasn't a hint). Early in the film he holds a meeting with all his news editors where they manipulate and plant news stories to boost profits, with much evil cackling and hand ringing. Later, before he kills a very prominent socialite he has a lowly news anchor record the obituary in advance just so he can show it to his victim first. There's evil, and there's plain carelessness. I half expected Carver's janitor to be in on the evilness. It doesn't help that Pryce and director Robert Spottiswoode (Stop or My Mon Will Shoot!) insist that Carver be played as over the top as possible. Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers films is more down to earth than this guy.

With the evil scheme pretty well spelled out to us in the beginning, watching Bond (Pierce Brosnan) try and uncover it is pretty dull. The film tries to spice it up by revealing that Carvers wife Paris (Teri Hatcher), is Bonds former lover. Upon learning this M (Judi Dench) orders 007 to "pump her for information."

Dropping in on a former Bond girl is kinda a neat idea. It offers an opportunity to show us a new side of the character and follow up on the post-modern aspirations of Goldeneye. Unfortunately the script (which was rushed into production to satisfy a studio stock-holder) isn't really interested in this idea and all we get is some sub-par banter before Paris is killed just to give Bond some cheep revenge motivation that is never mentioned again.

The second half of the film is better. Bond goes to China and teams up with local agent Wai Lin, played by Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) to stop Carver. The idea of Bond teaming up with a foreign, female version of himself isn't new. We got a similar version of the character in The Spy Who Loved Me. But this version can act and do all of her own stunts.

Those stunts are pretty spectacular at times. The best scene in the movie, the scene that makes up for all the dullness that came before, is a bravado stunt sequence where Bond and Lin are handcuffed together and slide down a building, get onto a motorcycle (they share the handle bars) and evade a helicopter that's using it's blades to mow down civilians. Credit for this bravado sequence goes to second unit director/legendary stunt man Vic Armstrong.

I liked the gadgets in this film. The best is Bond's BMW which can be controlled from his cell phone. This may have come off as too over the top in 1997, but in 2012 I'm surprised there isn't an app for that. But then again, in 2012, wikileaks would stop Carver long before Bond could.

In addition to the stunts and the gadgets there are a few nice performances. Vincent Schiaveli scores laughs as Dr. Kaufman, an assassin who dabbles in torture and specializes in celebrity overdoses. Bronson continues to be a great Bond, playing the character as a fun loving child rather than a sadist (Connery/Dalton) or a square (Moore). If the earlier Bonds felt like imperial relics keeping the world in check, Brosnan's Bond just wants to party. In Goldeneye, that glee served a clear thematic purpose, in Tomorrow Never Dies it just serves to cover up plot holes and an underwritten script. It's still fun, but the film is a huge step backwards.

Grade: C+

Enjoy these other Bondathon entries:

Dr. No

From Russia With Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball / Never Say Never Again