Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) | Today is Tomorrow's Yesterday

While Goldeneye started things off strong for the Brosnan era, it only went downhill from there. That isn’t to say I dislike the rest of the Bond films starring Pierce Brosnan. In fact, they’re somewhat consistent in their tone and style, so you more or less know what you’re getting. Moore and Connery may have had their share of over-the-top stories with secret bases to storm and absurd situational gadgets, but they also had some more grounded films that didn’t get too lost in the fantasy. Brosnan’s films only seemed to get more and more wild (or unbelievable) with each entry. His cars and gadgets would be more fantastical, the stunts would get ridiculous, and Bond would survive absurd situations to the point that he seemed more invincible than Superman, but I’m getting ahead of myself, as usual.

Pros

Pre-title sequence is an exciting opening
Chase sequences in car and motorcycle are exciting and fun
Johnathan Pryce is giving a performance on the level of Frank Langella as Skeletor
Musical score is more engaging than Goldeneye’s

Cons

Sound editing is poor with levels occasionally being off, stock sound effects, and voice clips not matching
The villain’s plot is needlessly overly extravagant and destructive for his end goal
The blonde henchman is not set up to be as intimidating as he is supposed to be
Multiple moments that are too unbelievable and defy logic
Title sequence and theme song look and sound bad

Plot & Thoughts

Tomorrow Never Dies opens with a weapons bazaar on the Russian border busy with activity as MI6 and other British officials watch on via a spy camera. There’s a debate over what to do about this enemy operation. A decision is made that M (Judy Dench) does not agree with, but her vote gets ignored and it is determined the best course of action is to blow the base up with a tactical missile strike. Unbeknownst to them, due to the placement of the camera and various fighter jets, there are several nuclear devices at the base. It’s up to the field agent to get the fighter plane carrying those missiles out of there before the place explodes. Of course, the agent is James Bond (Pierce Brosnan), but until that’s revealed, we only get the perspective from the people thousands of miles away in a secure room filled with computers, and we hear Bond’s distress about the situation only from the person he’s talking to on the phone. It’s a nice touch and I like how we get to see more of the bureaucracy that Bond often clashes with making mistakes without directly hearing his input.

Bond, naturally, escapes with the nukes intact and dispatches a few enemies in his newly acquired fighter jet in a comical fashion before we are forced to endure the opening title sequence. Aside from the spoof Casino Royale and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, this might be the worst opening credits of the franchise. The computer effects used to make the silhouettes of women come out of circuits and motherboards look laughably awful due to this being the mid-’90s—it reminded me of Lawnmowerman, it’s so bad. It doesn’t help that the song by Sheryl Crow is so grating that it makes her name feel more apt because it sounds like a crow getting strangled when she starts singing the chorus. I know I’m being a little mean, but we actually muted the TV during this sequence.

With our ears and eyes thoroughly assaulted, the movie gets going again. A British submarine operating in the South China Sea is told to leave the area by the Chinese military because they claim the British are in Chinese territory. Confused about this possible mistake, they send out several messages before they’re hit by a torpedo from another vessel that did not appear on their radar. It’s no normal torpedo, however, as it is actually a giant drilling device that chews through the hull and sinks the submarine. The survivors make it to the surface but are immediately gunned down by the people who attacked them who are using Chinese rifles, even though there are no Chinese soldiers among them. This would be a quiet incident in the Pacific Ocean that no one would know about if not for the fact that it was plastered all over the newspapers and websites owned by media mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce). The coincidence of such a potential international incident being caught only by Carver’s news is suspicious to MI6, so Bond is sent to investigate. As he discovers more about Carver’s plot, he encounters some old lovers, blows up some vehicles, works alongside a Chinese special agent, makes some daring escapes, and kills a lot of people before the movie is over.

With the synopsis out of the way, I’ll be upfront that I am a little biased to like this movie simply because it was the first Bond film I saw in theaters. It’s far from my list of favorite movies in the franchise, but I think it’s still a decent entry for one reason or another. For one, the various chase and action sequences are pretty fun. The motorcycle chase in which Bond and Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh) are handcuffed is a great highlight. They have to reposition while riding the motorcycle away from a pursuing helicopter, while also taking out other henchmen with well-placed gunshots, and there are a few really good stunts with the motorbike as well. The scene with Bond in the remote-controlled spy car is also a lot of fun as all the gadgets blow up everything in a parking garage while he’s being hunted by assassins. It’s all a bit unbelievable that a secret agent could do everything Bond does in Tomorrow Never Dies, but the special effects and the way everything is shot help make it work.

It’s not just James Bond doing all the action. Michelle Yeoh gets to flex her action muscles a fair amount as well in the latter half of the film. Her experience in Chinese martial arts movies works to her benefit when Wai Lin convincingly takes out a group of thugs in her hideout. She also does her share of damage to the villain’s hideout at the end of the movie without being the ultimate girl-boss that we’ve seen in so many modern movies. She’s a better Bond girl than most others in the film franchise and is far more convincing in her badass abilities than many of the leading ladies that came before and after her. Tracy from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is still my favorite, but Wai Lin is a welcome addition to the film who holds her own.

The other memorable character from Tomorrow Never Dies is Elliot Carver. Carver’s style reminds me of the way Steve Jobs looked and behaved when he took over Apple again, and I would not be surprised if Carver was something of an inspiration to him. The main reason Carver stands out has to do with Johnathan Pryce’s performance. I’m not sure how intentional he was in trying to be extra hammy—I don’t know if he was inspired by Frank Langella’s performances in Cutthroat Island or Masters of the Universe, either—but I was thoroughly entertained by Pryce’s Carver. It’s not explosively over-the-top, but it’s still really dramatic and ridiculous, especially when the character gets mad or is making a public speech. During the scenes in which he’s talking to people in a meeting or giving a speech, there are a lot of stilted words that are part of his speech pattern as he dramatically increases the rate at which he talks for dramatic effect. He’s a fun villain, even if his ultimate plan is kind of stupid.

(SPOILERS) Let’s discuss his stupid plan and what Carver’s end goal is, shall we? Carver is the proprietor of the world’s most successful news media organization. He’s incredibly wealthy, influential, successful, and powerful in the world because of the empire he’s managed to build. The reason his men attacked the British submarine, as well as Chinese vessels, under the guise of the opposing force was because he wanted to incite international incidents that would raise tensions between countries to the point of starting WWIII. This isn’t a bad plan on its own so far as it resembles some of the plans that S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and other villainous entities had in previous Bond movies. However, the reason Carver does all this and wants a new war isn’t because he hates humans and wants to destroy the world, or because he wants to invade a weakened country. It’s because he wants to be the primary source of news for the war and to always have early and exclusive access to the stories that come out as a result.

Excuse me? You already have an extremely successful news organization and you are already rich and influential. What is the point of starting a war that could lead to a nuclear holocaust if your goal is just to win at the news, again? If his news organization wasn’t already successful, or if he wasn’t already rich, or if he had a personal vendetta with the countries involved, or if the countries were smaller than China and the United Kingdom and he was just inciting wars all over countries in Africa for the sake of getting the news it would be more believable. It’s a shame because I like Carver as a villain, but he wouldn’t be the last good Bond villain who gets undone by a dumb plan.

The last few negatives I’ll mention are minor nitpicks. First, the sound editing and dubbing in Tomorrow Never Dies is not great. I spotted several moments, especially with Michelle Yeoh, in which a character is saying a line but the lips and what’s happening on the screen do not match up with what’s coming out of the speakers. The other minor gripe I have has to do with Carver’s right-hand man, Stamper (Gotz Otto). He’s not terrible, but the film does a poor job of building him up. Each scene he’s in with Bond introduces a new thing about him that feels out of place or poorly developed. He talks about the torturing techniques he’s learned more than halfway through the film, but we’ve not seen any instances in which he takes pleasure in torture. Likewise, in the last scene he has, he suddenly is super strong in comparison to Bond, but he doesn’t have the same imposing figure as someone like Dave Bautista from Spectre to immediately give you that impression. Like I said, he’s not terrible, but he’s also not that interesting.

TL;DR

Tomorrow Never Dies is a fun follow-up to the previous entry in the franchise. It’s far from perfect with a villainous plot that doesn’t make the most sense, a terrible theme song, and some questionable choices when it comes to the sound editing and dubbing. However, it has some good action and chase sequences, as well as a solid supporting cast with some memorable performances to make it a little better than simply a middle-of-the-road entry.

Hair of the Dog Drinking Game Rule

Elliot Carver is the primary antagonist of Tomorrow Never Dies and, like many villains, he’s a narcissist. His face is plastered all over the place in the movie and even he even has a gigantic banner on one of his company headquarters. It looks a lot like many of the images of Steve Jobs holding his chin and you’ll see the image a lot over the course of the movie. You can choose to drink whenever the narcissism comes out, or you can just stick to the specific instance in which his visage appears in some form of propagandist media.