Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Today's James Bond marathon lands us on the 18th official James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).

SYNOPSIS:
A British warship is sunk in Chinese waters under mysterious circumstances, and before MI6 has properly begun their investigation, the newspaper "Tomorrow" already has all the juicy details in print.  M (Judi Dench) sends James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) to investigate media mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) and his new 24/7 news coverage organization.  Bond teams up with a Chinese spy, Colonel Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh) and together, they uncover a plot by Carver to provoke WWIII just to have exclusive media rights to the whole event.  Can Bond stop Carver before nations go to war against each other?

REVIEW:
I think it's funny that in the previous film, M told Bond that, "Unlike the American government, we prefer not to get our bad news from CNN."  And in this very next film, they're literally learning details about an international incident from a newspaper.  No wonder they cared more about having Bond investigate the paper than the actual incident.

I also think it's kind of interesting that we're currently living in a world where our media outlets are being bought and run by political parties, pushing a biased slant to their news.  It's next to impossible to get accurate news nowadays, and so many people are so easily swayed by the slightest thing they read/hear.  So this is a very poignant film to watch at the moment.  It shows the extreme end of things; what if the journalist agencies actually created the news to report on?  I'm sure it's actually happening nowadays to some minor extent, but I don't think they're quite pushing for global war just for their ratings yet.

This film feels like it increased the action a lot more than previous Bond films. It opens with the British Royal Navy authorizing a missile strike on a terrorist weapons market, only for Bond to point out there are nukes there.  The Navy can't abort their missile strike, so Bond has to shoot up the place and steal the jet with nukes on it, all with less than 4 minutes until impact.  And the last-minute escape-type action continues throughout the film, only taking a breath here and there for some exposition.

I guess '90s action films really wanted to up the stakes.  Instead of having Bond spend the film investigating, maybe have a few close calls that lead him closer to the doomsday event/device/etc. before finding himself in a supposedly unwinnable scenario, this film decided to throw high stakes at him throughout.  There are a few scenarios where you know someone just said, "Wouldn't it be cool if..." and then set up a ridiculous setting just to have that cool last-minute escape payoff.  Over-the-top '90s action is abound, including a wide array of half-assed quips from Bond.  My wife and I joked that Pierce Brosnan's Bond is more of a fan of cheesy dad jokes for his quips than previous Bonds.

James Bond, about to suffer mutilation torture.  Someone play me a "WAH-WAAAAH" sound effect.

Q (Desmond Llewelyn) returns undercover as an AVIS rental guy, issuing Bond his new car.  I forgot to mention that Bond's personal car in GoldenEye (1995) and this film is his original 1964 Aston Martin DB5, from all the way back in Goldfinger (1964).  But for the previous film and this one, Q issues him a BMW as his "work car."  In the previous film, it was a Z3; in this film, he has the much more subtle 750iL.  But it's totally decked out with features.  It has a security system that zaps anyone who touches the handles.  Plus the glass is unbreakable by standard sledge hammers or crowbars.  It also includes missiles hidden in the roof, a tray of caltrops (sharp 4-point stars to pop tires) hidden in the rear bumper, re-inflatable tires, in case you have to run over your own caltrops, and a wire cutter hidden under the BMW logo on the hood.

New adventure, new car

Bond also gets an Ericsson JB988 cell phone (ancient tech by today's standards), but it flips open to reveal a screen and touch pad.  Bond can remotely start his car with the phone, and also drive it remotely using the touch pad.  (Also, he can tase people with his phone, and it has a fingerprint scanner)  It was really awesome tech when this movie came out, but smartphones have revolutionized the way we handle touch devices since this film's release, so it's really dated tech now.

Can't see anything on that tiny, low-def screen!

Bond also picks up some equipment from a Chinese spy safehouse, including a new Omega watch that can remotely signal a high-pitch frequency device (he uses this to shatter a jar with a primed grenade in it later) and a Walther P99 handgun.  The P99 will replace his traditional Walther PPK for the rest of the Pierce Brosnan era, including the first of the Daniel Craig films.

The self-titled theme song for this film was performed by Sheryl Crow and is pretty decent.  The entire soundtrack of this film was composed by David Arnold.  You can watch the opening title sequence here:

RECOMMENDATION:
This was a good continuation of the Bond franchise.  The villain was really cocky and full of himself, and honestly kind of annoying for a bad guy.  But Jonathan Pryce did a good job making a lasting impression as him; it's one of the roles of his that I'll always think of when I see him.  If you want some serious action porn with last-minute escapes, this film fills that void.  Enjoy!