Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

So back at the 2-year interval, and back at blowing up airports. Bond saves some mountain from nuclear meltdown before having an aerial dogfight with MIG's. The safe formula it is.

As for Brosnan he is more of a natural the second time around. Meaning he tries less, and ends up about where he was, perhaps not even there. But as the years progress, the casting has bigger names.

Pryce is a treat as always, going in and out of cool callousness and enthusiastic megalomania, but always polite in his phrasing (his manners not so much). Bond and Carver has brilliant banter too. Generally Bond's quips and innuendos are plentiful. Hatcher is a very memorable, but mostly because Schiavelli is so fantastic at disposing of her. As for the regulars, Dench is still good, and Q has all the fatherly love and annoyance you need. But they do throw a bit too many characters into the mix, with just a line or two, and that makes the film look disjointed at times. A further problem is Michelle Yeoh. When Bond has had Bond-girls that were other agencies' counterparts, they've always had plenty of screentime. Yeoh doesn't apart from stunts and action-scenes, so there really is no time to strike a connection with 007. And she doesn't do that particularly well in the few scenes they do have.

The action is sub-par for Bond, but at least the remote-controlled BMW is fun. And the stunt-men (and women) probably had enough bruises to show. There is some tension (mostly a nice double-jeopardy for Brosnan and Yeoh towards the end), but I'd expect director Spottiswoode to get more out of it considering there are boats and torpedoes involved. How hard is it to just leave the camera with two shots whilst having the radar increase bleeps?

David Arnold is a simpler, more modern composer than John Barry, making the music fitting to the scenes, but very uninteresting as such. And some is quite frankly just tedious synth- and bass-crap.

So there are no real points where this flick really fails, but it just doesn't engage the viewer. You don't care as much as you should, and you're not as enthralled as you should. Perhaps the lack of exotic locations and a sheer laziness to formulate is where it goes wrong. So it's OK. It just feels like a safe choice, without much creative force. Forgettable.

6/10

Best car used: Aston Martin DB5
Most memorable drink served: Vodka Martini, shaken not stirred.
Henchmen: Vincent Schiavelli as Dr. Kaufman is just a beautiful creature, whereas Otto as Stamper is more of a throwback to Hitler's perfect rase and Stephen Lang's "Party Crasher" from 1991.
Villain: Jonathan Pryce as Elliot Carver. True megalomaniac
Best one-liner: "They'll print anything these days".
Song: "Tomorrow never Dies". The only song not to break the Billboard. Depressing, as it's one of my favourites.
Bond-girl: Michelle Yeoh as Wei Lin