Review of Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) by Josh H — 10 Feb 2016

Matt Gourley of the James Bonding podcast argues that the Brosnan Bond films suffer from a sort of tonal dissonance. Meaning, they can't tell whether to be tongue-in-cheek comedic, dramatic, or go-for-broke action movies.

Basically, it's hard to take a dramatic love scene between Brosnan and Teri Hatcher seriously just a few minutes after Moneypenny calls Bond a "cunning linguist." It feels awkward, like the movie is trying to be all Bonds to all people but ends up being unconvincing on all fronts.

I think it's an existential thing for the series: hard to get the tone right when your movie doesn't have a real reason to be other than venerated tradition (and, like most venerated traditions, its purpose is essentially to sell things).

But I'm being mean. As escapist comfort food, a by-the-numbers Bond for when you're in the mood for a by-the-numbers Bond, Tomorrow Never Dies has its pleasures. There's Brosnan, fitting the role like a glove.

There's Michelle Yoeh, great fun as Bond's roundhouse kicking Chinese equal. There are terrific action sequences that flow masterfully into one another as the mid-section of the movie just keeps coming.

There's the late, great Vincent Schiavelli as a genial psychotic hit man. Johnathan Price is an over-the-top matter of taste, though his brief chop-socky impression toward the end is almost worth the price of admission.

There are many flaws of course. The clunky dialogue, the faceless Red Grant stand-in of a henchman, the unconvincing Brosnan-Hatcher romance, the media mogul who, in 1997, has apparently never heard of the internet.

Nonetheless, Tomorrow Never Dies is an entertaining if decidedly mid-level Bond affair.