Beginner’s Bond: Tomorrow Never Dies
“Beginner’s Bond” is about investigating one of the biggest gaps in my personal cinematic knowledge: the James Bond franchise. As influential as they are, I had seen almost none of them until now. I am watching all of the films in order (mostly) for the first time, and sharing my honest reactions here. GoldenEye revitalized the series for a new era of filmmaking. Can 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies possibly follow that act?
In a word: yes!
Tomorrow Never Dies has a propulsive opening, and it just keeps building momentum from there. James Bond is spying on a terrorist arms bazaar on the Russian border, and some stuffy Navy admiral calls for a missile strike before it can be pointed out there are nuclear torpedoes in the blast zone. 007 makes some creative chaos by tossing around explosives, then uses the confusion to steal the jet carrying the torpedoes and fly it out of range just before the bazaar is annihilated. Cue title sequence.
It seems the Pierce Brosnan films are particularly good at cold opens, but the rest of Tomorrow Never Dies follows the same brisk pace, rarely slowing down to let the audience catch their breath. The villain, media baron Elliot Carver, uses a stealth ship and fabricated evidence as well as practical violence to orchestrate a conflict between Britain and China that could easily spiral into World War III. Agent 007 has 48 hours to investigate before the two fleets are within firing range of each other.
Since Carver was able to run news stories about the incident hours before MI6 found out, and also openly brags about taking bribes to increase or decrease the amount of coverage he gives a subject, Bond begins his investigation there. His cover is blown almost immediately, which leads to a gunfight at a newspaper facility, the death of the woman he seduced to gain access, and a rather clever twist on the traditional car chase that sees Bond controlling his vehicle and its many fun gadgets via his cellphone. He eventually joins forces with Wai Lin, a Chinese state security agent on the same case. And since she is played by Michelle Yeoh, she is a gifted ass-kicker that needs no help from a “decadent agent of a corrupt Western power.” They share a motorcycle as a helicopter chases them through Saigon, resulting in some award-winning stunt work that is still breathtaking to behold. Mr. Stamper, the uber mensch du jour, puts up a rather impressive fight, displaying both brains and brawn before ultimately being bested by Bond. But just like in GoldenEye before, 007 is able to kill all the bad guys and blow up the secret floating fortress before the marines ever arrive.
Of all the Bond villains I have encountered thus far, Elliot Carver is the most eerily prescient. His proclamation that information is the weapon of the future rings especially true in the year 2025, where media has become the modern battleground for cultural warfare. While Carver accurately predicted the ability of misinformation to manipulate entire nations, he could not foresee the death of truth. Today, Carver needn’t bother with all the stealth ship shenanigans. He could just run news stories about a conflict that never happened. As long as enough eyes see those stories, the lie becomes accepted and the falsehood is only strengthened by any contradicting evidence. An immoral media mogul of Carver’s stature could start a war from his iPad without ever going to the trouble of actually killing anybody—if he writes his stories the right way, the people will do it for him. That’s what makes him so much more insidious than previous villains—he’s not just murdering people, but convincing them to murder each other.
Didn’t anticipate this happening, but I think Tomorrow Never Dies might be better than GoldenEye. It’s faster paced with bigger and bolder action scenes, including some amazing stunt work, and it introduced the Western world to the magnificent Michelle Yeoh, the most memorable Bond girl yet. The villain has a timeless relevance, and it is a delight to watch 007 take him apart. Now I’m getting excited. Will The World Is Not Enough be even better?
