Bond Retrospective: "Tomorrow Never Dies"

Released: 1997

Actor: Pierce Brosnan

Villain: Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce)

Henchman: Stamper

Allies: Wade

Bond Girl: Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher), Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh)

First Appearance: none worth reporting

Precredits sequence: Bond stops a terrorist organization's possession of nuclear missiles, and stops a missile sent there by other world forces from tart origins that base and creating a huge nuclear explosion.

Plot: Eliot Carver is controlling the news, destroying a British ship, the Devonshire, and Chinese planes to instigate a conflict. Also mentioned releasing software with bugs to ensure many future upgrades. M notices that one of Carver's satellites sent a signal before the ship attack, which may have caused it took off course. She sends Bond to Hamburg, with a spiffy new car courtesy of Q, to investigate Carver. Bond had a relationship with Carver's wife, Paris, before she was married. Paris helps feed a little information to Bond, and Carver kills her as a results. However, Bond gets the GPS encoder, and sees the Chinese agent there as well. They both escape, and Bond has Wade and his colleagues discover that the encode could've been used to set the Devonshire off course. So, Bond goes to find the actual location of the Devonshire. There, Bond encounter Lin, but they're both captured by Carver, yet manage to escape and team up. Lin says she was investigating Carver before, regarding a stealth vessel, and Bond says it must be a ship, which is how he got close enough to mess with the Devonshire. They search and find the stealth, and are able to warn the British government in time. Lin is captured, and Bond is thought dead. Carver intends to send a missile to Beijing, and wait for Chinese retaliation against the British. And Carver will get Chinese broadcasting rights for a century. As the British ship Bedford starts to destroy the stealth ship, Bond and Lin make their escape, with Stamper eliminated and Carver getting the grind, literally.

Thoughts: Plot: this movie had some good lines, notably, and i paraphrase, "Cunning linguist. Don't ask. Don't tell." Between M and Moneypenny. Overall, the media mogul storyline was rather cool, it was good to see someone in power in a very different way, seeking domination through media, not politics. Carver was actually a good villain. Stamper was a typical henchman, but Lin was a good Bond girl, because like XXX before her, she was a good match for Bond. Overall, a solid Bond film, which I think is the overall theme of the Brosnan films: solid, middle-of-the-road bond. And Wade is back again. Where's Felix? Did he retire after his wife's death?

 

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