Reporting For Duty
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Categories
Tomorrow Never Dies: what went wrong?
M16_Cart
Craig fanboy?
Common criticisms of TND include. Extremely formulaic and predictable plot. Yeoh's acting. Lack of romantic chemistry. But I'll add a few more things.
1) The first 20 minutes. There's very little of Bond, or even dialogue from him. His introduction is sparse and forgettable.
2) The humor is forced and gets over-milked. The joke about Brosnan with the danish girl brushing up on his danish was funny, but then the "cunning linguist" comment overdid it. The joke about "pumping for information" was funny, but then kept on going. There are other examples, but you get my point.
3) The problem with heavy usage of machine guns isn't that it's too violent. But that it just becomes noise and filler without consequence. When have lackeys firing machine guns and missing every shot ever accomplished anything? When has an action hero firing machine guns at dozens of lackeys ever advanced a plot?
4) Imo, Brosnan is at his best when he's the urbane suit-and-tie Bond, using his wits and his smooth-talking to get out of a sticky situation. He's more suited for a casino, club, party or business meeting. As a hardened killer in the field doing action sequences and killing lots of people, he's not as convincing. And he doesn't really adapt his acting style to it as much.
5) While fiction allows characters actions to be enriched by sci-fi or fantasy elements, their motivations as a person still need to be believeable. I don't believe it's in Carver's interest to start WW3 just for ratings and profit. WW3 would risk everyone's lives; what if MI6 found out he's responsible for it and assassinates him? A smaller scale conflict with a non-nuclear countries would be more believable (i.e. Hearst and the Spanish-American War).
With journalistic integrity being more discussed in today's politics, you'd expect a film like this to get a greater appreciation. But it's not just what a film is about: it's how the film is executed. Yes, this film is about journalism. But does it really say anything insightful about it aside from "media is evil; dishonesty is bad".
This could've been more convincing it had some nuance. Real-life media moguls don't put giant pictures of themselves on buildings, and they don't even name the company after themselves; they usually just privately enjoy their wealth.
Real-life media moguls don't make it so apparent they're the villain. They'd draw less attention to themselves and paint other public figures as the villain.
This film portrays bad journalism as total fabrication. But there are shades in between: Information that starts as truth, but it embellished or stretched. Or information taken out of context.
In well-written fiction, no good guy is completely good; and even the villain has at least 1 redeeming qualities. What if the British government, Bond or MI6 did something morally questionable to make the public question them, and then Carver Media Group used that to discredit them; Bond + M16 would have an uphill battle in trying to change that and it would make for a more interesting plot.
There's some sort of balancing act. A movie would be boring if it were exactly like real life. But if it's too over-the-top and cartoony, it loses believeability.
1) The first 20 minutes. There's very little of Bond, or even dialogue from him. His introduction is sparse and forgettable.
2) The humor is forced and gets over-milked. The joke about Brosnan with the danish girl brushing up on his danish was funny, but then the "cunning linguist" comment overdid it. The joke about "pumping for information" was funny, but then kept on going. There are other examples, but you get my point.
3) The problem with heavy usage of machine guns isn't that it's too violent. But that it just becomes noise and filler without consequence. When have lackeys firing machine guns and missing every shot ever accomplished anything? When has an action hero firing machine guns at dozens of lackeys ever advanced a plot?
4) Imo, Brosnan is at his best when he's the urbane suit-and-tie Bond, using his wits and his smooth-talking to get out of a sticky situation. He's more suited for a casino, club, party or business meeting. As a hardened killer in the field doing action sequences and killing lots of people, he's not as convincing. And he doesn't really adapt his acting style to it as much.
5) While fiction allows characters actions to be enriched by sci-fi or fantasy elements, their motivations as a person still need to be believeable. I don't believe it's in Carver's interest to start WW3 just for ratings and profit. WW3 would risk everyone's lives; what if MI6 found out he's responsible for it and assassinates him? A smaller scale conflict with a non-nuclear countries would be more believable (i.e. Hearst and the Spanish-American War).
With journalistic integrity being more discussed in today's politics, you'd expect a film like this to get a greater appreciation. But it's not just what a film is about: it's how the film is executed. Yes, this film is about journalism. But does it really say anything insightful about it aside from "media is evil; dishonesty is bad".
This could've been more convincing it had some nuance. Real-life media moguls don't put giant pictures of themselves on buildings, and they don't even name the company after themselves; they usually just privately enjoy their wealth.
Real-life media moguls don't make it so apparent they're the villain. They'd draw less attention to themselves and paint other public figures as the villain.
This film portrays bad journalism as total fabrication. But there are shades in between: Information that starts as truth, but it embellished or stretched. Or information taken out of context.
In well-written fiction, no good guy is completely good; and even the villain has at least 1 redeeming qualities. What if the British government, Bond or MI6 did something morally questionable to make the public question them, and then Carver Media Group used that to discredit them; Bond + M16 would have an uphill battle in trying to change that and it would make for a more interesting plot.
There's some sort of balancing act. A movie would be boring if it were exactly like real life. But if it's too over-the-top and cartoony, it loses believeability.
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
TND's plot basically ends halfway through, from then on it's a bulletfest. It's enjoyable more as an action movie than a Bond movie.
What they should have done was have Bond use his wits to outsmart Carver in some way, like maybe he takes control of Carver's satellites and broadcasts something that reveals his plan to the whole world or embarrasses him in some way. That would've been more interesting.
But the most unrealistic thing about TND is that actual media moguls are way more evil. I can't even imagine Carver covering up the Rotterham rapes the way the actual British media did. I mean, damn.
I love TND, it's possibly my favourite Brosnan, but I hate the way his Bond dispatches the villain with a quip. The "No, for me" worked in GE, but the "you forgot the golden rule of mass media" and all that, was a bit too convoluted. I'm glad they dropped that stuff. The way Craig shoots Safin was way cooler, Bond doesn't have to say a line everytime before he kills a villain.
Brozza also had "she's waiting for you" and "time to face gravity" if I recal.
Can’t argue with any of this. TND starts off pretty well, and it’s a fun watch throughout, but it does just turn into a generic 90s action movie by the end. And yeah, while Pryce was fun and they got a couple of fun evil villain moments out of “tomorrow’s news today”, I can’t help thinking that Rupert Murdoch as a Bond villain was just as wasted an idea as the villain’s wife being an old flame. He has flashes of being evil and manipulative, but not enough. I also have to agree with @M16_Cart. Whether he’s starting world war 3 himself or helping a Chinese general for the sake of ratings, it’s still just too big and played out a scheme. The media angle stops it from feeling entirely derivative of YOLT and TSWLM, but why go there at all? Why not lean into the media angle and come up with something more grounded and political? I thought Sherlock’s use of Murdoch as a villain was much better.
I do think it’s commendable that they went there at all though, and I’d like to see the next Bond go for something similarly timely and relevant. I guess Bezos is probably off the table now, but if they wanted to go a bit more OTT and spy-fi again to set the next guy apart from Craig, how about a villain based on Musk?
I don’t even know where to start. I’ll put in just a few things that jump out at me:
-Humour from a ‘Loaded’ 90s lads mag
- Terri Hatcher
- the talents of Michelle Yeoh completely wasted
- Pedestrian action scenes
- Terrible bland finale
- song is ok (but nowhere near as good as KD Lang’s closer, or Saint Etienne’s rejected effort) but the performance of it is a screeching horror
- Half baked script that runs out of plot halfway through
- Brosnan giving a disconcertingly mixed bag of a performance with all sort of tonal whiplash (sad/guilt over Paris Carver but then schoolboy glee over remote controlled car in consecutive scenes)
The worst offender has to be Jonathan Pryce’s completely misjudged hammy ‘look how evil I am mrah ha ha’ performance. It’s unbearable to watch .
This. A lot of things in Bond films feel forced just to check a box. Before adding a scene, the directors should ask: is it necessary? how much entertainment value does it add for the film?
And regardless of how well a trope has worked for previous films, all that matters is: does it work for this film?
Same here. I even like TWINE & DAD (although DAD goes down better with a stiff pint).
So it did a lot wrong.
Yeah, I'd be the same.
But then the halo jump happened and everything became a slog. My brain then switched off during the Rambo-style climax and yes, there was no chemistry and no point in making Michelle Yeoh his love interest.
I’d much rather watch the first half of this film than any other Brosnan Bond film. I also think he looked his best in this one.
Hopefully neither. There's a lot of possible creative stories for future entries; MGM's producers need to hire actual writers that write fiction for adults.
The going rogue trope has been done to death too. And the "retired but coming back" too.
I find it to be a particularly violent Bond film though.
Agreed. I also love the PSE. Another highlight for me. And the backseat driver sequence is better 'nineties' action than Speed.
He crushed Carver to give the people what they want.
Michelle Yeoh is wearing leather.
GE in comparison, you have this russian woman wearing too short clothes and Brosnan brooding. Come on. TND is the best Brozza Bond ever. All it needed was an Oasis song to be perfect.
Exactly! Great Bondian scenes as well.
Yeah, I feel GE is the better film. But I just love TND for what it is.
Yeah, like any Bond fan it's possible. But I just mean one's favourite Bond film, isn't necessarily the best one.
Said it before but it’s weird in hindsight that the Brosnan era never cashed in on Britpop. Pulp could’ve done a good one. And Oasis at the peak of their popularity could’ve boosted the box office a bit. But instead we kept getting American artists all through the 90s.
Haha!
I miss Pierce. Next week I'll watch some of his Bond films.
had at the time, and TWINE in particular is basically a proto-Craig film.
I think we’ve been quite lucky really when it comes to the actors. I don’t think the role has ever been miscast, and every new Bond has been just what the series needed at the time. I’m gutted Craig is gone, but it’ll be exciting to see whether they can keep that streak going.
Be sure to watch November Man also. Very Bond-like....