Mission Summary

While in the South China Sea, HMS Devonshire is attacked and sunk by the Chinese, although the British maintain the ship was in international waters and this was unjustifiable. James Bond (Brosnan) is asked to investigate, and his first lead is the newspaper Tomorrow, which reports information that wasn't released to the public. This makes Bond believe that the owner of the paper, Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce), knew about the attack before it occurred. Carver's organization has the power to reach every human on earth – except for the Chinese, and Bond learns that Carver wants to play the British and the Chinese off each other to obtain worldwide broadcast rights and exclusive coverage of the ensuing war between the two countries. With the help of Chinese spy Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh), Bond must ensure that Carver must be stopped.

Analysis

Rank: 16

When beginning to examining what went wrong with this film, look no further than its title. Originally titled "Tomorrow Never Lies," somewhere along the way it was written down incorrectly and the current version stuck. Despite referring to Carver's newspaper that is only mentioned a few times in the dialogue, it is the most nonsensical title in the series. The same could se said for most Bond villains always seem to have plans that include some form of worldwide domination, but boiling down the plot of this film makes it seem really weak: Carver wants to broadcast all over the world. OK, he'd have to start a war between the Chinese and British to accomplish this, but is it worth it? It's not like he gets exclusive worldwide rights; we assume that every other channel still exists. Is Carver so crazy that he doesn't realize this isn't worth the risk?

With such a flimsy plot, the producers decided to make up for it with constant action sequences. While this might sound like a good thing, there was almost too much action and felt over-the-top and forced. The sequence involving Bond's BMW was cool but he always seemed to have a gadget that was perfectly suited for whatever the henchmen threw at him. The gun battles were too drawn out and the motorcycle sequence in Saigon seemed endless. Finally, the constant use of slow-motion, which is a hallmark of most other action movies but thankfully have been absent from previous Bond films, seemed out of place in this film and made the stunts seem less realistic.

With so much action, there was little room for character development. As a result, the characters seem hollow with no motivation for their actions. This was defiantly a sophomore slump for Brosnan, who just seemed to be going through the motions, possibly believing he had a free pass after the success of "GoldenEye." I never believed Pryce as a formidable villain, and seemed rather inept without the help of his henchmen. Again, because of all the action, we don't ever learn the rationale behind his actions. Wai Lin is the first woman who is Bond's equal in terms of fighting and cunning and traded witticisms with him throughout the film. The most disappointing character was Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher), Carver's wife and one of Bond's former flames. For the first time, we see someone who has some emotional effect on Bond, but she only makes a cameo appearance before being killed. I would have liked to learn more about Bond at a younger age from Paris, but I guess that would have meant cutting out some of the actions scenes, and they obviously didn't want that.

A quick word on henchmen: You really shouldn't have more than two in one film, and never have the villain die before the henchman, unless the final confrontation between Bond and the henchman is epic. Neither was the case in this film.

Bond films aren't known for having strong character development, but audiences need at least some background as to why a villain goes off the deep end. Making up for flimsy characters with non-stop action sounds like a good idea, but was just poorly executed in this case. Before shooting began, longtime producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli passed away. He was responsible for producing all 17 Bond films prior to "Tomorrow" and kept the franchise running over four decades. The new producers had some big shoes to fill, and came up short of continuing his legacy.