Tomorrow Never Dies . Tucson Weekly . 12-29-97

Tomorrow Never Dies

DIRECTED BY: Roger Spottiswoode

REVIEWED: 12-29-97

Prior to this year, only one James Bond novel had been made into a film more than once: Thunderball. Oddly, for the latest Bond flick, the producers decided to remake Thunderball. That move sums up the lack of imagination in this film, which is mildly brightened by a fine performance by Judy Dench, who's inexplicably slumming here after her role as Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown. Also of note is hot Hong Kong action star Michelle Yeoh, who plays a Chinese secret agent who allies herself with Bond to capture the Rupert Murdoch-like supervillain. Pierce Brosnan gives a characterless performance as Bond, unenthusiastically killing his way through the international cast of bad guys. The story is, of course, mostly nonsensical, with Bond gaining and losing the superhuman ability to defeat any number of heavily armed foes, as the plot demands. Thus, he is repeatedly captured by two or three thugs, then escapes by fighting his way past entire armies. For my part, I kept hoping he'd get his snotty British ass blown off so that Michelle Yeoh could take over and kick some Occidental butt, because, unlike Bond, she didn't feel the need to make an insipid pun every time she offed someone.

--DiGiovanna

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