D: Roger Spottiswoode
S: Pierce Brosnan, Jonathan Pryce, Michelle Yeoh, Teri Hatcher
The latest James Bond adventure, the second with Irish actor Pierce Brosnan
in the role, has our hero going toe-to-toe with villainous Jonathan Pryce,
a movie amalgam of Rupert Murdoch, Robert Maxwell, Ted Turner and Bill Gates
whose dastardly scheme to start a war to scoop the rest of the press comes
replete with references to William Randolph Hearst and repeats a line of
dialogue used in Citizen Kane. Along the way he teams up with a crack
Chinese secret agent (Yeoh), evoking memories of You Only Live Twice
and The Spy Who Loved Me, and fights the good fight for Queen and
country against typically astronomical odds in characteristically spectacular
style.
Bond films have always been about empire; specifically, the British Empire,
and an attempt to maintain symbolic control as a remnant of colonial power.
In the absence of real British influence in geopolitics, a superhuman, supermasculine
cold-war hero was just what was needed to let them down gently, and served
this purpose well in print and on screen right up to the end of the war
itself. In the search for chimerical enemies against which to pit Bond in
more recent times, the wheel has finally turned to the real face of postmodern
geopolitical power: the media barons.
There's nothing especially surprising about this revenge fantasy. Great
Britain has found itself colonised by the colonies in the guise of the international
media empires run by Americans and Australians, and they need to get back
some measure of control to feel better about themselves: cue Her Majesty's
finest fictional servant. The British Secret Service is presented here as
a force for the greater moral good, even more valiant than the short-sighted
military, represented by cameo stalwart Geoffrey Palmer. When Bond eventually
triumphs (come on; that's not a spoiler by any stretch of the imagination)
in the name of the old world order, we applaud on cue.
It mounts an impressive series of action highlights as it goes, though there
are perhaps too many of them, and while Brosnan carries the film with ease,
his 'new and improved' version of Bond still has not emerged as a workable
symbol of anything in particular. The vehemence with which the film goes
after the media seems all the more curious given the level of advertising
worked into the film through the various brand-name gadgets, and its evident
self-reflexivity as a postmodern spectacle about the emptiness of the postmodern
spectacle is eventually an impotent attack on a tangible threat to the world
order, because little about the character speaks to the world in which we
live anymore.
Of course, at the most basic level, Tomorrow Never Dies is simply
a good time spent in the company of one of the cinema's most durable heroes.
But it does continue the gradual evolution begun with Licence to Kill
towards generic homogeneity, where Bond films don't even constitute a sub
genre of action/adventure, but are simply action films with a character
called James Bond in them.
Sure, most of the signifiers are there: Desmond Llewellyn (bless him) still
turns up as the techno-boffin Q; Judi Dench repeats her performance in Goldeneye
as the redoubtable M in the indominatable mould of the late Bernard Lee;
and there is plenty of over-the-top, edge-of-the-seat action and some excellent
special effects and stuntwork. But, like every film since and including
The Living Daylights, there is a sense of a desperate urgency to
ensure that people don't get enough time to sit back and relax into the
James Bond universe, in case they begin to realise that it doesn't exist
anymore. The volume has been pumped up to the max, the bullets fly liberally
and lethally in all directions, and the witty repartee has become sardonic
self-parody or blasé action film one-liners.
It moves along briskly and is superbly put together as a piece of escapist
entertainment. Everything works properly, including the score by David Arnold
(a welcome relief after Eric Serra's work in Goldeneye) and the title
song by Cheryl Crow, and the cast play it relatively straight. There are
moments of tension and excitement throughout, and it all passes by amicably
enough (if it is a little violent). Basically, there's no real reason to
complain if all you want is to fill a couple of hours. But the fact that
it is an empty film is not necessarily excusable simply because it is a
Bond film. This is not to say that Bond films are in any way deep. But in
their own way, many of them communicated effectively with the people who
saw them at a time when the character had more edge. He was admirable but
despicable, a necessary evil in a world without heroes. This was what made
Bond a phenomenon in the first place. The films set the trends which became
the formulae, driven by a character who stood out from the rest of the herd.
Now, they simply emulate their own imitators, and there is really little
left for James Bond to contribute. Of course, people have been saying the
same thing ever since Sean Connery abandoned the role. But even if it was
true then, it is doubly so now.
By all means, go and see Tomorrow Never Dies. It's an enjoyable,
well-staged action film which sets out to give the audience what it wants
(and even says as much at the climax). There are one or two genuinely funny
moments and the gadgets are great fun (now, where can I buy them...?). But
don't be surprised if you've forgotten the details of the plot within about
twenty minutes of leaving the theatre, and if you don't want to read the
novelisation. There's nothing here you're supposed to take home: this is
the stuff of the sound-bite, as much a product of the marketing machine
as the power of the media moguls it so passionately decries. James Bond
is dead. Long live James Bond.
Review by Harvey O'Brien copyright
1997.