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Released: December 1997
Producer: Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Written by: Bruce Fierstein
Plot:
Trouble is brewing between Britain and China in the South China Sea, but the news isn’t all that it seems. James Bond must investigate what stake billionaire narcissistic megalomaniacal media baron Elliot Carver - who’s just about to launch a new global news network - has in the conflict. Speaking of conflict, James encounters a bit: first with Paris, his ex and now Carver’s wife; Wai Lin, a Chinese Army spy doing her own investigating slash kung fu; and Mr Stamper, Carver’s henchman and cryogenically unfrozen Nazi superman.
Famous For:
Being a lot more fun than you might remember (yes, despite Teri Hatcher)
The remote control BMW
Jonathan Pryce chewing the scenery
THAT STREET SHOWER
In a world which seems to be existing in simultaneous states of both stasis and flux, sometimes it’s nice to disappear into one’s head and remember the greatest film of 1997.
No, no, as much as I enjoyed Tomorrow Never Dies at the time, and positively gobbled it up gleefully on this rewatch, even I can admit it got pipped.
Look, that’s a fair call - Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery was an absolute belter that for a time influenced pop culture even more than James Bond. Who wasn’t saying “Do I make you horny?” or “Throw me a frickin’ bone, here!” in the late 90s?
Ah, well, yes, now it is entirely reasonable to assume that if we’re looking at late 1997 we must indeed consider that boutique indie film, Titanic. But as much as that film has a long-term claim on my loyalty, insofar as I co-wrote a loving parody comedy version of it performed on a replica prow, it is not quite the hit I mean. Ouch, too soon?
Readers, I have to tell you, even with the wisdom and hindsight of 2020, that the best film released in 1997 remains:
Zinga-zing HA, motherf***ers.
Technically it was almost 1998 when Spice World: The Movie released in Australia, but it still counts.
Loathed by some, dismissed by many, Spiceworld remains a pitch perfect film for my comic sensibilities and music tastes - then AND now. I loved the Spice Girls - not to the point of having posters of them on my bedroom wall as that space was reserved for a number of Erotica-era Madonna portraits that belied my teenage prudishness - because their music made me ceaselessly, unbendingly happy. I take every opportunity to Hai-Si-Ja Hold Tight! whenever possible.
In fact, the one trick I know to make crying babies settle is to bounce them gently up and down singing “Wannabe” softly in their faces. It makes infant tears stop right now, thank you very much, and I simply won’t countenance the idea that the child might just be shocked by my weirdness, or unable to properly verbalise their horror at late-90s manufactured Brit-girl-pop.
I mean, I could have read The Female Eunuch, but also, nah?
The film is awash with big names just having a ball of a time. Richard E. Grant has spoken of how he took the role of the Spice Girls’ overly emotional manager Clifford because his young daughter insisted, and he made a nice bit of dosh out of the whole thing. But he still turns in a rip-roaringly good performance.
Check out the moment when, faced with the Spice Girls not showing up for their feted Royal Albert Hall appearance, Clifford tells a filming documentary crew (helmed by Alan Cumming!) that he’s going to hang himself onstage. A darkly comic suicide reference, in a film aimed at pre-teen and teenage girls! IT’S GENIUS.
(I found a dodgy version of the whole film on YouTube - it should start at the right point, but it’s 1:20:50 in if it doesn’t).
And of course, Spice World features Roger Moore himself as the mysterious “Chief”, a Blofeld-like figure ostensibly orchestrating the whole Spice Girls phenomenon. Moore plays it totally straight, and absolutely nails it. His scenes are all phone calls with Clifford in which he pets a series of small animals - some real, some soft toys - makes a bunch of James Bond reference jokes and issues cryptic dictates like this:
As much as this is not a Spice Girls retrospective, the mass media saturation of Sporty, Baby, Ginger, Scary and Posh does tangentially tie in with the plot of Tomorrow Never Dies.
As former Bond Roger Moore plays a fake hyper-controlling business figure in Spice World, Jonathan Pryce plays a real hyper-controlling business figure in the form of Elliot Carver. One could even argue they’re both having the same amount of fun, even though only one of the films is technically a comedy.
Tomorrow Never Dies is, in the cold light of 2020, a strangely prescient film about the control of information and the interference of mega-capitalists in sovereign affairs. There’s a reason why tech entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg, retail magnate Jeff Bezos and inventor/occasional booty-shaker Elon Musk are so easily imagined as Bond villains.
And that’s before you even tackle the looming Palpatine-like presence of the Dark Emperor himself, Rupert Murdoch. Elliot Carver is often assumed to be based on Murdoch, but in reality was inspired more by Robert Maxwell, the British media baron whose empire collapsed upon his mysterious death at sea, and whose youngest daughter Ghislaine currently sits in a New York jail charged with being the right-hand woman of feculent paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Pop culture is a wild ride, man.
Still, this movie came out exactly one year after Murdoch launched Fox News, so it’s only right his name should be in the mix.
Tomorrow Never Dies doesn’t repeat the achievement of its predecessor GoldenEye in elevating the franchise to a new level, but it is back to front a Bond film. As my podcasting partner Stuart Layt so eloquently puts it in our companion episode of Raven Bond:
“If you’re just after a James Bond-y James Bond, this is an extremely James Bond-y James Bond movie.”
Tomorrow Never Dies, then, is much like the Spice Girls. Fun, energetic, silly, has a few good messages, and still worth your time more than two decades later.
The film holds a number of firsts in the 007 franchise. It was the first made after the death of original producer Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli, to whom the film is dedicated. It was also the first film to take no inspiration from any of Ian Fleming’s work. GoldenEye’s plot was original, but of course the title came from the name of Fleming’s Jamaican retreat.
The title of this one was a typo. The suggestion “Tomorrow Never Lies”, referencing Carver’s newspaper Tomorrow, was sent to MGM and somehow misinterpreted as “Tomorrow Never Dies”. MGM preferred the mistake and insisted on its use.
Bruce Fierstein is given sole screenwriter credit, but a number of writers worked on both an initial treatment set around the return of Hong Kong to China (dismissed due to fact the transition would be all wrapped up by the film’s release) and subsequent reworks of Fierstein’s own script.
The roundabout of writers was due at least in some part to the enormous pressure on Eon Productions to follow up GoldenEye’s $360 million box office success. By the start of filming in early 1997 the script was still being retooled.
For his part, Fierstein wanted to write something “grounded in a nightmare of reality”. The concept of the media creating the story was definitely new ground for Bond, and in the zeitgeist due to the rise of the 24 hour news cycle in the 1990s.
And so we get the concept of a billionaire media baron using the services of a cyber-terrorist and a secretly constructed STEALTH BOAT to sow discord between the British and Chinese with the goal of starting a war that he can manipulate to maximise his profits.
It’s a boat, it’s stealthy, it’s a STEALTH BOAT!
The pre-credits sequence ties directly to the main plot, with said cyber-terrorist Gupta buying a GPS encoder at a “Terrorist Arms Bazaar” somewhere on the Russian border. The event is being spied on by M16 and the Royal Navy, allowing for some in-jokey verbal sparring between Judi Dench’s M and Geoffrey Palmer’s Admiral Roebuck, who’d long played a married couple in TV sitcom As Time Goes By.
Roebuck prematurely orders a nearby warship to ejaculate a missile at the bazaar, but then M16’s man at the scene points out there are two nuclear torpedoes on a fighter jet which will obviously be triggered by the incoming missile.
Brosnan’s Bond never smoked in GoldenEye, but here the first time we see him is literally punching out a smoker, making a definitive statement that the world’s best superspy no longer thinks smoking is cool.
“Filthy habit” says man who smoked for 45 years.
In a souped-up take on the GoldenEye version, Bond once again enters the title credits by flying out of an explosion in a hazardous mountainous area. But this time it’s straight into Sheryl Crow’s twanging vocals (more on that later).
They do blast the Monty Norman theme for this exit pursued by a flare, and it’s super fun.
Bond’s post-adventure R&R - “brushing up on a little Danish” at Oxford, the source of a mighty “cunning linguist” gag from Miss Moneypenny - is interrupted by another emergency at HQ.
It is rather amusing that the dramatic initialising event - Carver’s use of Gupta and the aforementioned GPS encoder to steer a British frigate into Chinese waters - is basically the same thing that happened when Apple Maps was first released in 2012.
The added element here is the STEALTH BOAT’s torpedo drill, which bores its way into the centre of HMS Devonshire like the existential dread of 2020 bores into my mind.
It also gives us a glimpse of future action star and Scotsman Gerard Butler:
Admiral Roebuck, the same guy who shot his load without due care and attention, then has the cheek to tell M she doesn’t have the balls for the M16 job. He gives her 48 hours to investigate the ambush of the Devonshire before he sends in the boat cavalry.
Bond’s briefing is therefore done in a speeding car on the way to the airport, in which absolutely nobody mentions M is knocking back road bourbons in the middle of the day.
Dame Judi Drench.
With no time for a Q briefing in London, Bond catches up with the wily inventor at Hamburg airport, where in one of the franchise’s more blatant product placements he’s dressed as an Avis Car Rental employee checking to see if Bond requires insurance.
It’s even more hilarious to have Q describe Bond’s BMW as his “beautiful new car” only to have the box drop on the Beamer and it’s an UUUUGGGGGGLLLLYYYYY automobile.
Once again, the technology of the near-past is in so many ways more embarrassing than the technology of the far-past. The phone with the fingerprint scanner, taser and hidden remote control for the BMW is super cool, and yet it’s… an Ericsson.
As well as the usual armour and ammunition, the BMW comes with a GPS system complete with a Siri-style voice. So fancy for 1997, the year in which I got my driver’s license, my Beep-Beep Barina Swing and a copy of the UBD Gregory’s. But seen from the point of view of our couch as we live track our fourth Uber Eats order for the week, it doesn’t sound quite so impressive.
Bond then fetches up at the fancy launch party for Carver Media Group Network. It feels like either the “Group” or “Network” is redundant in that name, but sure, whatever.
Having been given the all-too-clean cover of a banker, Bond does his typical Bond thing of being way too obvious in a first meeting. He winds up getting slapped by Paris Carver - aka his ex-girlfriend - then by Carver’s security goons.
After turning the tables on the goons, Bond flicks the switch on Carver’s big debut, because a vast satellite network in 1997 is absolutely still reliant on the plugs being in the right sockets.
Carver is humiliated by the bungle, and having discovered his wife once slept with Bond while he slept with a gun under his pillow, sends her to his hotel to warn him off.
Bond turns out to have Feelings™ about Paris, and that she was something of a lost oasis in his desert of commitment-free sex. He confirms her suspicion that she “got too close”, and they proceed to put the hump back into the camel.
Now Teri Hatcher was at the height of her Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman powers when she was cast as Paris Carver. She broke the internet before it was cool, with millions of Netscape Navigators taking the standard three hours to download a 17kb file of this image:
Hey kids, in the 90s this was practically pornography.
So it makes sense that Eon Productions would cast her. The problem is there’s no real sense of the depth of Paris’ relationship with Bond, beyond his dropping the hint that she used to like tequila slammers and perhaps they met in Zurich.
Paris does have the great line “I’ve made my bed, and you don’t sleep there anymore”, but her slapping him across the face could be the reaction of many a lover Bond has had cause to abandon.
Paris’ relationship with Carver is even more underserved - she’s a trophy wife, but how? Why? Was she a famous reporter in this universe as well, targeted to be a beautiful adornment by Carver, the media boss? He doesn’t even particularly seem to like her that much, so obsessed is he by his own plans for global media domination. So when Gupta shows him proof that this random shit-talking banker who turned up at his party is actually his wife’s long-ago lover, there’s no real sense of why he should care.
Of course you could read into it that Carver is, as Bond once described Goldfinger, “quite mad, you know”, obsessed with possessing things and people and incapable of actually forming human connection, a deep irony given his profession as a communications and information guru… but still, it means that Paris’ death not only feels inevitable, but a little bit pointless.
Bond discovers her dead body back in his hotel room, after he used information she gave him to raid Carver’s office and find the GPS encoder. In an inevitable battle with company goons, he manages to knock one of them into the actual printing press, which turns red with blood.
Quality punning.
Bond is genuinely upset by Paris’ completely predictable death, and Pierce Brosnan does some of his best “mourning over a woman” acting. But he soon realises the news bulletin announcing her death, which has been very cleverly cued up to play at exactly the moment he enters the hotel room, also refers to a dead man being found with her, and finds himself at the mercy of German pain specialist Dr Kaufman.
There’s some strange tonal physics going on in this scene, because it contains both anguish and brutality from Brosnan, and a creepy comedic turn from noted character actor Vincent Schiavelli as Dr Kaufman. Kaufman is setting up how much he will enjoy killing Bond, but then has to stop and ask Bond how to get into his BMW, which has been locked down against goons trying to break into it in the parking garage.
Also note the way that the future news story about the deaths is undermined by its presentation…on VHS tape.
Having dispatched Dr Kaufman and farewelled Paris one last time, Bond then fires up the Ericsson for the remote controlled car chase scene. It’s an actual blast, and contains what I think is genuinely the best moment of the film. Bond, driving from the backseat, is forced to drive over tyre spikes he previously dropped. He hits a button, and the tyres on his BMW magically reinflate. Bond’s look of sheer delight matches exactly what I remember feeling in the cinema at that moment. It’s at 2.18 if you want to skip ahead.
Bond’s next stop is the US Air Force Base in Okinawa, where he’s met by our old CIA friend Jack Wade. Brosnan is so perfectly pressed and no-nonsense in his Navy Commander uniform, while Jack is all smiles and “Uncle Sam is not involved” in his Hawaiian shirt and bucket hat.
They discover the GPS encoder was tampered with, and realise they can pinpoint exactly where the Devonshire sank. Bond requests a favour - a High Altitude/Low Opening (HALO) jump to the wreck site. It’s an exciting bit of exposition as the US officer explains to Bond exactly what he’s got to do, so that we the plebs can understand as well.
It’s a great stunt, and only undermined by the fact that Tom Cruise actually did one himself for Mission: Impossible fallout in 2018, because of course he did.
I guess you could call this a…. cruising altitude. Hey? Anybody? Man, should’ve made a Scientology joke.
Once under the waves and in the Devonshire, Bond finds not only a missing cruise missile, but Chinese agent Wai Lin. Having run into her first at Carver’s launch party, then raiding Carver’s office, the third time is the charm as the inability to do much more than search the shipwreck together, then escape its collapsing structure.
Back above the waves though, they are hauled in by Mr Stamper and other goons. It turns out the Devonshire was in Vietnamese waters, so they are flown to Carver’s headquarters in Ho Chi Minh city for a confrontation about their spying ways.
Let’s now turn our focus to Elliot Carver himself, because he really is one of the most… well, “the most” Bond villains in the canon.
Jonathan Pryce is no stranger to an energetic role - I haven’t seen Brazil, but YouTube clips indicate he had quite the big presence onscreen. My first memorable encounter with him was the more subtle Juan Peron in Evita, but of course in recent years he was best known as the fanatical High Sparrow on that show Game of Thrones that was once popular and I wrote about it and people liked it.
Bond’s Carver loves not only a black turtleneck, but a black collared shirt over the top. He’s big on innovation and digital domination.
A pinch of Steve Jobs.
He loves putting his name on everything, or better yet, 20-storey banner images of his face on everything. He’s also got a huge ego. Bigly.
A splash of Donald Trump.
He’s got an appetite for destruction… and puns.
A swirl of Darth Vader.
In fact, sometimes it seems like Carver is just a frustrated sub-editor. He’s supposed to be the publisher of the CMGN, but he prefers just bashing out headline options with some of the best one-handed keyboard mashing acting of the 20th century.
This is probably my second favourite moment in the film; made even better by Mr Stamper just casually playing with his ear in the background.
Tomorrow Never Dies had a new director, Roger Spottiswoode, whose main stamp on the film seems to be oddly-placed snippets of slow-motion, even during the middle of action sequences.
Depending on how you see it, he’s either to be condemned or congratulated for the performance he draws out of Jonathan Pryce. Of course, the other option is that Pryce did all the heavy lifting sparked a) by loving the villain role and going full tilt at it, or b) hating the way Carver was written and thinking fuck it, let’s just ham this baby up.
Standing ovation for the eyebrow raise.
Carver’s media empire is in some respects charmingly dated; the film basically ignores the existence of the internet in favour of legacy media. When telling his minions he wants saturation coverage of the unfolding drama in the South China Sea, Carver includes books and films in his list of media output. Ironically, a figure like Carver in a 2020 film calling for 24 hour live streaming, Twitter hashtags, Insta stories and TikTok dances about a developing story would be more believable than “books and films”.
21st century mass media.
Carver leaves the two spies with his assistant Mr Stamper, who turns out to have been Dr Kaufman’s protege in the ways of torturous deaths, and just assumes that they die. But they escape in spectacular fashion by repelling down the banner of Carver’s repellant face, while still handcuffed together.
The unwilling allies handcuffed together is a charming film trope, most notably deployed for me in The 39 Steps, one of my favourite Hitchcock’s.
Here, it makes for an excellent added challenge for the chase scene, as Wai Lin writhes around Bond to either take one handle herself, or to allow him to steer with both. Either way, she provides defensive and distractive assistance, and the pair is able to bring down a menacing helicopter that bizarrely and quite dangerously pursues them rotors-down through crowded streets.
Despite this partnership, Wai Lin is still keen to go it alone, and handcuffs Bond to a pipe as they have a relaxing street shower together. He pursues her to a local safe house, just in time to see a bunch of goons follow her inside. The sequence allows Michelle Yeoh to show off her finely honed martial arts skills, developed over years of working in the Hong Kong film industry with the likes of Jackie Chan.
Bond gets to knock out the last goon though, so that confirms his manliness.
The pair begrudgingly agree to work together, tracking Carver’s STEALTH BOAT’s likely location to Ha Long Bay, sending a message to their respective bosses, and stocking up on armaments courtesy of the safe house’s secret stash of all the weapons in the entire world - including a new Walther P99 pistol, the first change of gun for Bond since Dr No.
The pair set off for Ha Long Bay - I got stung on the arm by a jellyfish in Ha Long Bay once, remind me to tell you the story sometime - and Wai Lin ribs Bond about working for a corrupt Western power, but also that at least it’s a nice day for it.
Eventually the pair find the STEALTH BOAT doing its STEALTH BOAT thing in a sheltered cove. They manage to sail into the hull of the catamaran-style structure, and start rigging explosives. But Carver sees Wai Lin on the security cameras, and knows if she’s there, Bond’s there. Because obviously the male opponent is more of a potential risk than some girl. I say that not to disparage the filmmakers, but to agree that Carver is such a narcissist he would likely only feel any real danger from another man. Women he can dispose of. Look at his wife. And look at how he responds to Wai Lin when she tries to break free with some of her patented moves.
I like my sexism with a side of racism.
Bond of course is too clever to be caught on camera, so when Wai Lin is captured he knocks out a Carver henchmen and uses it as a decoy. Stamper shoots the henchmen and Bond drops the body into the water, allowing Stamper to go back inside and claim victory, and for Carver to throw down one of the most egregious puns in Bond history: “He’s my new anchorman!'“
Bond of course is not dead, but sneaking in to f*** some shit up. He manages to hold Gupta hostage, resulting in a stand-off with Carver who puts a gun to Wai Lin’s head. Wai Lin is clearly the more dedicated spy, telling Bond just to kill Gupta and let her die too. But earlier Bond told Wai Lin they would finish the mission together, and he intends to keep that promise, because he’s pretty sure she’s getting to like him now and she’s really hot.
Carver, however, doesn’t have such thoughts about Gupta. Upon getting the cyberterrorist’s confirmation that everything is in place and they just need to press the go button, Carver shoots him dead. Checkmate, Mr Bond.
Carver’s plan is to get the latest Sino-British war happening, then fire his cruise missile into Beijing, conveniently blowing up a meeting of all top Chinese officials. General Chang - whom Wei Lin recognised in Carver’s Vietnamese HQ - will miss the meeting, assume control of the country, call a truce between them and Britain, and then grant Carver exclusive media rights into the Middle Kingdom for the next 100 years.
Bond sets off an explosive which blows a hole in the hull and makes the STEALTH BOAT visible on radar. The hope is the British and Chinese will stop their territorial dick-swinging and start TALKING because guys COMMUNICATION IS IMPORTANT. Thankfully this does happen, and the Chinese cool their jets and allow HMS Bedford to start bombing the crap out of the STEALTH BOAT.
Wai Lin gets free and she and Bond have an extended and intense machine gun fight with the crew as she races to disable the engines, and Bond goes after Carver.
Jonathan Pryce continues his metaphorical moustache-twirling even as his STEALTH BOAT collapses around him. As far as he’s concerned, the missile is primed, the plan is happening, and Bond has failed. Except Bond knows how to pull a lever to bring Carver’s own torpedo drill down upon him. It’s a particularly nasty way to go, as Bond literally holds Carver in place until the very last second then jumps out of the way of the drill with the somewhat lame line “The first rule of mass media… give the people what they want!”
It’s not over yet though as Mr Stamper is really mad about Bond killing both Dr Kaufman and Carver, and really blond and pent-up about it. He’s caught Wai Lin and drops her into the water before fighting Bond on the very missile that’s about to blow. It’s all very phallic, particularly when Bond literally castrates Stamper by trapping him in the firing mechanism. The missile blows up, and Bond jumps into the water to give Wai Lin the kiss of life as the whole ship disintegrates overhead.
Bond and Wai Lin make their way to the surface, and find a nice piece of wreckage to lie on. The Bedford is now searching for them, but they’ve found a comfortable position on the door-like piece of flotsam, and decide to pash on instead.
Wreckage-based romance: Big in ‘97.
A number of artists were invited to submit title song to Eon Productions, after they decided composer David Arnold’s concept wouldn’t bring the young people in. They chose Sheryl Crow, a chart favourite at the time noted for her husk-tinged pop-country stylings.
While I didn’t like the song when I first saw the movie, it did grow on me. It’s a torch song, if said torch was bought at a flea market sale having been left out in the rain for a while. I find whatever key Crow sings in maddening to try to copy; I’m not a singer by any means, but I can generally belt out a dodgy impression of most Bond songs. Attempting to mimic the twang of that “Until the DAAAAYYYYY” chorus line makes my voice sound like the squeaky-voiced teen from The Simpsons.
I have better luck with Arnold’s own version, Surrender, a bombastic but smoky number absolutely owned by k.d. lang. K.D. LANG. And it was relegated to the END CREDITS.
However, a bright spark on YouTube recut the super-futuristic-robot-and-computer chip-themed title sequence using Surrender instead, and by gum it works a treat.
Elliot Carver failed in his villainous ambition to dominate the airwaves with fake news.
But rather than a STEALTH BOAT and all his other machinations, he could have simply waited a few more years and some clever tweaks to his network’s output could have done all that for him.
Carver’s flaw was to try to hasten what it turns out was going to happen naturally anyway. The irony is that for all his big picture thinking, Carver couldn’t see that.
Thank you for reading this instalment of the James Bond Retrospective! If you enjoyed it, you can sign up to support the series and my other writing/podcasting efforts via my Patreon page. Thanks to all of you who are already members; your support is truly invaluable. You can listen to the companion Raven Bond Tomorrow Never Dies podcast here:
Stu and I are also ranking the Bond films as we watch and podcast about them. Here’s how we stand:
Next up we get an Elektra complex in The World Is Not Enough!