![]() ![]() Jonathan Pryce plays Elliott Carver, a newspaper and media tycoon intent on whipping up a war between Britain and China. It is, nevertheless, in my view one of the better entries in the Bond canon, for a number of reasons beyond the fact that Pierce Brosnan is the best Bond since Connery. 'Tomorrow Never Dies' contains all these formulaic elements. The story will always end with a shoot-out, normally in the villain's headquarters, in which Bond manages to avert the threatened disaster at the last minute. The villain will always have a small army of henchmen ready to do battle on his behalf. There will always be at least one other beautiful girl, either as a secondary heroine or as a villainess. The main character, apart from Bond and the villain, will always be a beautiful young woman who helps Bond in his quest and who will end up by falling for him. It will always involve at least one extended chase sequence, and possibly two or more. The main story will involve Bond thwarting a dastardly plot by some megalomaniac bent on world domination. They typically start with an action sequence before the opening credits that has little or nothing to do with the film that is to follow. Despite this, one can watch the latest offerings with as much pleasure as the original Sean Connery films from the sixties and seventies. The franchise started with 'Dr No' in the early sixties, and 'Tomorrow Never Dies' amounts to 'James Bond XVIII', or 'James Bond XIX' if one includes 'Never Say Never Again' in the total. The Bond films, however, seem to me to provide the most striking exception to this principle. Subject to these exceptions, however, there seems to be a law of diminishing returns to the effect that the more sequels a franchise spawns, the worse they become. (There are also a few standard exceptions to this rule, such as 'The Godfather Part 2' and the second and third parts of the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy). ![]() As for the book itself, it covers most aspects of the production and does so well (though the edition I have is not much bigger than A5 size so the writing and pictures are too small to properly pore over), but this might be better for being so blunt and open.One of the standard received ideas of film criticism is to say that sequels are almost never as good as the original film. Even worse, in a section looking at the Bond girls, an extra called Juliette Hendon is interviewed and gives a jaw dropping account of sexual harassment carried out against her (and noticed), in a crowded place that even back in 1997 should have been closed down but, apparently, “the crowd clapped and cheered like mad”. From the rushed production, which bugs everyone, the script that seemed to be being re-written all the time and locations that turned out to be gruelling, every issue is laid out here and it amazes me Eon let it go ahead. Even worse, in a section looking at the Bond girls, an extra called Juliette Hendon is interviewed and gives a jaw dropping account of sexual harassment carried out aga An in-depth look at the making of Brosnan’s second Bond film, Pearce and his subjects don’t hold back at all. An in-depth look at the making of Brosnan’s second Bond film, Pearce and his subjects don’t hold back at all. ![]()
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