The Journey to Skyfall continues with the 18th James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies!

The biggest issue that I'm finding myself repeating when looking at the Brosnan era is that the people in charge kept trying to balance Brosnan's films as a combination between Moore and Dalton, and they really just do not work together. That's my biggest complaint about the Brosnan films, and specifically this one. They don't feel like they stand on their own, and are always trying to be like the other Bonds instead of standing on their own. They needed to pick a tone, and stay with it.

That being said, the first three Brosnan films came from an era of action films that were generally…

Part of:
Dr. No-vember or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bond Films

The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.
-Elliot Carver

Taking inflation into account, GoldenEye was the most successful Bond Film in over 15 years. That success would inadvertently sabotage Tomorrow Never Dies. Suddenly the most important aspect of the next film was for it to match the success of GoldenEye and for it to be released in December of 97 in time to coincide with MGM's public stock offering. In other words it wasn't the care of the franchise that was most important.

The original script centered around Hong Kong being returned to the Chinese which was going to happen…

Day 17 of the Bond Film Marathon, film 18:Tomorrow Never Dies. Two years later, Brosnan reprises his role as 007 in the much anticipated, heavily packed action, follow up. The differences is a silly plan by a silly villain, and nothing by action. It's a decent Bond film, but feels more like an action film.

Bond is spying on an arms race near the Russian Border, detailing his whole recon op, but his recon mission turns to survival when he is to escape immedietly when a British Admiral decides to attack the location. Bond escapes on an L-39 with Nuclear torpedoes and his mission is done. Meanwhile, a media mogul has a plan to start conflict between the Chinese and…

I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen Tomorrow Never Dies over the years, yet for some unfathomable reason this was the very first time I realised just how much of a rip-off of The Spy Who Loved Me it really is, or indeed how Roger Moore-lite Pierce Brosnan's second outing as James Bond turned out to be. On reflection, it's quite the step back from the exciting reinvention with shades of introspection that was GoldenEye, swiftly falling into a formula not so directly in evidence since Moore's last movie over a decade earlier.

Don't get me wrong, TND is not a bad movie or indeed a particularly bad Bond film, but it's just so obvious and formulaic…

Stopping off at number 18 on my Bond Marathon is a film that had the unfortunate luck of opening the same day as Titanic.
After the bold introduction to Brosnan's Bond in Goldeneye it's a shame, but TND feels like a faltering step backwards.

The biggest problem I have with this film is Jonathan Pryce's media baron. He's just too over the top and performs like a pantomime villain. Absolutely one of my least favourite bad guys. It's kind of upsetting after Sean Bean's excellent turn in Goldeneye that we're left with a maniacal fruit loop who would've been better realised in a Roger Moore from the mid seventies. His evil scheme (basically the whole story) is too old school…

007 Retrospective
All 23 Official James Bond films reviewed and rated in release date order

18# Tomorrow Never Dies

The name of Albert R Broccoli will always be held in affection as the producer who originally brought James Bond to the big screen along with his production partner Harry Saltzman. Broccoli did eventually go it alone and before the release of Tomorrow Never Dies he sadly passed away. He leaves a legacy behind him as well as a daughter and step son who now jointly run the Bond franchise and I think he would have been proud of the recent commercial success of the newly rebooted series.
Well done Roger Spottiswoode, Tomorrow Never Dies is a cracking Bond Movie. It…

Day 17 of the Bond Film Marathon, film 18:Tomorrow Never Dies. Two years later, Brosnan reprises his role as 007 in the much anticipated, heavily packed action, follow up. The differences is a silly plan by a silly villain, and nothing by action. It's a decent Bond film, but feels more like an action film.

Bond is spying on an arms race near the Russian Border, detailing his whole recon op, but his recon mission turns to survival when he is to escape immedietly when a British Admiral decides to attack the location. Bond escapes on an L-39 with Nuclear torpedoes and his mission is done. Meanwhile, a media mogul has a plan to start conflict between the Chinese and…

Pierce Brosnan returns in his second James Bond film. This time to tackle the more modern day plot of Media corruption and manipulation to take the world to the brink of a nuclear war, all for the ratings.

The thrills once again never let up, and even though the story falls over itself at times, the film is worthy proof that Brosnan and co have re-invented Bond for the new era.

Twisted newspaper mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) uses his connections with corrupt East and European governments in manipulating headlines to benefit world leaders and usher in new kinds of rules for a big pay off. After he intentionally sinks one of Britain's warships and destroys Chinese MiGs in enemy…