There's always been something missing in Bond movies, that despite the reputation, scale and frequency of action set-pieces in the franchise, I have been amazed has been missing for so many decades. Tension. Edge of your seat, white knuckle, goosebumbs on the back of your neck it's so exciting... thrills. Yep, Bond action is always fun, memorable and original. But exciting in a way that is genuinely exciting...never happened to me. That is until 1997 when I saw Pierce Brosnan's second James Bond 007 outing, Tomorrow Never Dies.
In the opening moments, Bond infiltrates a secret arms market to confirm the participants are terrorists, and a missile strike is called for to wipe them out. Bond reveals that nukes are present, which the inbound British missiles will trigger. From then on there is a genuine sense of tension in the air as Bond tries to move the nukes out of range while battling multiple terrorist foe. I'd always admired the inventiveness of the action, the gags, the size of the destruction, the cunningness of the super-spy and the structuring of the chaos. But all previous Bond films had failed to get me worked up about the action's outcome or had me glued to the screen as intently as this.
Why does the action work then? Well it's not directed with huge flare but rather skillfully edited footage(like George Cosmatos...Rambo II style). Dialogue is kept to a bare minimum letting the action flow and build.
David Arnold is introduced as the new guardian of the James Bond soundtrack score and he releases years of pent up 007 goodness in his brilliant John Barry-esque score. The soundtrack not only updates the Bond sound with a modern twist (there's some collaboration with The Propellorheads here) but it embraces the various melodies of the Bond theme and pushes them right up into the sound mix. When that theme is played, it's heroic and thrilling; you can't help but be ecstatic when that music is blasting in your lug holes (Daniel Craig Bond directors take note please...where IS that theme, hmmm?)
Director Roger Spottiswoode cuts out all the fannying around in the script, giving Bond his regular meetings with M, Moneypenny and Q, but while on the move. Donaldson gives the Bond series another first; contemporary photography. For years the Bond series was trying to compete with the Die Hards and Lethal Weapons of the world (just look how ancient Licence To Kill looks compared with Lethal Weapon 2, the same year)...and here it finally looks like a modern action flick rather than a decades old franchise, struggling to remain relevant...and mostly failing. The photography is stylised and noirish, with harsh lighting, smoke machines and neon coming out to play.
Brosnan finally settles into Bond's skin after a scrawny start in Goldeneye, while a hammy Jonathan Pryce delivers a triple ham sandwich, with a side order of ham, in his lead baddie role. The story's as you'd expect with a far fetched plot of a Media Mogul influencing world politicians...something Rupurt Murdoch is already doing with Fox News in the states and The Sun newspaper in the UK. The girls are gorgeous with the always desirable Teri Hatcher doing the bad girl bit with class and the cute and authoritative Michelle Yeoh doing something that ALL Bond girls claim to have done...but never achieve; kick ass as good as Bond.
And what about those action sequences? Some of the best ever, of course. From the pre-title fighter plane stuff, the Hamberg break-out, the epic Beijing motorbike/helicopter chase and the reinvented Bond villain lair shootout; all have a vividness that don't exist in Bond films...either before or (rarely) after. The stand out is the backseat driver set-piece as Bond escapes from the henchman's clutches with his remote control BMW trapped in a multi-storey. Loud reinvented theme, beautifully staged and structured action, minimum dialogue, exceptional editing all delivered, at long last, in packaging aimed at a contemorary audience.
Still exhilarating twelve years on, I walked out of the cinema in 1997 not believing what they'd dared to do; made Bond breath-taking. I'm not so worried that they hadn't done it before but I'm a little concerned they've rarely done it since.
The sword fight in Die Another Day, the boat chase in The World is Not Enough and the African free-running sequence in Casino Royale are the only three to have measured up. We're promised a new Bond in 2011. C'mon guys. Please try harder.
