Oz wrote:Excellent TierTomorrow Never Dies
Good God, What the Fuck Is This Shit TierThe World Is Not Enough
Die Another Day
It's obvious why
GoldenEye is the best Brosnan flick, but why rate
Tomorrow Never Dies so much higher than the other two? I'd consider it the most uneven and forgettable of the four. The theme song makes my ear canals weep with melancholy bliss and there's a forlorn tenderness in Bond's scenes with the newspaper tycoon’s hot wife, but after that hilariously awesome chase with the remote control car, the film slides suddenly into blandly generic 90's action movie. The chase through Saigon drags intolerably onward, despite the awesome Chinese spy character and by the time they'd made it to the invisible submarine, the damn thing was a bloated disaster. The way the film played up these media moguls conversing on their giant flat-screens and laughing manically like they were villains from a 60's Hanna Barbara cartoon was delightfully absurd, but the story could neither commit to its camp premise or aspire towards visceral realism.
The World is Not Enough had a similar problem, but nowhere near as badly. The emotional heart of the film, all the tenderness and treachery, lied in the relationship between Bond and Elektra King, so after Bond shoots her and chases her terrorist boyfriend, I'd clocked out. The final action set piece felt like an obligation to uphold. Compared to
Tomorrow Never Dies, though, we're talking a difference of ten minutes of disinterest versus forty. Besides, the flick was a ton more fun gave Judy Dench a lot more to do. I was hooked from the glorious extended opening.
Honestly,
Die Another Day is probably my favorite Brosnan flick after GoldenEye because it has the balls to commit to its ball-crushingly absurd premise. More importantly, it was the only Brosnan flick after GoldenEye where the pacing didn't get bogged down with gratuitous action scenes. There was enough downtime to let the drama establish itself. Yes, the drama involved diamond encrusted albinos, ice castles and some kind of magic surgery that turns Asians white, but there's quiet, subtly emotional scenes, too; like the mommy spat Bond has with Judy Dench in the deserted subway tunnel. Hell, even the abysmal title song by Madonna has grown on me. She sounds like a sexbot having a seizure and the throbbing techno beats obliterate the mood set by the strings, but I dig it for the reason I use to justify my love of all terrible pop: it sounds desperate. It sounds like someone's core persona is being shattered and they're stumbling through life in a daze unable to function. It fits with the torture and hallucinations in the opening title sequence, even if I get the same emotional reaction from shit like The Black Eyed Peas.
The flick typifies glorious excess. How can you not adore it?
