This review of Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) is part of a wider rewatch of the James Bond series to mark its 60th anniversary. 007 has always been my favourite movie franchise, and I wanted to see where each film ranks within the series. Please check out the main blog post for my rankings of this and the other twenty-four official films and links to the movie reviews for the rest of the franchise.
Short Review
Pierce Brosnan returns for his second outing as James Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies. Remarkably, this film feels well put together, considering its chaotic production and criticism of its heavy product placement. Elliot Carver (played by Jonathan Pryce) is a media mogul looking to create news rather than report on it. This film has a lot of action, good innuendo and amusing one-liners. Tomorrow Never Dies has some of my favourite 007 scenes, including Bond remotely returning his BMW into the window of an AVIS rental shop. I appreciate that Wai Lyn, a Chinese Agent (played by Michelle Yeoh), is on the same level as Bond, not your usual damsel in distress Bond girl. I enjoy the charm of Dr Kaufman as he apologises for the incompetence of the team breaking into James’s car – it’s a shame he wasn’t around for Bond films. Exploring the relationship between 007 and Paris Carver, a former girlfriend who is now Carver’s wife, is an interesting subplot that we don’t often see in many Bond films. All in all, Tomorrow Never Dies is up there for me as one of the best 007 films, one I would reach for without hesitation.
Long Review and Film Summary
The film opens on “a terrorist arms bazaar” on the Russian border. This is described as a terrorist supermarket by MI6 Chief of Staff, Charles Robinson (played by Colin Salmon), who is watching the base via a video link with Admiral Roebuck (played by Geoffrey Palmer) and M (played by Judi Dench), who are acting like an old married couple. It’s not obvious, but Bond is the one operating the super-visible spy camera.
They start to identify the people at the base, including an American called Henry Gupta (played by Ricky Jay), who they say practically invented “techno-terrorism”. He’s holding an American encoder, which is used to control GPS satellites. Admiral Roebuck tries to take over the operation with his Russian counterpart, General Bukharin (played by Terence Rigby), much to M’s annoyance, as Bond’s job isn’t finished.
Admiral Roebuck, against M’s wishes, gives the order for HMS Chester to fire on the facility. Robinson tells James (codenamed White Knight) that he has four minutes to get out. 007 responds by pointing out that there are Soviet nuclear torpedoes attached to one of the aircraft. M orders Admiral Roebuck to abort the missile firing. He speaks to the captain of HMS Chester (played by Bruce Alexander), but it’s too late – the missile is out of range.
On the ground, 007 starts attacking people and setting off explosives in the area to cause a distraction as he heads for the nuclear torpedoes. He takes out the pilot and knocks out the co-pilot. James uses the aircraft’s guns to take out more individuals and vehicles. The British missile is now just one minute from impact as Bond starts to move down the runway, while another aircraft tries to taxi towards him. 007 makes it off the ground with just seconds to spare as the missile hits the base, taking out the camera uplinks being watched at MI6. James flies out of the fireball, as he is fibre-wired by a now-conscious co-pilot in the back seat of the aircraft.
He also has another jet on his tail, firing at him. Bond moves the aircraft up and down and side to side to evade the lock-on target. 007 manages to “park” his aircraft under the other jet and ejects the “back-seat driver” into the other jet’s rear cabin from below and it explodes. James contacts MI6 to find out where Admiral Roebuck would like his bombs delivered, as the scene morphs into the opening titles.
The titles feature some nice use of breaking glass, close-ups of watch mechanisms, and circuit boards projected over body parts. This is the first time we see “ALBERT R. BROCCOLI’S EON PRODUCTIONS LIMITED presents” after his death in 1996. The main title song is, frankly, very forgettable, and a much better one by David Arnold, called “Surrender”, is used in the end credits.
The film begins aboard HMS Devonshire, being overflown by two Chinese MiGs in the South China Sea. Believing they’re in international waters, it’s all hands on deck as the crew try to defend the ship. At the Carver Media Group building in Hamburg, we find Henry Gupta, who has been using the encoder we saw in the pre-titles sequence to send HMS Devonshire off course and into Chinese waters.
Out of the shadows, we see a stealth boat. Its captain and Carver’s henchman, Stamper, are planning to launch a submersible drill the next time the MiGs fly by, making the British believe it’s a torpedo dropped by the Chinese when they see it coming towards them on radar. Stamper reports to Elliot Carver that the plan is in motion. As the MiGs fly by, they start the underwater drill and set it on its course to HMS Devonshire.
The drill enters and starts destroying the ship. The HMS Devonshire captain sends a message to Admiral Roebuck with their wrong location and an incorrect assessment that it was the Chinese MiGs that sunk the vessel. He then gives the order to abandon the ship. The stealth boat captain (played by Mark Spalding) gives the order to fire a missile at the MiGs and takes one of them down, further adding to the misinformation of the situation.
Back at Carver Media Group, Elliot Carver is putting the finishing touches to the headline of his Tomorrow newspaper. It reads “British Sailors Killed,” which he changes to “British Sailors Murdered.”
The stealth boat comes across the survivors from HMS Devonshire. Stamper comes out to meet them with a cameraman and guns them down using the same ammunition as the Chinese. They send a diving team down to HMS Devonshire to retrieve one of the British missiles.
Back at Carver Media Group, Henry Gupta puts away the encoder as Elliot Carver holds a meeting to discuss how they are creating havoc around the world. Stamper confirms the number of survivors from HMS Devonshire. Elliot lets his team know that they have the perfect story to launch their new satellite television network that night. He wants newspaper coverage, magazines, books, films, TV, and radio twenty-four hours a day, after all, “there’s no news like bad news.”
We join Bond at Oxford University, his Aston Martin parked outside. James and his Danish professor discuss his progress while getting intimate together. He is interrupted by a call from Moneypenny (played by Samantha Bond), who tells him to come into the Ministry of Defence as they are sending a fleet to China.
Admiral Roebuck is adamant that HMS Devonshire was in international waters, as global positioning satellites do not lie. However, M shares that their Singapore station picked up a mysterious signal that could have sent the ship off course. M and Admiral Roebuck are at loggerheads over what action they should take. M wants to moderate, investigate, and avoid World War 3. Admiral Roebuck prefers sending a fleet in to recover HMS Devonshire and prepare for retaliation. 007 joins the meeting with a copy of Tomorrow claiming seventeen survivors were machine-gunned by the Chinese. The Minister of Defence (played by Julian Fellowes) decides to send in the fleet, giving M just 48 hours to investigate.
M, Bond and Robinson are speeding through the streets of London with a police escort in this film’s “M’s Office” scene. I didn’t realise until listening to From Rewatch with Love that they all have drinks. Unfortunately, the studio didn’t like it, so they only used the close-up shots in the final edit. They are discussing how Tomorrow got this information out so fast when the Vietnamese only found the bodies three hours ago. M shares that the signal that probably sent HMS Devonshire off course came from a Carver satellite, and that the PM would have her head if he knew they were investigating Elliot Carver.
Bond is to be sent to Hamburg, where he’s invited to a party celebrating the launch of Carver’s new satellite, which can broadcast to the world (except China, which refused broadcasting rights). Bond should use his past relationship with Paris Carver to pump her for information; Moneypenny remarks that he will have to decide how much pumping is required.
007 arrives at Hamburg Airport and goes to the AVIS desk to pick up his new BMW. They seem to have a new employee, Q (played by Desmond Llewelyn), who takes Bond through the insurance documents, making sure he has all the cover he needs.
Q gives James a Sony Ericsson telephone with, among other things, a fingerprint scanner and a remote control for his BMW, allowing him to drive it from anywhere. In the background of this next shot, you can see a live Jaguar, as this was a joke that got cut out in editing. Bond takes the BMW for a spin, nearly taking out Q in the process.
That night, Bond arrives at the Carver Media Group Network for a lavish party to celebrate the launch of Carver’s twenty-four-hour news channel. 007 is introduced as a new banker, but Elliot has more time for Wai Lin from the New China News Agency, who sneaked in to meet him and offers her a job at his upcoming Beijing bureau. James slips away to find Paris Carver (played by Teri Hatcher), who slaps him for leaving her.
They order drinks for each other while Henry Gupta is listening in to their conversation in a back room. She tells him, “I’ve made my bed, and you don’t sleep in it anymore,” and asks him, “Tell me, James, do you still sleep with a gun under your pillow?”
Elliot is suspicious of Bond and Paris as he introduces them to Wai Lin. Paris explains that she and James are just old friends. 007 probes Carver about his satellites, which he says are purely a tool for information. Bond points out they can also be used for disinformation, manipulating governments, people, or even a ship – to which he doesn’t take kindly. Elliot knows Paris is lying about her relationship with James. He asks Stamper to deal with his new banker. Elliot uses his maiden broadcast to offer his services as an impartial bystander to the UK and Chinese governments, as 007 is taken to a soundproof recording studio and set upon by three of Stamper’s goons. In the frantic fight, Bond manages to attack them with a microphone stand and smashes through a glass wall into the production room where Carver’s speech is being produced. James starts flipping switches and takes him off-air. Carver goes mad and fires his assistant as Stamper enters the recording studio to find his men taken down, the room destroyed, and 007 gone.
Later, in his room at the Atlantic Hotel and a call back to Dr. No, Bond is drinking vodka while putting the silencer on his Walther PPK. He lays the gun on a side table, waiting to see who Carver sends to take him out.
Back at the Carver Media Group, Elliot watches other networks making fun of his botched maiden broadcast as Paris watches on. Elliot shares insights from his first newspaper job in Hong Kong when he was 16. He tells her that the key to a good story is not the who, what, or when but why – he wants to know why James made such a mess tonight.
Paris goes to Bond’s hotel, and she tells him that Elliot is on to him. They discuss why she married Carver. She tells him that she looks every day for his obituary. They discuss what went wrong with their relationship, passionately kiss, and end up in bed together. This aspect of 007 dealing with his past is good to see for his character arc.
Back at Carver Media Group, Henry Gupta pulls up information on James. He tells Elliot that Bond has ten years of perfect employment, so he has to be a government agent – no one is that perfect. Gupta also shows him the CCTV of Paris and James talking earlier, revealing that she is aware he’s a spy. Elliot makes her an appointment with the “Doctor”. As Paris is leaving Bond’s hotel room, she shares information about a secret lab on the top floor of the building. Paris tells him there’s an emergency hatch on the roof that’s the easiest way to get inside.
The next morning, 007 uses the information Paris gave him to break into the secret lab above the Tomorrow printing presses. James breaks into Gupta’s office; he finds a safe behind a picture. He uses the fingerprint scanner on his phone to unlock it and discovers drugs, cash, and, most importantly, the GPS encoder. Bond is trying to leave but is interrupted by Wai Lin breaking into the lab and sets off the alarms.
They both take different routes to escape while being shot at by Carver’s security team. Wai Lin climbs the walls as 007 gets into altercations with several guards above the printing presses, overpowering one of them and “printing” the other onto the next issue of Tomorrow. Bond quips, “They’ll print anything these days.” He manages to leave the building but not before causing mayhem in the paper warehouse on his way out. James takes his car onto the streets and receives a call from Elliot, who tells Bond that he has two items that belong to him: the red box he stole from the lab and his wife at his hotel.
007 parks his BMW in the underground car park of the Atlantic Hotel and locks the encoder inside the glove box while retrieving his pistol. Stamper’s team move in to try and recover the encoder from the car. Bond reaches his room and finds Paris dead on the bed with a news story playing on the TV, claiming she was found dead alongside an unidentified man. James realises he’s in danger as a gun is pointed at him by Dr Kaufman (played by Vincent Schiavelli), a self-proclaimed outstanding pistol marksman.
Stamper’s team are electrocuted when trying to enter Bond’s vehicle. They try smashing the glass, which does nothing. Stamper radios Dr Kaufman to make James tell them how to get into the car. The doctor is so embarrassed to ask for 007’s help; however, he threatens to torture Bond if he doesn’t comply. James hands Dr Kaufman his phone to unlock the BMW but gives him the steps to set off the taser, incapacitating Dr Kaufman. 007 points the doctor’s gun at himself. Dr Kaufman pleads, “I’m just a professional doing a job.” James responds, “So am I,” and shoots him dead. Bond leaves via the roof, with Stamper looking on, trying to reach Dr Kaufman as the police turn up at the front of the hotel. I love how charming and professional Dr Kaufman is while also being humorous with his apologising and embarrassment; I wish he was in more 007 films.
James gets to the parking garage, gets out his remote control, and sets off the smoke screen. He opens the rear window and jumps in as it’s moving to retrieve the encoder. He drives the vehicle around the multi-storey car park, dropping spikes to blow out the tyres of a pursuing vehicle. He sets off missiles and cuts through a steel rope with the hood ornament. He jumps out of the car and remotely drives it to the top of the multi-storey, through a wall, over a road, and parks his BMW in the front window of an AVIS rental store below. This is a brilliant scene, one of my favourites from the entire franchise.
Bond arrives via helicopter at a U.S. airbase in the South China Sea with the GPS encoder. He is greeted by Jack Wade (played by Joe Don Baker). They meet with Dr Dave Greenwalt (played by Colin Stinton), an Air Force GPS expert, who tests to see if the encoder has been tampered with. He says that the two circles on the screen should match, but they don’t, showing it’s been tampered with. James asks if they could use this to work out where HMS Devonshire actually sank.
007 halo-jumps from a U.S. plane into Vietnamese waters. He drives down to HMS Devonshire and finds the drill entry hole. He finds the missile room and sees one of them missing. This scene gives me similar vibes to For Your Eyes Only. Wai Lin comes up behind Bond with a harpoon gun. They struggle a little but quickly realise they should work together as the ship is moving on the rocks, with storage racks falling over and blocking the bulkhead door. They try to leave via a ventilation shaft but are hampered by their diving equipment, leaving it behind, then head for the surface.
Wai Lin calls over her boat, but her captain is shot in the back with a harpoon gun by Stamper. They are captured, handcuffed together, and flown to a Carver Media Group Network building in Saigon, Vietnam, where they pass General Chang of China in the corridor. They are taken to Elliot, who is busy writing their obituaries. He launches into one of his insane speeches: “Caesar had his legions, Napoleon had his armies, I have my divisions – TV, news, magazines.” Elliot tells them that “the distance between insanity and genius is measured by success.” Elliot and Stamper show them the tools that will be used on their chakra points; Dr Kaufman was teaching Stamper the art of torture.
007 and Wai Lin work together to overpower the guards and cause destruction in Elliot’s office. Bond shoots out a window, and they use a giant banner of Elliot’s face on the side of the building to abseil down to one of the floors below. They kick in the glass and casually walk out of the building. Still handcuffed together, they bicker about whether to take a car or motorbike, settling on a bike which they end up controlling with different parts using their free hands. While being pursued by multiple hostile vehicles through the streets, Wai Lin moves around on the bike to help with balance and reconnaissance. They use barrels and fireworks to slow down the pursuing vehicles. Riding up buildings and over roofs, they are intercepted by a helicopter firing at them, which they manage to jump over. The chopper lands, and they use a clothesline to tie its rotors up, which sends it into a building, causing it to explode.
Later, we find them showering in the street as Wai Lin manages to get her handcuff off with her earring. She uses the handcuff to attach James to the water and tells him she “works alone.” 007 breaks the pipe to get free and starts searching the streets for her. He sees a vehicle of fighters from the Chinese Army pulling up at her hideout. Bond takes out the lookouts on the street. Wai Lin fights off most of them; however, one gets a gun trained on her, and James takes him out. They agree to work together, and she briefs 007 on the intelligence she has. Last year, stealth material went missing from one of General Chang’s bases. Bond realises it must have been a stealth boat that took down HMS Devonshire.
They figure that the stealth boat will be parked near the British fleet, that it will fire the missile into China, it will all be blamed on the British, China will retaliate, and Carver will provide the pictures. Wai Lin transforms her hideout into a communication station. James says he’ll send the messages to both their governments but is put off by the Chinese keyboard. They study maps of the harbours and inlets controlled by General Chang and narrow it down to 14 places. Looking at the time it would take to get to and from HMS Devonshire at a speed of 30 knots, they narrow it further to four. Bond is distracted throughout this scene by the gadgets in Wai Lin’s hideout, similar to when he’s at Q Branch. They narrow it down further to just one location, Hạ Long Bay.
They convince a local fisherman to take them to the island for $5,000. During the boat ride, they playfully tease each other; Wai Lin calls him a “decadent agent of a corrupt western power,” to which Bond responds, “and they say communists don’t know how to have fun.” As night falls, they take a speedboat and find the stealth boat. They set explosives on the side of the ship for ten minutes. Even if it doesn’t sink, the explosion will make it show up on radar, allowing the UK and Chinese governments to deal with it. Inside the boat, Carver asks for some friendly fire from both sides; HMS Bedford is the first to be shot at, with the Chinese MIGs 12 minutes out. Carver berates a guard for not noticing Wai Lin on the security monitors. He knows that if she’s there, 007 will be too. Wai Lin is taken by Stamper.James kills several guards as Stamper is looking for him. He uses one of them to convince Stamper that he’s dead, allowing him to enter the ship undetected.
Back in London, M arrives at the Ministry of Defence with a message from Bond that she has corroborated with her opposite number in China. They need to find a boat that’s almost invisible to radar; this information is passed to HMS Bedford.
Carver explains to Wai Lin that he’s helping General Chang take over as leader of China; in return, he receives exclusive broadcast rights in China for 100 years. Meanwhile, Bond sets up a grenade in a jar, removes the charge, and keeps the detonator open using the lid. He places it next to some fuel tanks and arms the remote charge using his watch. 007 manages to get hold of Gupta and holds a gun to his head, though all the guards have their weapons trained on Bond. While Carver launches into another tedious monologue, James keeps an eye out for danger and takes out a guard trying to sneak up on him from above. Gupta confirms that everything is ready and that Elliot just needs to press the button for Beijing to disappear. Elliot replies that Gupta has outlived his contract and shoots him. Bond sets off the explosive charge, causing the jar to shatter and the detonator to close. A section of the boat explodes, making it visible on radar to HMS Bedford.
007 goes to stop the missile, while Wai Lin heads to the engine room. HMS Bedford continues to fire on the ship. Carver brings the missile launch forward – there are now only five minutes left to stop it. Wai Lin disables the engines and uses a rocket launcher to take out the guards. HMS Bedford finally scores a hit, and Carver’s crew begin to abandon the ship.
James is attacked by Elliot as he reaches the missile control panel. During the struggle, Bond hits a button which sends the drill towards Carver and 007 feeds him to it. With the control panel destroyed, 007 goes directly to the bomb to disarm it manually. Meanwhile, Stamper finds Wai Lin, chains her up, and drops her into the South China Sea. Wai Lin manages to throw the detonator to Bond, who attaches it to the missile. Stamper attacks him. James stabs Stamper, dropping the missile onto his foot. He then retrieves his jacket, pulls a knife from it, and falls into the water. He finds Wai Lin and gives her air as the ship explodes above them. 007 releases her from the chains, and they make their way to the surface.
Back at MI6, M prepares a press release stating that Elliot Carver is missing, presumed drowned while on a cruise aboard his luxury yacht in the South China Sea. Local authorities suspect he took his own life.
HMS Bedford begins searching for Commander Bond and Colonel Lin, but the pair decide to remain undercover a little longer as they kiss on the floating wreckage of the stealth boat. The film ends with a dedication to the late Albert R. Broccoli.