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There are many spoilers, all the way through this.
The case for the prosecution:
I wanted to like "Tomorrow Never Dies" a lot more than I did. It features a solid Bond, two excellent Bond girls (Teri Hatcher as the beautiful and damned Paris Carver, and the ever-awesome Michelle Yeoh as Wai Lin), a truly glorious villain in Elliot "I can't believe it's not Murdoch" Carver, and a half decent theme tune (I have no idea why Sheryl Crow has disowned it; I like it.)
So many good parts. The whole, unfortunately, does not come together.
And I don't know why, which is very frustrating. If there was something obvious, it would be easier to explain.
The scene itself:
(Sound quality variable)
Why the scene is so good:
You want the definition of 'one scene wonder'? This is it. What is the first thing everyone remembers about "Tomorrow Never Dies" - "I am a professor of forensic medicine. Believe me, Mr. Bond, I could shoot you from Stuttgart und still create ze proper effect." And I love that 'ze' is in the official quote. Because Vincent Schiavelli is having all of the fun playing this deeply twisted but incredibly competent individual. He's a throwback to the old Bond villains, with a 90s twist, because the whole conversation with Stamper is very much post-Tarantino.
The set-up for the scene is great because Carver has already filmed his wife's obituary and he's making Bond listen to it. (Have I mentioned that Carver is a great villain, and very prescient of where news media went?) This distracts Bond enough that Kaufman can sneak up on him. Kaufman is good enough at his job that he could kill Bond so there's also peril. So Bond is stuck and he has to use his smarts to get out of this, because violence will not fix it, and he does. That's why I've chosen this scene ahead of the car chase that immediately follows. The car chase is too gimmicky and reliant on tech for my taste. The reason I've chosen this over the motorbike chase with Michelle Yeoh later on despite the motorbike chase being an excellent setpiece of destruction (note, Spectre director, this is how you film a helicopter scene) is the bit at the end of the Kaufman scene where he's begging for mercy, a mercy he'd never show anyone and Bond just goes no. It's a fantastically book-Bond bit.
Tomorrow Never Dies a film of bits that do not gel. The bits are excellent. The whole is not.
~~~~
In the spirit of treat yourself, I also link Götz Otto's IMDB gallery. Because he used to be vaguely attractive if you liked that sort of thing, now he's stunning and there are several good photographers out there.
The case for the prosecution:
I wanted to like "Tomorrow Never Dies" a lot more than I did. It features a solid Bond, two excellent Bond girls (Teri Hatcher as the beautiful and damned Paris Carver, and the ever-awesome Michelle Yeoh as Wai Lin), a truly glorious villain in Elliot "I can't believe it's not Murdoch" Carver, and a half decent theme tune (I have no idea why Sheryl Crow has disowned it; I like it.)
So many good parts. The whole, unfortunately, does not come together.
And I don't know why, which is very frustrating. If there was something obvious, it would be easier to explain.
The scene itself:
(Sound quality variable)
Why the scene is so good:
You want the definition of 'one scene wonder'? This is it. What is the first thing everyone remembers about "Tomorrow Never Dies" - "I am a professor of forensic medicine. Believe me, Mr. Bond, I could shoot you from Stuttgart und still create ze proper effect." And I love that 'ze' is in the official quote. Because Vincent Schiavelli is having all of the fun playing this deeply twisted but incredibly competent individual. He's a throwback to the old Bond villains, with a 90s twist, because the whole conversation with Stamper is very much post-Tarantino.
The set-up for the scene is great because Carver has already filmed his wife's obituary and he's making Bond listen to it. (Have I mentioned that Carver is a great villain, and very prescient of where news media went?) This distracts Bond enough that Kaufman can sneak up on him. Kaufman is good enough at his job that he could kill Bond so there's also peril. So Bond is stuck and he has to use his smarts to get out of this, because violence will not fix it, and he does. That's why I've chosen this scene ahead of the car chase that immediately follows. The car chase is too gimmicky and reliant on tech for my taste. The reason I've chosen this over the motorbike chase with Michelle Yeoh later on despite the motorbike chase being an excellent setpiece of destruction (note, Spectre director, this is how you film a helicopter scene) is the bit at the end of the Kaufman scene where he's begging for mercy, a mercy he'd never show anyone and Bond just goes no. It's a fantastically book-Bond bit.
Tomorrow Never Dies a film of bits that do not gel. The bits are excellent. The whole is not.
~~~~
In the spirit of treat yourself, I also link Götz Otto's IMDB gallery. Because he used to be vaguely attractive if you liked that sort of thing, now he's stunning and there are several good photographers out there.
