Bondlets: Tomorrow Never Dies

1997 

 

A pre announced snow day allowed the viewing of another James Bond adventure when God intended them to be seen, on a Sunday evening.

Brosnan’s second portrayal was why we started watching the franchise in the first place.  Given that it is his best outing, that shouldn’t be too surprising.

We were flipping by one of the near infinite Bond film marathons on cable and the handcuffed motorcycle chase scene caught my daughter’s eye.

The fact that it is an amazing stunt scene filled with practical effects is to be expected from these movies.  What pushed it over the edge to generate her interest is something excessively rare for a Bond film:

The only reason the scene works, is that Bond and Wai-Lin are shown to be equals. 

This highly unusual state for a female character dealing with Mr. Bond was a key area of appeal.  It was also why she was more upset than usual when upon the viewing of the whole picture in sequence with the other films. When Michelle Yeoh’s Chinese super-agent finally succumbed to Jamesbonding at the end:

“And…there it is.  She was awesome the whole time and then- mwah…bleah.”

The only kiss she was more upset with in any of these movies was in this one as well:

The “dead kiss” with Paris, because…”ew.”

That one kind of upset me as well.  Not for the same reason, as it was a powerful, character driven, quiet emotional scene in the middle of all the chaos that worked excellently.  My issue was having Teri Hatcher as a Bond girl, and wasting her like that.  Can she come back as her own twin, Marseille McKenna or something?

My daughter also had fewer complaints about the title sequence this time around because:

“The x-ray images make ‘naked watch’ harder.”

The action kept her and my wife interested throughout, leading to both of them laughing and cheering at the violence.

That’s my girls!

She though Elliot Carver was whiny and “Anakin like” sometimes, yelling, “Who cares?” after one of his monologues.  The whole concept that he was manipulating the world into the brink of war and killing a great many people only for broadcasting rights offended her sensibilities a great deal.

She also found his weird little Kung Fu demonstration at Wai Lin, “Disturbing.”

However, none of this ever took her out of the film. She viewed him as a threat and a worthy opponent to 007.

Because calling up Jonathan Pryce when you need a villain is always rewarding for everyone involved.

She did continue to laugh at Brosnan’s sounding like a “leprechaun.”

However, this time around she was more accepting of Joe Don Baker’s Wade as “Felix’s replacement.”

Though, she had some issues with his briefing before the HALO jump detailing the multiple ways it could kill James.

“Well, that’s nice and not creepy at all.”

Other interesting observations:

After he breaks free of Wai Lin handcuffing him to the pipe, (which caused her to proclaim one of many times, “She’s awesome!”) my daughter pointed out how out of place he looked.

I asked, “Because he’s not Chinese?”

She replied,

“No, because he’s all wet.”

My wife and daughter both called the remote controlled BMW crashing into the rental car place.

OK, maybe these things do follow patterns, but we all still laughed.

Finally, my daughter was truly upset with the upgrade of James Bond’s standard sidearm.

It had nothing to do with tradition, concealment, or knowledge of handguns.

It was simply that with the Walther P99, she was unable to make the

“Pee Pee Gun” jokes she made about the Walther PPK.

That’s my girl!

Click Here for Bondlets Index