That December of 1997, I had just played GOLDENEYE the Nintendo 64 video game on a toy store in Buenos Aires. I knew the film of the same name would be broadcasted that month on cable TV.
I was on the city of Mar Del Plata, a turistic spot of Buenos Aires, Argentina, with my mom and my dad, who told me who James Bond was after he saw me playing the N64 game. On a shopping mall of that city, I saw a big cardboard poster of TOMORROW NEVER DIES. I’ve immediately recognized Pierce Brosnan, who played James Bond. But I didn’t know that was another movie different from GOLDENEYE. I even told my parents “Hey, GOLDENEYE is going to premiere on the cinemas here soon.” All I remember from those holidays is that, as a 8 year old boy, I took a picture with the big carboard poster.
I returned to Buenos Aires and, as all the people I met know, I watched GOLDENEYE on January 31st, 1998. I was fascinated, and that day begun the passion that catched me all these years.
TOMORROW NEVER DIES premiered in Argentina on January 15th, 1998. I talked to my dad to go and watch the film. I can’t exactly remember the exact date, but surely it should have been one or two weeks after the premiere. Dad and I went to the now unexistant Metro cinema at the famous 9 de Julio Avenue (the widest avenue in the world)… and please don’t ask me my experience watching the film because I don’t remember anything except of the pre-credits sequence, the villain Elliott Carver, and the guy falling into the newspaper printer.
Still, as a good Bond fan and collectior, I rented the VHS, I bought the VHS then, and my godfather brought me a Region 1 Special Edition DVD I could watch on the recently bought PC on my grandparent’s house.
Now, thirty years after I first watched the film, I place it as one of the biggest Bond films ever. There were lots of critics of course – the plot is a combination of THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, the film is pure action (even Mr. Brosnan said that once), and Elliott Carver is a weak villain.
Let me tell you I strongly disagree with the last point, because to me Carver, brilliantly played by Johnatan Pryce - famous for portraying Juan Domingo Perón in 1996’s EVITA – was the last great mastermind we’ve had in the Bond series. Maybe he isn’t a physical menace to 007, but he has something Bond villains today lack of: charisma.
The action sequences abound in the film, but each scene seems pure Bond (well, except Pierce’s Terminator-style walk at the end of the film). The dialogues are witty, funny and memorable, and David Arnold started his Bond musicman career with this film, providing Bond fans a stylish and James Bond Theme-filled album so missed in Eric Serra’s effort for the GOLDENEYE soundtrack.
And even when the female department of TOMORROW NEVER DIES wasn’t as memorable as the one of GOLDENEYE, Michelle Yeoh’s Wai Lin gives some memorable kick-ass scenes and Teri Hatcher as Paris Carver, Elliott’s wife and Bond’s former lover, makes with Pierce Brosnan a lovely, emotive, and warm couple.
Well, just some of my toughts about TOMORROW NEVER DIES. Follow this blog for some other articles regarding the film that Dean and I will be posting in the following months.
Oh, I forgot something. Bond wars his RN Commander uniform in the film. I didn’t care too much about that until two years ago when I dressed as Commander Bond for my graduation party and I’ve gained, well, some… “hostile takeovers.”
Nicolás Suszczyk,
Editor, TOMORROW’S NEWS TODAY
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