I just watched TND...
Georgiboy
Posts: 632MI6 Agent
I just watched TND and I enjoyed every second of it. I hadn't watched it in a while and most people don't like it and I don't understand why. Someone please enlighten me on why it sucks? I thought Carver was a very good villain, he is my second favorite while Emilio Largo is my favorite.
I enjoyed it so much that I moved it on my favorites list from number 18 to number 4.
I enjoyed it so much that I moved it on my favorites list from number 18 to number 4.
Comments
Why does Carver get a bad press? Simple. Theres no menace there. I dont believe him as a villain.
The Brosnan era begins to slide with TND...
"Mr. Stamper, will you please kill those bast**ds!
"Let the mayhem begin."
"There's no news like bad news."
He was charismatic and very very evil. I think he's much better than Renard or Gustav Graves. I even like him better than Sean Bean. He is imo the best brosnan villain.
As I said, I think it has some fantastic elements (Dr Kaufman, the car chase, the fight at the party, some of the dialogue, Brosnan's performance) but generally speaking I don't think it's a very memorable film.
Some do, I didn't. Brosnan looks bulked up but tired, the press/media angle lacks versimilitude (ie its not believable) and the tone is a bit heavy, again few jokes really deliver. Climax on stealth ship very derivative and poor man's TSWLM. All a bit like FYEO, though it moves faster. The bike chase only needs a shout of 'fruit cart!' to complete it.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Now theres damning with very feint praise
This is one aspect I actually liked about TND...Brosnan seem to shed some of his 'pretty boy' image from Remington Steele that I felt dripped over into GE.
BTW, TND is the only Bond film to which I own the novelization (other than OP for which I own a comic book.) It's pretty good.
To be fair none of the Brosnan villians ever seemedthat great.
I think Pryce was a great actor that bought alot to the role. That said, I just don't think that there was much good to say about the character. For example, his relationship with his wife was never well established before he killed her. Her death would have meant more if they had scenes together.
Most movies these days are like that. Just explosions and gunfights every second of the movie being crammed down our throats. But, in TND, it is only the second half of the movie that is like that, the first half leads up and up until everything explodes into nonstop action. That is what I like about TND.
The only part of the movie I loathe is Wai Lin. She is boring and obnoxious. She is what Carver says she is..."pathetic". I thought Teri Hatcher did a pretty good job though.
The only thing I really don't enjoy is the climax in the stealth boat. I feel it is just a bit too much of random machine gun fire, but that's just my opinion.
Good points:
Brosnan's performance.
Michelle Yeoh. Some have complained about Yeoh being too much Bond's equal, (Hi Dan
Very good PTS.
Wonderful Q scene. I always felt that Brosnan and Llewlyn had a real rapport.
Some terrific fight sequences.
Low points.
Carver is a lamentable villain. Pryce is a fine actor, but he's awful here.
Teri Hatcher. The chemistry between her and Brosnan is toxic. The love scene looks like the director had a gun pointed at them to make sure they actually went through it.
And the climax is pretty lame. It turns into a Steven Seagal movie. Which is not a good thing.
Anyway Georgiboy, if you liked it, good for you. On this site, the second you say you like something, folks will be lined up to tell you you're nuts. For me TND is an enjoyable movie and I think Brosnan is great in it. Others think differently, it's a big Bond world.
So much promise in TND, that's what sticks out for me. Not a perfect mix but like YOLT the elements are all there.
(BTW you should credit the copyright to Loeff.
A good way to describe TND, DAWUSS. I would also call TND, YOLT and TSWLM for the ADHD crowd. It's been a while since I've seen it but it was the 1990s Bond film I enjoyed most on my initial viewing of it.
It moves quickly, Brosnan is a lot more confident in the role the 2nd time around, David Arnold's score just screams "BOND IS BAAAACK!!!" in a way that was sorely missed in GE, the PTS is Brosnan's best, Carver is the only Brosnan villain who was a traditional, older megalomaniac in the Blofeld/Stromberg/Drax type mold and Paris is my favorite Brosnan Bond girl.
Complaints?
A few.
1)I wish they had called the villain by his original name(Harmsway) and used his initial plot to level Hong Kong prior to Britain's returning it to Red China instead of recycling the WWIII plot of YOLT/TSWLM again.
2)I wish Teri Hatcher had been the main girl. In some ways, Paris seemed a little like a precursor of Vesper Lynd. I also liked her playing opposite Brosnan(despite whatever offscreen problems occurred between them).
3) Michelle Yeoh plays her role fine but there is really only room for one James Bond in a James Bond film. Turning the Bond girl into "Jane Bond" actually makes Bond less special when he should be the hero in his own film. I'm glad CR returned to the tradition of letting Bond be the hero again and the Bond girl not trying to be "007-in-drag". I think Wai Lin should have been Carver's henchwoman/partner-in-crime instead kinda like May Day or Xenia Onatopp.
4) Too much political correctness, i.e., "Filthy habit" stuff and letting Communist China get off the hook too easily.
Criticisms aside, TND benefits from being a Bond film that meets or exceeds one's expectations unlike GE which made me wish Dalton was still playing Bond or TWINE, the OHMSS/CR wannabe that turned into a bloated soap opera.
TND is probably Brosnan's sleekest, least pretentious and most satisfying Bond effort.
I liked the Teri Hatcher Bond girl - I just felt that I never believed that Bond really had true emotions for her given how little screen time she got. I doubt Maud Addams had much more screen time in TMWTGG - however with her death held up till significantly later in the picture it felt as if Bond had time to build a stronger relationship with her. With Paris it felt like the director said - Bond once liked this girl. Accept it.
The really sad thing about TND is that it had alot of ideas that were really quite novel - I actually liked the idea of a Asian Kung Fu star as the lead woman, and I think Michelle Yeoh was a great bit of casting. I liked both the car park chase and the Ho Chin Min City bike chase. And the idea of a villian using the media to start a war was also very original - just not carried out well.
One more gripe about the movie - I never felt that they went to Germany. I felt that they spent too much time inside parties, hotel rooms, car parks which could have been anywhere in the movie. They went to a geographically and culturally stunning country, to spend time at a party which could have been held in downtown LA. Note - they did the same thing with Istanbul in TWINE and Iceland in DAD. There was nothing that made the location unique to the movie.
Well, thats off to a good start. Did you mention that the action scenes were very...action free? Or what about Elektra - who suffered from poor structual development. I also put it down as David Arnold's meh score. He did nice work with the ethinc and romantic music - jack all with the action.
I understand. I saw Michelle Yeoh on an interview around the time of TND's release. She recounted how she was informed they wanted her for the new James Bond film and her reaction was "They want me to play James Bond!!!"
The only way she would agree to be in the film is if they made her character "just like James Bond in every way", disregarding the fact that if anybody but James Bond is "just like James Bond in every way" then James Bond is no longer special. That stated, she plays her character fine and ultimately Wai Lin got captured and had to rescued several times in the film. I just do not happen to care for her character. If she had to be in TND, I would rather she would've been a villainess. Especially after having to lose Teri Hatcher's underrated Paris.
I understand your not being fond of Wai Lin, Jinx or Stacy but what problem do you have with Vesper? She's my favorite main Bond leading lady since Kara(possible exception of Natalya). And she definitely was not an "in-your-face" Jinx/Wai Lin-type.
Thank you. I think I may like the 1st 2/3 of Brosnan's other "worst" Bond film DAD better than TND but all of TND is better than the CGI-ed up final 1/3 of DAD.
The plot of TND is a clear re-hash of YOLT & TSWLM but these movies are two of the most enjoyable in the franchise (despite their ott nature) and if anything, TND is more realistic.
First, it has a believable villian. I always felt later Bond villians were too young which gave them a certain menace but no depth. Pryce gives substance to a poorly written role; you believe he can issue orders and demand the respect of his men by position, power and ingenuity not through physical strength. His megalomania starts to manifest itself when he kills his wife, but he descends gradually into madness; this is much more like Goldfinger and Blofeld than Graves, Zorin and Reynard who are just overblown psychos.
Wai Lin was a good character. There seem to be complaints about her being Bonds equal, but we've seen this before (eg. Anya Amasova, Holly Goodhead) and it never hurt those films. I like the interplay between her and Bond and the chemistry between them is much better than that of Bond and Paris. My one complaint is it takes the writers so long to actually introduce her; she is seen at the Berlin party and breaks into the factory, yet we are given no indication who she is. Raymond Bensons book has a scene between Bond and Lin which introduces her character without betraying her role as a spy.
David Arnold came on board to compose and what a fantastic effort, easily the best of the latter-day Bond scores, and one he has failed to match since. It fairly pounds along, assisted by Moby's re-vamped JBTheme, and incorporates many themes from the John Barry era as well Arnolds his own. Disappointingly Sherlyl Crow makes a hatchet job of the theme song (I always felt the producers should have asked Robbie Williams to do a theme song in the 90s, I think he'd have made a good stab at this one).
Minor characters abound in TND. It was good (but unnecessary) to see Wade return and the extra characters in the War Room are well drawn. The best creation is Dr. Kaufmann, a quite wonderful cameo with a sinister introduction and lines as causticly funny as Bonds own. Stamper is underused and has little effect. I pity poor Teri Hatcher as Paris Carver; an impossible role given it is so slightly written. M sends Bond to Berlin to openly woo her, and she falls for it, despite being a happily married wife. There is no reason for her to betray her husband and I think the actors recognition of the plot device shows in their scenes together. When they first meet the two are frosty, hostile, and it works well, when they get intimate it breaks down completely.
Once again Bensons novelisation develops all these characters, gives them substance and motives that are missing from the finished movie.
I have a feeling some scenes were edited out during post production to ensure a running time of less than 2hours, but I havent read this in any publication.
The editing is actually very good in TND, its slick and urgent and during the action scenes like the party fight, factory escape & car chase, the parachute jump & the motorbike chase it is the editing which keeps us rivited not the direction.
I agree wholeheartedly with comments about the climax. For many years I have longed for a big climatic battle scene a-la YOLT, OHMSS and TSWLM; but time and again the producers disappoint and the 90s Bonds inparticular do resemble Steven Segal movies by their finales, especially TND. Bond and Wai Lins two-handed demolition of the stealth boat is by far the worst part of this movie, unrealistic in the extreme and (curious to think) Bond probably kills more villians in this sequence than in any other Bond film. It even gets tiresome. Far better perhaps to have the SBS lauch an attack and leave Bond to tackle the major villians.
So, yes, there are faults, but then again which Bond film doesnt? I prefer TND to the rest of Brosnans Bonds because it looks and feels like a return to the classic Bond era, with strong villians, an accessible plot and great action. Brosnan looks and acts his best in this film, something of a surprise given that he regards working on TND as his worst 007 experience. In fact it was Brosnans vetoing of the original script which led to production delays and then a rushed post-production in time for xmas97, which possibly explains some of the more messy parts you see on the screen. None the less for me TND is firmly in the favourites list.