December 18–25, 1997

movie shorts

Tomorrow Never Dies

Adding Hong Kong martial arts and action star Michelle Yeoh to the extensively road-tested Bond formula — international espionage and terrorism, Q's gizmos, spectacular explosions and stunts, and always-seducible vavoomy chicks — is an obvious attempt to make 007 (Pierce Brosnan, in his second outing in the franchise) appealing to a wider audience. To an extent, this strategy works: Yeoh is extremely cool, whether outfitted like Catwoman and scaling walls or taking out a whole passel of thugs with a few well-directed kicks and spins. But she doesn't really come on board until about halfway through the adventure, so there's lots of conventional preliminary stuff. The major episodes are, as always, well-executed: solo, Bond saves Russia from nuclear winter and drives his new BMW from the back seat using a kind of finger-controlled mousepad to steer; and then, with Yeoh, careens through Saigon streets on a motorbike while being chased by any number of large and well-armed vehicles. The campy enemy, by the way, is Jonathan Pryce as a media mogul out to rule the world.

—Cindy Fuchs