Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 15:15:25 -0500
From: Adrian Roselli - SSG <AdriaRos@sbservices.com>
Subject: TND review

Part of the appeal of the Bond films is their stylistic pseudo-realism and their larger-than-life plots, villains, and characters. At the same time, these haven't been realized in recent years without complete silliness the way they were in some of the first films, so this new film's try for realism is a nice change of pace. Overall, it is much more believable, but still asks you to suspend disbelief for the full experience. Also, the villain wasn't nearly as forced and campy as some of the more recent ones, and the Terri Hatcher character got just the right amount of screen time (ie, i'm glad she had little screen time, she was pretty uninteresting).

What really did it for me was the use of Michelle Yeoh as the Chinese agent; after all, I went to see an action film, not an example of more overused Bond stories, and she helped pull it away from that stereotype. In fact, I think she had a higher body count than Bond... Either way, it was a nice change of pace to see a Bond female playing such a strong role, and considering the fact that it is a Bond film, she got a good amount of screen time as well. Also, unlike the old Bond films, where Connery would jump on a womam despite her kicking and screaming, it's nice to see some departure from the spooky date-rape-like scenes and progression into the modern world.

And it just wouldn't be a Bond film without SCUBA diving, sky diving, choppers, bikes, cars with rockets, tactical nukes, black tie parties, gadgets, Desmond Llewelyn, Communism, gunplay, girls, the Dutch, corporate giants, wacky henchman, overzealous plans for world domination, martinis, humor, combat in 3-piece-suits, car chases, and a complete lack of balding leads or supporting cast.

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