The second of the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies solidified his role as James Bond. However, the movie itself was rather slow with an incredible boring bad guy who is completely unbelievable. With the fall of the Soviet Union the Bond movies have struggled to find a bad guy to go against. In this case a media mogul who wants to rule the world by making all of the news is probably the 2nd worst James Bond villain idea since the weirdo who wanted to rule in space in "Moonraker."

So the British Navy, known as the Redshirts of the Bond movies, loses a ship of the coast of China. It appears to be sunk by the Chinese because it was in there territory. In actuality, the media mogul, Elliot Carver, played by Jonathon Pryce (De-Lovely), had a henchmen who used a stolen GPS to use a satellite to steer the ship into Chinese territory. He then used a cool looking submarine thingy to sink the ship and steal nuclear weapons. He then shot down a Chinese airplane. All of this from a stealth boat. Just so Carver can make his millions. OOOH, what a billy badass.

The action is up too par with what you would expect with a James Bond movie, including a very good motorcycle jump scene over a flying helicopter. The humor is also very good with the typical Bond wit and the scene between Bond and the Chinese agent Wai Lin, played by Michele Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, hidden Dragon), in the secret Chinese room was very Bond funny.

Michele Yeoh's character was very entertaining but she was not your typical Bond movie woman. She kicked ass better than Bond, but following the 1990's I am woman here me roar movement in Hollywood, her character was way too tough to be a Bond girl. Enter Teri Hatcher as the bad guy's wife and former Bond fling. She should have been the Bond girl but she was too feminine and that didn't work for our 90's political correctness.

However, I never once for a moment believed that the media mogul was a believable bad guy, even for a Bond movie. He was more of a Revenge of the Nerds gets pissy and doesn't want to play nice anymore. That was the biggest problem with the movie, that and the killing off of Teri Hatcher's character. Why would you get rid of that fine of a women beats the hell out of me. I did like the German henchman. He was stereotypically a badass that all German henchmen in movies are and he was fun.

The theme song by Cheryl Crow was very telling of this movie. It was nice but the more she sang and the whinier the song became the less I liked it.

The director Roger Spottiswood did a great job with the action sequences in the movie, never reaching too far or too high, letting the script do that. His action scene with the helicopter was very good and also very real. The making of the movie shows how that stunt took place and was very entertaining.

Bruce Feirstein scripted this movie as well as "GoldenEye" and "The World is not Enough." While he did a good job in creating believable villains in both "GoldenEye" and "World" but he missed the mark with this one. It was a very 90's script of the evil corporations causing the ruining of the world, but it just didn't work. But he did keep the humor and the action and the proper levels so I won't abuse him too hard.

Definitely the worst of the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies but still better than most of the action movies of the 1990's, go ahead and watch this movie, just keep you giggles to your self, else Elliot Carver may take his toys and go home.

Brian - the Naked Gun