What's the best way to ensure you have all the news before everyone else?
It's to create it yourself and that's the plan driven by media mogul Murdoch-wannabe
madman, Elliot Carver (played by one of Britain's best, Jonathan Pryce)
so he can splash it over the front page of his newspaper, "Tomorrow"
and "find" a big story with which to launch his cheesy satellite news station.
Examples include trying to start World War III. Nothing like aiming high (!)
Stunts include an early aerial dogfight, the sinking of the HMS Devonshire
in the South China Sea, some new driving skills for Bond's BMW and a motorbike
pursuit through (and over) Saigon
which culminates in a joust between Bond on the bike and a helicopter.
As with stunts, what also goes hand-in-hand with Bond films is the babes,
in the form of the high-kicking star of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon,
Michelle Yeoh as Colonel Wai-Lin (Colonel?), ex-Superman actress
Teri Hatcher as Carver's wife Paris - and an old flame of Bond's
(oh, what a surprise!), plus the best of the bunch - and also the briefest -
Danish model Cecile Thomsen as Professor Inga Bergstrom (Professor?!).
As for the rest of the cast, Bond's aide is CIA Agent Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker,
who, incidentally, was not on Bond's side as Brad Whittaker in
The Living Daylights.
Judi Dench has a second turn as "M", her on-off TV screen partner
Geoffrey Palmer has a cameo as Admiral Roebuck, the ugly ghost that Patrick
Swayze met early on in Ghost, Vincent Schiavelli
makes an appearance and Miss Moneypenny (Samantha Bond) gets to comment
that James Bond is a "cunning linguist".
On a sad note - and not about the fact that Albert "Cubby" Broccoli died
inbetween this and the last film - 6 seconds have been cut from the film as
MGM wanted to keep the 12-certificate for home viewing. No specifics have been
stated but I reckon they include a neck-break from Wai-Lin towards the end,
but the BBFC website reckons the cuts were imitable and had to go.
There's something that's a little hazy about the print throughout the film
as the encoding's not spot-on, but it's not that noticeable from the usual
viewing distance. As you'd expect the film is presented in anamorphic widescreen
and the box cover quotes an odd ratio of 2.44:1. It does look a little wider
than 2.35:1, but the Internet Movie Database makes no mention of this.
The average bitrate is a middle-of-the-road 5.27Mb/s, starting erratically
at first but settling down later.
There's no complaints on the sound-front, as every scene that matters stands
out proud including all the stunts alighted to earlier. Dolby Digital 5.1
in English is the order of the day, with dialogue or as an isolated score.
Extras :
Chapters :
The usual 32 chapters for an MGM, which is an excellent amount. If only some other DVD
companies could take a lesson from this one.
Languages & Subtitles :
English is the only language on the disc - in Dolby Digital 5.1 - and for the
subtitles too. Shame, since other Bond releases have had stacks of subtitled
languages.
And there's more... :
There's not as many extras this time round as with some of the earlier
discs in the series and this time we are not treated to a Patrick Macnee'd
featurette, usually entitled Inside... (insert film name here).
Featurette: Inside The Secrets of 007 (43 mins): A summary of
how many of Bond's most famous stunt sequences were put together, with a doff
of the cap to this one in particular. Most of the film clips are cropped to
4:3. It's an entertaining featurette, but if you've collected the series so
far surely you have most of this information already?
Storyboard Presentation : 9 scenes from the film, all in
anamorphic 2.44:1 widescreen, with small storyboards in the corner of the
screen showing you how they were planned out.
Special FX Reel (3 mins): David Arnold's souped-up Bond theme
played over scenes from the film, first as they were filmed and afterwards
with the CGI effects placed on top.
Interview with Composer David Arnold (2½ mins): Words
from the music man himself.
Sheryl Crow Video (4 mins): We want k.d.! We want k.d.! We want k.d.!
For those who don't, this track made No.12 in December 1997, but why would you?
Theatrical Trailer & Teaser Trailer (3 mins): The second (60 seconds) works
better than the first, with Brosnan appearing, then uttering "Bond... you
know the rest", before a cavalcade of explosions ensue. The first one
(just a shade over two minutes) actually tells you there's a plot to deal with.
Both are in 2.44:1 anamorphic widescreen.
Gadgets : Bits of info about the film, featuring Carver's
Sea-vac (the big drill which tunnels into anything), Bond's BMW and his
mobile phone - definitely something you can't get at Dixons' stupid "The Link"
shops.
Isolated Score: Not even mentioned anywhere on the menus,
David Arnold's score in full-on Dolby Digital 5.1.
One from director Roger Spottiswoode
and Dan Petrie Jr., plus a second from Second Unit Director Vic Armstrong and
co-producer Michael G. Wilson.
Two Audio Commentaries: One from director Roger Spottiswoode
and Dan Petrie Jr., plus a second from Second Unit Director Vic Armstrong and
co-producer Michael G. Wilson.
The animated and scored main menu, plus similar treatment given to the swipes
between menus, is as rich and colourful as we've come to expect from this
series.
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL
The following is a list of all the Bond films now available in production order
with their dates of release, followed by the unofficial movies:
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
