I consider GoldenEye the best of the Brosnan Bonds, but this entry isn't half bad either. It has some terrific cinematography and locations, a great score and theme song, a good script and some excellent action. In general the plot is not too bad, the first half was gripping and plausible, however with the transition from Europe to Asia the film loses its way. Also I found Elliot Carver rather nonthreatening and somewhat pathetic as a villain though Jonathan Pryce did well with what he had. That said, Pierce Brosnan is excellent as Bond and Terri Hatcher is a great match for him. And the support of Judi Dench goes down well too. Overall, very good on the whole. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Jonathan Pryce as Rupert Murdoch like international media mogul quotes William Randolph Hearst's famous maxim about 'you furnish the photographs, I'll furnish the war' in Tomorrow Never Dies. In fact those words are the paradigm of this particular adventure for famous fictional British secret agent James Bond.

007's mission and he has no choice, but to accept them is to prevent a war starting between the People's Republic of China and the United Kingdom. After a British submarine is sunk, apparently by the Chinese, tensions start building between the two powers. It's up to Pierce Brosnan to prevent things from boiling over.

Judy Dench as M has Bond in mind for this mission because it turns out that Mrs. Pryce played by Teri Hatcher had been Bondified a few times back in the day, but the relationship has long cooled down. Dench knows that Pryce is involved some way and she wants Bond to find out how even if he has to 'pump' the wife to do it. One of the man lines of innuendo that pepper this and many other a Bond feature.

The Chinese also have an agent working on the same lines in the person of Michelle Yeoh. Brosnan and Yeoh are forced to work together on this one and each proves to be something of a savior of the other.

Tomorrow Never Dies shows Brosnan off to good advantage and also shows why the public demand for him to play 007 was almost irresistible. I don't understand why he still isn't doing it.

Brosnan's second outing as the world's favourite super-spy is a ferocious, rip-roaring action yarn that definitely requires a little more work on the plot side of the film. Basically, there isn't one. It's about Brosnan going after newspaper giant Jonathan Pryce – who plans to create a small war in the China seas to sell his paper using bad news – and the series of set-pieces and high-octane battles that rapidly follow. The pacing certainly isn't a problem, with things opening with an ill-advised shoot-em-up involving a plane and closing with one of those clichéd one-man-boards-the-enemy-boat-and-destroys-it-singlehandedly sequences which seems to go on forever. Director Roger Spottiswoode can be relied on to deliver plenty of breathless action but always leaves the characters a raw deal. Never at one point do we really find ourselves engaged in what's going on up on screen, instead it feels a bit like the straightforward cartoonish adventures that Hollywood make oh so well.

Brosnan has some good scenes as Bond and handles himself well in the comedy and action stakes. It's the best performance he gave as Bond. The supporting cast includes an irritating and overacting Pryce as the laughing bad guy, his performance buffoonish rather than vaguely threatening, a far cry from the usual assured turns he delivers. Similarly, Teri Hatcher is poor in a poorly-written role, her character's death making no emotional impact on Bond or the audience whatsoever. There are some interesting villainous henchmen – Gotz Otto is a fine right-hand man but needs something to make him memorable (a killer bowler, metal teeth, metal arm, something of the kind),Ricky Jay wasted as a computer technician, Vincent Schiavelli hilarious as a professional assassin – and a feisty female sidekick in the welcome Michelle Yeoh, who gets to show off her trademark high-kicking martial arts skills. There's even a cameo from action choreographer and Shaw Brothers icon Phillip Kwok, which I was delighted about.

The action fan will also be entertained by the endless punch-ups and machine gun battles, the action here displaying some affection for John Woo's stylised two-guns-blazing OTT choreographed battles. The various chase sequences are excellent, with the highlights including a great motorbike chase through Beijing and a wondrous episode in a parking garage involving Bond's super-duper new Aston Martin. Overall, it's not quite a classic, but for the somewhat lacklustre Brosnan era it's a winner.