Tomorrow Never Dies

Skippable, and the most competent forgettable film in the series. The premise is sharp: a media proprietor provokes a war between Britain and China so that his network can report it first, and his weapon is a satellite and an editorial line rather than a laser.

It should have aged well and mostly has not, because the film is not interested in its own idea. Jonathan Pryce plays the villain as a pantomime, with a long sequence of him dictating headlines to a room, and the satire never advances past the observation that newspapers like a crisis. The script was being rewritten during shooting, which shows in a middle act that is largely transit.

Michelle Yeoh is the best thing in it and the film knows it, giving her a full partnership and a fight sequence of her own, and the motorcycle chase through Saigon handcuffed together is the standout. The remote-controlled car in a car park is the other good set piece.

Brosnan is on autopilot, the romance with a former lover is given four minutes and a death, and the finale is a shootout on a boat. Nothing before or after depends on it.