Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Whoever controls the headlines can shape the world, and one media baron is willing to start a war to prove it. Roger Spottiswoode's "Tomorrow Never Dies" brings back Pierce Brosnan for his second outing as James Bond, following "GoldenEye," with a lively supporting cast in tow. Fittingly for a 1997 Bond film, 007 is up against Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce), a power-mad media tycoon who plans to provoke a war between Britain and China, starting by secretly sinking a British warship, so he can generate sensational headlines for his new global news network and win exclusive broadcasting rights in China. It's the information age run amok, and Bond teams up with Wai Lin (Hong Kong action star Michelle Yeoh), a skilled and deadly agent of China's intelligence service, to stop the madman. Conveniently, Carver's wife, Paris (Teri Hatcher), is one of Bond's former lovers, and at the urging of his boss, M (Judi Dench), 007 uses that connection to get close to his target. Although it shares some of the formulaic trappings of 1990s action movies, it delivers enough large-scale action and clever plotting to show that the Bond series still had plenty of life left heading into the new millennium. Armed with his usual gadgets, including a remote-controlled BMW, Brosnan settles into the role with style, and the dynamic Yeoh provides a welcome counterbalance to the sexism that once threatened to make Bond an outdated relic. He's still Bond, but he's saving the world with a bit more sophistication. Sheryl Crow sings the title song.