Tomorrow Never Dies

I rented Tomorrow Never Dies over the weekend. I'd already seen it -- in the theaters as well as on FX over the weekend -- but I had forgotten to take it out of my queue at Netflix.

Besides, Michelle Yeoh was in it. She's hot in martial-arts style sequences. I love that stuff.

I do believe Ms. Yeoh was the first Asian Bond girl. (About frigging time.) And, though I cannot purport to be an expert on the subject, she's the first one I've seen in a long time who was on the "Good Guys'" side who could hold her own (i.e., kick some ass). The last woman I an recall who kicked ass in a Bond film was Grace Jones in A View to a Kill (and let's face it, she was somewhat freaky). All the other Bond chicks seem to have made their careers out of standing around going, "James! Help!" or "Ow! James!" Then they'd coo, "Ooooh, James!"

(Don't get me wrong, a lot of Bond chicks were smart. Like Dr. Goodhead (ahem) in Moonraker, just for one example. But generally... helpless tarts. Smart, but helpless.)

Anyway, back to Tomorrow Never Dies: there's just one scene I have got to vent about.

So Michelle Yeoh demonsrates in this movie her talent at movie martial arts repeatedly, and it's great to watch. Then at some point about three-quarters of the way through the movie, she gets caught by Bad Guy's minions, who then take her to him. So she's standing there with two goons holding her arms and two other goons with automatic weapons pointing at her. Then Bad Guy says something annoying and Michelle lashes out by trying to kick him (which we know would have hurt had she succeeded).

Then Bad Guy launches of this mock-martial arts tirade, complete with old-style Bruce Lee sound effects and exaggerated arm movements, ending with one word: "Pathetic." Now keep in mind, this is while Michelle Yeoh is being held in place with guns pointed at her.

So my one comment to the writers is this: Why could she not have said, at this point, "Get these goons to let me go and get these guns off of me and let's see just how pathetic I am, White Boy"? Please? Because Bad Guy was just such a racist asshole in that scene.