Starring:	Pierce Brosnan	114min
	Jonathan Pryce
	Michelle Yeoh	1997
	Teri Hatcher
Screenplay:	Bruce Fierstein	Action
Director:	Roger Spottiswoode	Colour

Region	2	Studio:	MGM
Format	Single Sided, Single Layer	Subtitles	English
			English Closed Captioned
Aspect ratio	2.35:1
Anamorphic	Yes
Soundtracks	Dolby Digital 5.1	Extra Features	Film makers' commentary
			Theatrical Trailer
			8 page booklet
Case type	Amaray

The DVD * * * *		The Movie * * * *
In the States, you have a choice - either a well presented "no frills" disc or an "everything but the kitchen sink" special limited edition. In the UK, we get just the one version, pitched somewhere in between, but it'll be quite enough to satisfy all but the most rabid Bond Bore. The image quality is stunning - one of region 2's very best - culled from a flawless source print with gorgeous colours, and to all intents and purposes artifactless. The sound too is very good, with David Arnold's score sounding wonderful and the surround speakers working overtime, although the dynamic range is not as extreme as other titles. Maybe your neighbours or kids will be grateful. Like GoldenEye, this comes with a running commentary, only this time we don't have the "proper" director, but rather the second unit helmsman Vic Armstrong. On many films, second unit does little more than establishing shots and cutaways of hands on doors and so on, but action films tend to farm out all the stunt work to them. So here, it would seem a good choice for a commentary, as most listeners would rather focus on the legendary stunt work - Armstrong is also joined by producer Michael Wilson. As it turns out, it's a bit disappointing, with lots of unanswered questions and too much waffle - the GoldenEye commentary is far superior. Again, like GoldenEye, the graphic design leaves a good deal to be desired, and the menu screen maddeningly only holds for a couple of minutes before throwing the whole film at you whether you like it or not. But these are gripes that we can live with and, with a very tasty colour booklet and a trailer thrown in for good measure, this more or less deserves its place as the UK's top selling disc for 1998. Nice one, MGM. .		Bond certainly never dies - where he should by rights be eschewing a shaken-not-stirred Martini for soup through a straw and fighting people off with a walking stick, he is still merrily killing all the men and shagging all the women like a pumped-up G.I. Joe in a bullet-proof tuxedo. With the pensionable in mind, the film opens with Geoffrey Palmer, UK military general and Dame Judi Dench, M, bickering away in MI5, and for one cold-sweat-inducing moment you wonder whether you've slipped into As Time Goes By: The Movie by mistake. Well, it turns out that we're all on the tail of Carver (Pryce), a Murdochesque meglomanic media mogul who has evil designs on covering a third world war that he initiates for fairly unfathomable reasons. "You're qute insane", Bond observes. Carver grins, "the gap between insanity and genius is measured only by success". That's a pretty good line, but the beyond-groaning pun littered script isn't always so sharp. There are long tedious stretches while, in the absence of talent, everyone just waits for the next prop to blow up. The cast too is more uneven here than in GoldenEye, with martial arts babe Yeoh splendid on the action, but iffy on the acting. So what, you splutter, and fair enough, but Goldeneye spoiled us for girls who both looked good and could deliver more than two sentances without the aid of autocue. So it's left to Brosnan and those stunts to carry the film, and they're fortunately both in fine fettle, with a couple of top notch sequences to add to the 007 canon. Oh, and there is a professional killer who livens things up considerably. Not quite reaching the dizzy heights of GoldenEye then, but nonetheless a perfectly respectable slice of nonsense which more than holds its own against the ever more tired bigger budget rivals. As Time Never Dies would have been a nice title, though...