Tomorrow Never Dies: Music From The Motion Picture

Where the previous Bond installment, Goldeneye, profited from the gratifying if belated introduction of actor Pierce Brosnan as an 007 for the '90s and beyond, it suffered from a musical mismatch. Composer Eric Serra had scored several successes with French director Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, The Professional, The Big Blue) but floundered trying to update a genre whose John Barry-penned scores had long ago become legend. David Arnold's music for Tomorrow Never Dies is arguably less adventuresome than Serra's for Goldeneye, returning largely to Barry's conservative musical pattern for the Bond films. But it's still grandly effective, and probably better than the movie it supports. --Jerry McCulley