About three-quarters through Tomorrow Never Dies, it suddenly occurred to me that -- under the current rules the cinema James Bond operates under -- this might be as good as it gets.

Make no mistake. We're not talking about a film that eclipses Goldfinger or From Russia With Love. Not even close. But as long as Eon Productions decrees it will not film any of the novels by Ian Fleming's literary successors, TND delivers almost everything that we can expect.

There is a lot to recommend TND. Pierce Brosnan is extremely good, better than GoldenEye, and he is on his way to making the role his own. Jonathan Pryce is excellent, his Eliot Carver being the best Bond villain in quite a spell. And Judi Dench is wonderful as M, particularly when she is telling off a stuffy British admiral.

Aspects like production design are top notch (despite the defection of Peter Lamont to Titanic). David Arnold's music is a big improvement over Eric Serra in GE and Daniel Kleinman's main titles quite creative. Eon's stunt arrangers show they haven't lost a step, particularly during a sequence where one of Carver's helicopters chase Bond and Chinese agent Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh) through Saigon.

So what's the problem?

Problem is too harsh a word. Call it a concern. Story wise, at least for me, I don't know if Bond can ever have that edge when Eon based its films on Fleming novels. The books are quite old by now, of course, and the world has changed. But I don't know if today's screenwriters are capable of matching, or even approaching, Fleming.

You got the impression that Richard Maibuam, who wrote or co-wrote 12 of Eon's 18 movies, at least kept Fleming in the back of his mind. I'm not sure that applies to Bruce Feirstein or any of the uncredited rewriters who worked on TND. Bond's relationship with Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher) is supposed to bring an emotional oomph since she is an old flame who supposedly got too close to Bond. But Hatcher couldn't quite convince me. She seems like just another sacrificial lamb. On the other hand, the death of Paris does bring out one of Brosnan's best scenes when he avenges the killing.

Don't get me wrong. TND is quite entertaining and Bond is such an engaging character that movies without any ties to the books (Fleming, Amis, Gardner or Benson) still have a sense of style lacking in a good many typical action movies. For a Bond fan, TND probably rates 3.5 stars out of four. A general movie goer would probably rate the film 3 stars.

I'm just not sure we'll ever see a 4-star Bond movie again under the current Eon rule book. Oh well, better that than no Bond at all.