I loved James Bond when I was a kid. But as a kid I was also gullible, even to the point where I thought Roger Moore was good as Bond. I haven't watched the Bond movies over the last few years but I just picked up Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) for $1 at a used DVD store. The premise is that the head of a media empire is instigating a war between Britain and China and Bond has 48 hours to investigate. He has one chance to infiltrate the empire using his cover as a banker. So he takes this one chance, goes up to the head of the empire, and basically says "Hey - I know you're doing some highly illegal things that nobody in the general public could possibly know. So you should definitely keep your eye on me." Then the head of the empire sends some guys to beat up Bond, but he escapes and runs away. But he's a spy. He's supposed to do things that are clever, and instead he blew his opportunity to do something dumb. The movie really should've ended there, as Bond has no way to infiltrate the criminal organization in time to stop the war. I couldn't even watch the rest of the movie, so I just skipped to last action sequence. Later it occurred to me that if I were more gullible I could've enjoyed the whole thing as mindless filler. So it might be nice if we had a mental switch to experience popcorn movies as we did as teenagers, and then switch our brains back to adult mode.
