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5
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10 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Well,
it's half a decent Bond flick at any rate...
I'm giving Die Another Day
a Movie Rating of '5' on that basis. But as with
the brainless, overblown Van
Helsing, I do so reluctantly — it just barely
squeaks by. Except for Moonraker
and A View To A Kill,
this is the worst James Bond film ever.
As a longtime 007 fan the 20th installment
in the venerable series came as quite a disappointment.
Die Another Day suffers
from a split personality: the first part of the
film (mostly) plays like a serious Timothy Dalton
adventure while the second half devolves into
over-the-top Roger Moore silliness. Some refreshing
departures from formula are thrown away midway
through the picture in favor of mindless, subwoofer-thumping
pyrotechnics and CGI-rendered spectacle.
DAD starts out
promisingly enough, with an exciting, action-packed
"shock and awe" opener featuring more explosions
than the first four Connery Bond pics combined.
James Bond infiltrates North Korea — via surfboard
— to stop an illicit diamonds-for-weapons exchange
and assassinate the mastermind behind it, a megalomaniacal
army officer named Col. Moon (Will Yun Lee). Bond
accomplishes his mission but is captured by North
Korean troops and held prisoner for 14 months,
subjected to brutal torture and interrogation.
He's eventually traded for Zao (Rick Yune), a
terrorist and Moon's top henchman, who was apprehended
by the British sometime after Bond's imprisonment.
Once free, 007 wants nothing more than to go after
Zao and kill him. But Bond's freedom is very short-lived.
The moment he crosses the DMZ into South Korea
his own people take him into custody. The Americans
believe Bond broke under torture, fingering their
top undercover agent in North Korea. In consequence
M strips Bond of his 00-rating and license to
kill. So Bond escapes and goes after Zao on his
own initiative.
The trail leads to an exclusive health clinic
in Cuba, where Bond discovers Zao's been receiving
gene replacement therapy to completely alter his
appearance. 007 also hooks up with a sexy and
resourceful American spy for the National Security
Agency, one "Jinx" Jordan (Halle Berry), who's
also after Zao. Their quarry escapes but Bond
uncovers a link between the Korean terrorist and
a flamboyant, fabulously wealthy diamond magnate,
Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), who's currently
in London to receive a knighthood from the queen.
Back on his home turf 007 is again accepted into
the fold of British intelligence, with an assignment
to find out what Graves is really up to. He decides
to rattle Graves' cage by challenging him to a
duel at the industrialist's fencing club. Ironically,
it's the thrillingly-staged sword fight — one
of the most old fashioned of adventure movie staples,
bereft of explosions, crashing vehicles and CGI
— that is the action highlight of the movie. (Unfortunately
it's set up via an awkward and utterly pointless
cameo by Madonna.)
After the duel the film begins to slalom downhill
at an alarming rate. For the most part the second
hour is just a loud, lumbering, uninvolving mess.
Graves invites Bond to Iceland, where he's to
demonstrate to the world his solar-powered laser
satellite, Icarus. (Ostensibly built for the betterment
of mankind, our villain naturally intends to use
it as a gigantic death ray.) Bond and Jinx again
join forces to utterly smash the Bad Guy's plans.
Set-piece follows set-piece with tedious predictability,
as explosions and CG effects are substituted for
anything truly exciting. Don't get me wrong —
it's actually a good thing that the 'look' of
Bond has been updated for the 21st century. (By
the 1980s the franchise had grown a bit stodgy
in its visual approach.) Where the 007 series
has truly lapsed during the Brosnan era is in
the writing. The late Richard Maibaum, scribe
for so many of the best Bonds, is sorely missed.
Storylines and dialog have been significantly
dumbed down ever since Tomorrow
Never Dies (1997). Bond films are all about
formula, of course, and after 19 previous go-rounds
the template is naturally getting stale, but do
we really need a third space weapon plot?
(Diamonds Are
Forever and GoldenEye
also featured villains wielding orbital weapons
platforms.) The departures from formula we do
get, notably Bond's imprisonment and torture,
are most welcome. Too bad the film goes nowhere
new after that. A lot of the dialog is pretty
bad, too. The pithy quips and double entendres,
a Bond trademark, are simply HORRIBLE in Die
Another Day, producing more groans than
smiles. (The franchise desperately needs someone
with a keen ear for snappy dialogue to either
write or significantly polish the scripts.) Horrid
quips aside, the screenplay also foists upon us
a rather sketchy, uninteresting nemesis for Bond
to oppose. Graves comes off more spoiled, petulant
child than world-threatening menace. Yune's Zao,
the henchman, is easily the more intimidating
of the two, though in an effort to make him an
'exotic' baddie he runs around for most of the
film with diamonds imbedded in his face, the result
of a bomb triggered by 007. Did the writers just
not care that everyone in the audience would be
of course be left wondering the same thing: why
doesn't Zao simply have the diamonds removed?
Pierce
Brosnan is thoroughly comfortable in his fourth
portrayal of James Bond; like Connery and Moore
at the same point in their tenures he could probably
play the superspy in his sleep. With the death
of Desmond Llewellyn shortly after the release
of The
World Is Not Enough, John Cleese officially
assumed the role of gadget guru Q, proving to
be a fine replacement. (The silly slapstick of
TWINE is jettisoned.)
Of the female leads, scrumptious Rosamund Pike
is far more compelling as Graves' chilly publicist
Miranda Frost than the mega-hyped Halle Berry
is in her more prominent role. Surprisingly, Berry
— certainly one of the most gorgeous actresses
on the planet — adds very little to the proceedings.
Her dialog is terrible (not her fault) and she
and Brosnan have virtually zero screen chemistry.
A word about the CG effects in the film, a
big point of contention for Bond fans. Personally
I have nothing against computer-generated effects.
I'm not a Luddite who'd rather see visible wires
on an airplane model than a digitally rendered
plane, stubbornly convincing himself that the
'old way' is better or even looks more real. That
position is delusional. I'm for CG when it
works and against it when it doesn't. The
special effects and stunt work in DAD
are actually a combination of all techniques,
both old and new. Most of the CGI works rather
well, particularly the climactic destruction of
the giant Antonov cargo plane that serves as Graves'
airborne HQ. There are two sequences, however,
that are extraordinarily cheesy and detrimental
to the film. Jinx's backwards dive off a fortress
wall to the ocean below is phonier-looking than
stuff you see on live-action kids' shows on Nickelodeon;
Bond's para-surfing of an icy tidal wave drew
hoots of derision and mocking laughter in the
theater I saw DAD
in on opening day. What the hell were they thinking?
Couldn't hire a stuntwoman to make a graceful
dive off some Acapulco cliff? (The crappy looking
CGI dive really undermines the entire scene.)
At least the para-surfing sequence couldn't be
done otherwise, or would be prohibitively expensive
to shoot. But it's so ridiculously fake looking...
(Especially since we see real surfing action
in the pre-titles teaser.) Bond should've just
parachuted away from the rocket sled on the glacier
— period. The entire sequence could've been scrapped;
why this wasn't done I have no earthly idea. Better
had they not created the sequence in the first
place... which would've saved 'em more than enough
dough to hire a stuntwoman for Jinx's dive.
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Die
Another Day
is the first Bond film to be released on DVD as
a 2-disc set. Having played in theaters just 6
months ago, A/V quality is naturally state-of-the-art.
(The sound mix is especially good.) Most of the
extras are contained on Disc 2, though Disc 1
features two separate audio commentaries: one
with Brosnan and Pike (representing the first
time a Bond actor has participated in such), the
other with director Lee Tamahori and producer
Michael G. Wilson. It also boasts a pop-up trivia
option (MI6 DataStream) and some DVD-ROM
features I haven't had a chance to explore yet.
Disc 2 contains the set's main extra, a making-of
documentary called Inside Die Another Day.
Despite the title it's very different from the
"Inside" featurettes found on the other
James Bond DVDs. For one thing there's much more
emphasis on the technical and logistical aspects
of the production; the doc is also broken down
into individually viewable segments rather than
one long piece. (One does have the option to select
"ALL" and play them in continuous form
if desired.) Additionally, Disc 2 also offers
a storyboard-to-film comparison, an opening titles
breakdown, an effects featurette, a gadgets featurette,
a photo gallery, Madonna's music video for her
much-maligned techno-trance Die Another Day
theme song (which really isn't as bad as many
have claimed; the lyrics actually make sense when
you hear them in context with the imagery on screen),
plus assorted trailers, TV spots, and Bond-related
commercials. 6/05/03
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| UPDATE
Die Another Day was
reissued in November 2006 by MGM. This completely
remastered 2-disc edition — with new, additional
bonus features — is a part of The
James Bond Ultimate Collection Vol. 2, which
also contains four other 007 films. (Audio/visual
quality of the older Bonds pics is simply stunning.) |
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