Die Another Day 2002

Brosnan returns for one final run as Bond in the twentieth film of the series. Hard to believe we’ve ploughed through 40 years of these now. The producers must have felt the same; this is a reference-laden film (there’s a throw-back to every previous episode, apparently).

Bond is sent to North Korea to blow up a weapons depot but gets caught as a result of a betrayal from a mole. 14 months later he is released and sets about trying to find out who did it. The plot thickens and as usual his investigation takes him all over the world.

Things open in a slightly different manner, there’s the usual pre-music action scenes but then the title sequence is used to further the plot rather than just being an abstract series of images. It’s clever and, despite a poor choice of song, innovative.

The next 90 minutes or so proceed to be ‘classic Bond’. The scenes in Cuba are fun and exotic. Bond meets his NSA counterpart Jinx, played by Halle Berry, and despite their very odd dialogue they have some memorable chemistry on screen. He also encounters old contacts along the way; the whole sequence feels like a throwback to the films of the 60s when he actually used to be a spy.

Things then take a steep nose dive as we get to invisible cars, ice palaces, solar death rays (used to melt the palace of course) and layer upon layer of entirely CG images. There’s also an element of face-changing which is the worst part of the Mission Impossible franchise, never mind James Bond. It gets really silly and really boring.

Brosnan is visibly enjoying himself though, and it’s very entertaining. The dialogue in this film is excruciatingly poor but he manages to sneak in lots of little mannerisms and affectations to just about make it all work. There are times when what he is saying makes literally no sense, and you can see him struggle to try and make it all seem normal. Same goes with Halle Berry, who sizzles on screen but if you close your eyes, her character is just talking bollocks.

Rosamund Pike is fine but suffers more from the shit script. Her character is literally called ‘Frost’ and guess what, she’s cold towards Bond. Not exactly much to work with. Toby Stephens plays a good villain and is genuinely loathsome in a rich public school kid way.

There’s a lot to like about Die Another Day but sadly there’s just too much to hate. It’s a decent enough final film for Brosnan overall, but not a good final 60 minutes.

http://benoliver999.com/film/2015/09/12/dieanotherday/

And so the Brosnan come to an end and goes out with a whimper. Whilst the opening sequence is weak and dull (someone needs to point out to the filmmakers that vehicles with huge fans behind them are not that exciting), the initial setup is intriguing. But once Bond sets out on his mission, most of this is forgotten and the rigid formula is set. There are some occasional interesting moments - the car chase on ice is unusual enough to lift the film out of its mediocrity, but only for a moment. The two principal Bond girls add very little to the film and Brosnan is yet again saddled with a principal villain who is simply not a credible threat. Toby Stephens hams it up way too much, even for a Bond film and unfortunately it becomes impossible to suspend disbelief as a result of the quite ridiculous story. Action sequences that are poorly edited and dull and building action scenes completely around CGI are also the worst things a Bond film could do. It's a shame Brosnan was never able to be involved in a truly great Bond film, as he did make for a great James Bond.

Brosnan's final outing as Bond starts as good as they come. After the opening scene it then leads into probably the worst Bond theme ever (Well, she got a role out of it, so for her it worked out). Unfortunately the whole movie never really recovers.

Now, I can live with the plot in general, be it a little bit ridiculous and stupid at times, as Bond movies were never known for their incredible writing or originality (oh, look, another diamond laden satellite in space). But this feel like they've entered the MCU and that's not to be understood as a compliment. The dialogues are extremly bad, like written by a teenager. The acting by everyone is bad to mediocre at best. And sadly this time that goes for Brosnan as well. There is nothing of the whit and panache of the previous movies. Rosamunde Pike still holds the record for not convincing me in any role I ever saw her play. Toby Stephens tries to portray the big bad villain and fails utterly. John Cleese is not even close to being in the same orbit as Llewellyn was. And Michael Madsen gives us his take on the overconfident, arrogant American. Oh, I absolute forgot about Halle Berry. Literally, she left that much of an impression.

Production wise this doesn't look to good either. While the opening sequence had a lot of pratical stunts the relied on CGI throughout the movie far too much. And in the early 2000s it just didn't cut it. Which has the result that it now looks extremely dated and fake. Addionally the sets do look exactly like that - sets. All that ice looked so fake it really hurts the whole movie.

This being the 20th official Bond I expected really something more. The little "homages" they put in where really lame. And yes, that includes Halle Berry appearance in Ursula Andress style.

While the movie has small fractions where it can be entertaining it fails as a whole and is by far the worst of the Brosnan era.

This one’s the easiest to argue as the worst Bond. It probably felt really dated in a post Bourne Identity world, but even with the reintroduction of cheesier action films in the current era (at the time of writing) there’s still something off looking back at it now. Clearly it wants to be this ridiculous and cheesy film, but they’re simultaneously too afraid to yuk it up like they did during the Roger Moore era. So you get this movie that doesn’t quite embrace what it is; the dialogue scenes play it fairly straight despite all the ridiculous stuff that’s going on. There’s a jungle within an ice palace, racial plastic surgery, people saying the line “Who sent you? Yo mama”; none of these ideas would work in Austin Powers, let alone Bond. There’s more genuine creativity in the action (opening vehicle chase, the ridiculous sword fight sequence), but the editing and bad special effects (surfing) often bring that part down. So that leaves this film to rely on story and character, which traditionally have never been among Bond’s strengths. The plot is a bit of a mess here, because it has two separate story ideas that are awkwardly mashed together. The beginning of act 2 feels like the start of a new film as it starts introducing a new set of supporting characters. I don’t think this was necessary as none of the supporting characters leave a real mark, and the performances all suck anyway. By comparison, the film works better when relying on established, recurring elements (Brosnan, Dench, Cleese). Technically the film is passable, there’s almost no personality to the filmmaking as per usual pre the Craig era. The dialogue scenes are shot in the most boring way possible, and it’s usually the second unit that comes up with the more interesting shots. I didn’t like the colour grade during the scene in North Korea as it feels out of place with the rest of the film, but the electronic beats in the score are a nice distinguishing touch. Madonna’s song is easily one of her worst singles, though. Overall, while it’s definitely as terrible as it’s always been made out to be, I’m sort of glad it exists. I don’t think you’d get Casino Royale and more filmmaker driven Craig era without this being as much of a trainwreck.

2.5/10