KMC Forums - Die Another Day

Bond film number 20 comes around at last! Whatever you think of the films one simply must appreciate the fortitude of this series.

Making a film out of Ian Fleming's popular anti-hero wqas a popular move at the time, though many purists were upset by the sanitised version of Bond presented in Dr. No. Indeed, From Russia With Love, just afterwards (also featuring Q's first appearance before being called Q) was remarkably faithful to the books, and remains to this day the most un-Bondfilm like Bond ever, being simply a good quality spy film.

If the purists hoped that things would stay like that, they were to be disappointed as Bond become increasingly fantastical and mainstream. But that is fair enough; time after time Bond films were great action extravaganzas. You can criticise them for being shallow action films, but if you ask me they are the barometer against which all other action films should be judged; the central pillar of the Hollywood action genre. And as such they can be greatly appreciated for what they are.

Things started to get a little silly in the Moore era as fantastical ideas completely took over the production. Now, I LIKE Moore as Bond, and I think he kept a commendable dignity as things just got silly all around him. Things probably came to a head with Moonraker, surely the silliest of all the films, with laser fights and US Astronaut commando assault teams. Luckily, Michael Lonsdale played a BRILLIANT villain in that film- and very often a flimsy Bond plot is saved by a good villain and set-pieces.

But it could not go on forever, and by the end of the Moore era it was slipping. Poor Timothy Dalton is only known for being in what people thought was the farewell Bond era, hardly fair on his films that junked entirely the more humouresque feel of the Moore films. License to Kill is very vicious indeed, and the old purists may have approved! But audiences didn't.

Luckily, it all came bouncing back with Goldeneye. Whether you like the film or not, again its achievement in rejuvenating the Bond franchise must be appreciated, with great stunts, sets, a pretty good villain (much as I would have preferred Sean Bean to use his Yorkshire accent, like he did in FOTR!), a simple and very Bond-like plot and a fun time to be had by all. Oh, and Pierce Brosnan was pretty good too...

Since then, the Bond films have been... passable. What they are still missing is another classic villain- the danger is that the films will end up like Moonraker in reverse, fair story but no decent foil for Bond! In Tomorrow Never Dies we had a great acting turn from Jonathon Pryce, and a commendale attempt to move Bond into a more modern era, but the character he played was simply not scary or menacing enough in any way! The World is not Enough had a BRILLIANT henchman, in the form of Robert Carlyle, who was completely wasted in a part underwritten to the same proportions as Darth Maul's; his feminine boss was not interesting in any way, save in looks.

And so onto Die Another Day (which seems a stupid title until you remember the Ian Fleming quote it is taken from- He who turns and runs away, lives to Die another Day- a good old-fashioned Bond pun). Does this film achieve the correct balance of good villain, good set-ups and reasonable story? Well... kind of.

First of all, DAD is not as silly as Moonraker... but it very NEARLY is. It has an array of ludicrous things ranging from laser satellites that the US can only be bothered to fire one missile at a time at, to a villain in what looks like half a Robocop suit, to a Star Trek holodeck, to a car that can... wait for it... turn invisible! Yup, The Brits can now make invisible cars! Apparently. An important difference, though, is that Moonraker took itself deadly seriously. This film clearly knows it is taking the piss.

The plot is a problem. No Bond plot shouldnhave to be thought about for more than five seconds. This one, if you try and think about the continuity of it all, takes a little longer. Shame on the writers for not being simple! It is pointless complication as well, compication that adds nothing to the story. Halle Berry is... adequate. Also the film forgets that if you have a whodunnit, you MUST produce more than one suspect, or the whole thing looks silly! The traitor follows the exact same lines as many previous Bond films including, rather stupidly, the one directly before this! You would think Bond would see these things coming by now...

However... Brosnan is good, the bad guys are good (though not stunning- again a better henchman than main villain), the stunts (especially the pre-credit ones) are VERY good... and this being the 20th the whole film is littered with brief references to earlier films, from the old shoe-knives of From Russia with Love, to the Goldfinger laser-table torture, to the jetpac from Thunderball, and even a brief word pun on Diamonds are Forever.

All in all... go see it. It's not a waste of your time, though it cannot be ranked as a classic Bond.

BTW, John Cleese is bloody brilliant.

__________________

"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"

"You've never had any TINY bit of sex, have you?"

BtVS