Die Another Day Review

by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)
November 21st, 2002

DIE ANOTHER DAY
---------------

After James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is busted trying to nab Colonel Moon's (Will Yun Lee, "What's Cooking?") attempt to black market weapons in exchange for flawless South African diamonds, he spends fourteen months being tortured in North Korea before gaining his freedom in an MI6 swap for Moon's henchman Zao (Rick Yune, "The Fast and the Furious"). Then M (Judi Dench) coldly informs James they only got him out because the death of an American agent was attributed to his singing - he's persona non grata. Bond hooks up with Chinese Intelligence in a revenge mission to get Zao, who he discovers in Cuba undergoing a DNA transplant that will completely alter his appearance, coming back to "Die Another Day."

Last year's Oscar winning Best Actress Halle Berry joins the Bond family as an American CIA operative, a 'good' Bond girl who is the first to be the man's equal. Berry's saucy, full-bodied performance gives this aging series a much needed kick, making "Die Another Day" one of the most entertaining Bonds in years.

After the opening sequence where Bond outmaneuevers Moon to his death in a hovercraft race over land mines, we're treated to a particularly stylish title credit sequence featuring fire and ice ladies, scorpions and flashes of Bond being tortured all to Madonna's theme song. After escaping MI6's hold in Hong Kong, Bond meets up with Jinx in Havana and his first bout of frisky sex in over a year. Bond finds Zao in a diabolical clinic that uses the DNA of those who won't be missed, but Zao, only partially transformed, escapes Bond. To Bond's surprise Zao also escapes Jinx, who makes a spectacular exit diving into the sea from a cliff top.

Back in London, Bond picks up the diamond trail with out-of-nowhere
entrepreneur
Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens, "Possession"), a showy adventurer who keeps his PR rep Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike), an Olympic fencer in her own right, working overtime to keep him in the limelight. After a particularly vicious fencing duel, Graves invites Bond to Iceland, where he plans to demonstrate his latest boon to mankind. It's a good think James runs into Jinx again, because nothing is what it seems in the icy North and the British and American agents must join forces to stop world domination from an evil empire.

Brosnan's slowing down enough to make some of his action sequences seem a far stretch, but he's Bond in all other aspects. His wild man appearance on release from prison strongly recalls Connery's savage masculinity. A shave and a tux later, he's the suave, arch agent. Berry's just great as Jinx, a sexy, fully capable partner with a talent for put downs. Stephens, as a villain modeled on Bond himself, gives good sneer while Yune, with diamonds embedded in his face from Bond's Korean explosion, gives good icy stare. Dench returns providing gravity while Cleese is entertaining taking over the role of Q. Pike has interesting, fresh presence as Frost, but Michael Madsen, as Jinx's boss, seems out of place.
While director Lee Tamahori ("Along Came a Spider") gets good work from his cast, he shows weakness staging the action sequences. That fencing contest is a keeper, but a car chase inside an ice palace drags. The climatic finale is off kilter, with interior action not conveying the same dire predicament as exterior shots. Worse, the special effects are really subpar, with obvious blue screen work and one entire sequence, where Bond 'surfs' a melting ice cliff using jet car parts, so inept it looks more like an early computer model for the scene than anything
that should be appearing in a commercial feature.

The screenplay by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade ("The World Is Not Enough") features the usual double entendres ("I don't like cockfights," Madonna's fencing instructor, Verity, tells Bond and Graves), although a martini references falls deadly flat. They do show wit, though, with Bond's connection with Chinese Intelligence. Nods to Bonds past come via some amusing old gadgets in Q's workshop (including a lethal Beatle boot! - a nod to Austin Powers perhaps?), Jinx's homage to Ursala Andress's bikini and the return of the Astin Martin. Miss Moneypenny (Samantha Bond, "The World Is Not Enough"), though, is given a thoroughly modern method to show her lust for Bond.

"Die Another Day" is far from the best Bond, but it makes a good case that there's life in the old boy yet.

B-

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