Die Another Day Review [2]
Posted by Chris McCarver on 11.26.2002
Bond. James Bond. The second review.
Die Another Day
Release Date: November 22nd, 2002
The 20th installment of the James Bond movie franchise stars Pierce Brosnan in his fourth outing as the British superspy, this time sending him on a quest for revenge against an agency mole that blows his cover on a mission to North Korea and nearly costs him his life as a result.
As the film opens, Secret Agent 007 is in North Korea to put the kibosh on a Korean military officer (Will Yun Lee of TV's "Witchblade") moonlighting as an arms dealer. A tip-off from an unknown betrayer lands him in a Korean gulag for over a year, released only when a Korean prisoner, ironically the arms dealer's right-hand man, Zao (Rick Yune), is traded to the North Koreans for Bond. Bond is then informed by his employer, M (Judi Dench), that his usefulness is at an end due to his possible breaking under over a year of constant torture and interrogation. Bond escapes from his forced medical leave and goes on the hunt to find who set him up.
His search takes him first to Cuba, where, while checking out an illegal DNA-alteration clinic as a possible lead, runs across an American assassin named Jinx (Oscar-winner Halle Berry), who was sent there to put the clinic out of business. Bond soon finds Zao there in the process of having his DNA altered so as to give him an entirely new appearance and DNA signature. Zao escapes, but analysis of the diamonds leads to an international jet-setter and diamond-mine owner named Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens). With the aid of an MI-6 operative undercover as Graves' publicist (Rosamund Pike) and the unexpected presence of Jinx, Bond must find out what Graves had to do with his betrayal and what his larger scheme is.
Probably the hardest type of film to pick apart is any of the James Bond series, because let's face it: we're not talking about an attempt at high cinematic art here. By definition, 007 films are extremely over-the-top, filled with action and egregious innuendo and promiscuity on the part of the lead character. And this movie is no exception.
Moviegoers are no strangers to the Bond formula. They start out with Bond on some mission for (all together, now) Her Majesty's Secret Service that turns out to be the precursor for the main plot. We're then treated to the patented opening sequence featuring a lot of visually altered naked women writhing around to the theme song and the opening credits. From there, Bond has a meeting with M where the main mission of the movie's laid out (or Bond defies orders and goes it alone if he's been ordered off it). We're then treated to two or three exotic locales, a meeting with Q (John Cleese) for gearing up with new spy gadgets, at least two attractive bedroom partners (one of which usually winds up a traitor, dead, or both) before we meet the villain and his henchman, who usually has some kind of gimmick (Oddjob's razor hat, Jaws' metal teeth, Xenia Onatopp's thighs of doom, etc.). It all then boils down to a showdown in the villain's headquarters first with the henchman, who's usually more of a threat that the main villain, then Mr. Lead Bad Guy himself. One last roll in the hay with the female co-star, then off we go to the closing credits.
Admittedly, "Die Another Day" made a decent attempt at keeping with the Bond formula while still showing us sides of Bond we've never seen before. For starters, we usually see Bond blow-dried, well-bodied, and well-dressed even when he's at the bad guys' mercy. Seeing Bond after fourteen months of captivity... malnourished, filthy, utterly broken in appearance if not in spirit... is something most 007 aficionados will not expect. And for that matter, how many 007 movie opening sequences are laid over Bond getting the hell tortured out of him?
"Die Another Day" does sprinkle in a few other new twists to shake the formula up a bit, as well as a number of in-jokes that will garner more than a few chuckles from fans of the series. The action sequences are top-notch as always, although they do stretch the credibility envelope quite a bit. One in particular looks extremely fake, and let me say this: James Bond should never, EVER surf. EVER.
The 411: "Die Another Day" is an effective and well-made addition to the James Bond franchise. Unfortunately, the over-the-top quality got ramped up way over the line this time out and some of the action sequences suffer from a major case of fakeness. The acting is what you'd expect from a Bond film, with all the characters fitting into their ascribed archetypes and pulling off the classic 007 wisecracks throughout. "Die Another Day" won't be considered a great film by most, but die-hard Bond fans will take to this movie, even if the general movie going populace doesn't. And I'm sorry to say that I don't think the majority of them will.
