Die Another Day (2002)

2 out of 4

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Rosamund Pike, Toby Stephens, Rick Yune, Judi Dench, John Cleese, Samantha Bond, Kenneth Tsang, Will Yun Lee

Director: Lee Tamahori

Time: 132 mins

The venerable James Bond series gears up for another outing, its twentieth. Following a three year hiatus, Pierce Brosnan is back as the suave British secret agent, once again courting danger, beautiful women, and driving sleek Aston Martins equipped with all sorts of gadgets and weapons. It's good to know the formula hasn't changed, with Die Another Day having its share of outrageous one-liners and action sequences. But the film lacks spark and sizzle, and the use of some horrid computer graphics makes one yearn for the grit of Sean Connery or the humour of Roger Moore.

The movie starts with the obligatory pre-credits action sequence. Bond (Brosnan) infiltrates a North Korean diamond smuggling and terrorist operation, headed by Colonel Moon (Will Yun Lee) and his henchman, Zao (Rick Yune). When he realises he is the pawn in an international prisoner swap, Bond escapes and seeks revenge against Zao. He chases him to Cuba, where he encounters the sultry Jinx (Halle Berry), who has an agenda of her own, and then back to London, where he meets the flamboyant and rich Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens) and his assistant, the mysterious Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike). From there, the action moves to Iceland, where Graves has been secretly building a diamond studded satellite that can harness the sun's power and melt anything in the world. It's up to Bond to stop him, of course, with the help of a souped-up Aston Martin provided by Q (John Cleese).

Die Another Day contains the usual explosive action scenes, bad puns, and beautiful women. The action scenes, however, leave much to be desired, with too much reliance on computer graphics (CGI), and poor graphics at that. There is one particularly bad moment when Bond has to surf on a gigantic wave that will leave you shaking your head at how fake it is. Is this a video game, or a Bond film? The action in Bond is often over the top, but with a good dollop of fun thrown in (the most recent example is the spectacular boat chase at the start of The World Is Not Enough). There is little in Die Another Day that evokes those two qualities.

On the puns side of the formula, there are quite a few groaners. And in Berry's Jinx and Pike's Frost, Die Another Day has two of the most beautiful women to grace the series. Berry does nothing to show she is an Academy Award winner, though, and is even less convincing as a supposed secret agent. (This leads one to question how they could even consider spinning her off into her own series?) On the other hand, Rosamund Pike is a revelation - she doesn't have a lot to do, but she intrigues with her innocence and classic English good looks. I found myself actually wanting her to be the main Bond girl, rather than the minor one.

The film also destroys the aura of invincibility surrounding Bond, with a credits sequence that shows him suffering torture over a period of fourteen months. While this brings a fresh angle to the series, it doesn't quite gel with the resourcefulness Bond has shown in the previous nineteen outings whenever he has been captured. Timothy Dalton's last Bond adventure, License To Kill, had the spy doing something different, too, but it made sense and actually fit in with the character.

Brosnan seems a trifle bored in his fourth outing. He conveys his double entendres with the usual relish, but also with a weariness that seems to say, "Why am I doing this?" Let's hope he rejuvenates himself for the next instalment, if he's still interested. Dame Judi Dench returns as Bond's superior, M, and she seems even more grouchy than before, while John Cleese has taken over the Q role with aplomb. There is a nice moment inside his weapons warehouse where gadgets from the previous films can be seen. There is also a funny scene concerning Miss Moneypenny (Samantha Bond), though it has no place in the film. As the villains, Toby Stephens (son of Maggie Smith) hams it up, and Rick Yune is cold but not formidable enough. I still hanker for the days when a villain's henchman was close to indestructible, like Jaws (The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker) or Oddjob (Goldfinger).

It must be said that Brosnan's Bond flicks haven't had much to distinguish them. They've tried to combine the suaveness of the Connery era, the cartoony aspects of Moore's reign, and the hard edges of Timothy Dalton's duo, without doing anything particularly groundbreaking. Director Tamahori has publicly acknowledged that this twentieth Bond film has nods to the previous nineteen, and it can be seen from the gadgets, and certain scenes, which look like rehashes, for want of a better term. That's what Die Another Day feels like, in the end: a tired rehash. I thought the trailer was exciting, but the film itself is a disappointment.

(c) Joe Wong (30 November 2002)