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OR EMAILMovie Notes: Die Another Day
Die Another Day: Not just the glass that’s broken.
= 2 stars
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Rosamund Pike
Directed by Lee Tamahori
Amazon Link
Pierce Brosnan (James Bond)
Halle Berry (Jinx)
Rosamund pike (Miranda Frost)
The fourth (and final) James Bond film to star Pierce Brosnan, sadly, is probably his worst. Die Another Day reminded me of another truly cringe-worthy sequel: Batman And Robin - where Batman went campy and the cartoony characters conversed in cliches based on their names (”have an ‘ice’ day”). Die Another Day is another obscene location for the Cheesecake Factory, serving cheese with cheese on top and cheese on the side, all due to laughably ridiculous situations, comical characters, and so-impressive-they’re-dumb computer special effects, resulting in contender for worst Bond film ever. It’s Moonraker bad.
I don’t even feel like a standard plot summary is necessary. In this film, big guns are supposed to indicate large, awesome firepower, but when a hand-held weapon resembles a large side of beef, it’s just dumb.
Here’s a short list of some dumb and dumberer things in Die Another Day:
Bond surfing. Bond para-sailing to escape a tidal wave produced by a falling glacier. Hover-crafts skating over land mines in the Korean demilitarized zone. A Cuban lab where people’s appearances are altered using genetic therapy. A cameo by Madonna as a fencing student, likely as part of her contract to record the worst Bond song ever. Bond drives an invisible car. An ice palace in Iceland. Sexual innuendo as blunt as a butter knife… and the list goes on.
Things start out okay with Bond captured in North Korea, and I could follow him to Cuba, but things began falling apart when a shaved baddie (looking like Gollum) with medical straps connected to his chest fleet-foots it to a helicopter while Jinx (Halle Berry) pulls a much-too-large gun out of her purse… repeat after me: dumb. It then hits a high point of stupidity when Madonna shows up in the fencing bodice. After that, I found Die Another Day progressively more mesmerizing and hilarious - but for all the wrong reasons.
I can really only recommend this film if you’re channel-flipping through late night cable and have nothing better to watch, or you want a new form of drinking game, or better yet: as an example in a dumb movie marathon, featuring other gems like Battlefield Earth, the aforementioned Batman and Robin, Tango And Cash, or… Moonraker.
IMDB: Die Another Day
Wikipedia: Die Another Day
Rotten Tomatoes: Die Another Day 59%
Categories: 2 Star Movies, James Bond, Movies :: Tags: ::
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Sadly I think I’ve seen too many bad movies with you. I think we saw this one together as well as Battlefield Earth and *possibly* Tango & Cash (was that the film with the “HARV” assault vehicle?)
Fortunately I do enjoy bad films
Unfortunately, your review reminded about that horrific ice palace finale…
Oh well. At least I missed Batman and Robin…
Hey. Yeah… Battlefield earth was so bad it was funny. I should watch that one again. This one was close to being that bad, but fell a bit short of the mark.
You might get some good laughs out of Batman and Robin. One really bad part of that film is there are too many characters (Robin, Batgirl, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy), plus George Clooney as Batman. The only thing good I can say about it, is it makes one appreciate Batman Begins that much more…!
[...] Movie Notes: Die Another Day Starring Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Rosamund Pike Directed by Lee Tamahori. The fourth (and final) James Bond film to star Pierce Brosnan, sadly, is probably his worst. Die Another Day reminded me of another truly cringe-worthy … [...]
AKA ‘The One With Madonna’. We Kiwis are understandably a little embarrassed by director and occasional ersatz good-time ‘gal’ Lee Tamahori for a couple of reasons, not least of which was turning in what many allege to be one of the all-time worst Bond movies (but then Martin Campbell did ‘Goldeneye’ and the 2006 ‘Casino Royale’, so hopefully that kind of cancels out the deficit). It was a shock to find that ‘DAD’ was actually one of the good ones.
Okay, there are things wrong with it; it’s at least 20 minutes too long, the invisible car is indefensible, as is much of the obvious CG work (but then haven’t we seen everyone from Sean Connery onward teetering in front of filmed snow?), and the use of the Clash song was a bit jarring. Everything electronic makes a noise when working, the villain’s electrical ‘Robocop’ suit was a completely unnecessary plot additive, and despite the common knowledge that sound doesn’t travel in space, things still explode noisily up there just like they did back in Moonraker. Yep, Madonna’s in it, but only for a minute or so and she’s actually fine, very Pussy Galore. If you don’t like her though, that’s another deficit. And Halle Berry isn’t very good.
Having said that, pretty much everything else adds up to not only the best Brosnan Bond movie, but one of the franchise’s best, full stop. The plot had some nice post-modern twists; who’d have thought we’d ever see a James Bond who resembled heavy-alcohol-period Jim Morrison (irony; George Lazenby was taken off the OHMSS US publicity tour for looking just like that). John Cleese was far better than in TWINE, there was a good Bond Girl/Bad Girl (Rosamund Pike as Miranda Frost), and an excellent grotesque villain in Zao. The script was slyly witty throughout, but the scene when the other, non-grotesque villain Gustav Graves explains that he based his obnoxious new personality on James Bond was priceless.
Not unlike initially cocky and confident Wile E. Coyote firing up the ACME jet-pack, Brosnan’s tenure began reasonably well with the frenetic ‘Goldeneye’. Then a slew of bad writing, substandard direction and poor casting rapidly sent ‘Brosnan Bond’ hurtling furiously out of control. With this controversial final installment, he was written a role which allowed him ample room to do some real acting, which he did. A pleasant surprise and a keeper for sure.
Oh man…. slammerworm I was generally with you until this one… I really had a hard time with this flick. Especially the shaved korean clone guy… The invisible car made me scratch my head in confusion as well. This flick obviously inspired the total reboot that was Casino Royale, and I think for good reason.
Yep, this is definitely one of those ‘love it or hate it’ things. It was pretty fantastic, the most po-mo Bond and indeed a good place to reboot from. On the other hand, throwing a few curveballs at the conventions was a long overdue move and Brosnan was great with it. These things are so subjective, and this one has such a notoriously terrible reputation that I expected another View To A Kill. Instead it was more like a throwback to one of the more OTT 1960s ones on a huge budget. Plus I’m a sucker for a gross-looking villain.