Die Another Day (2002)

As another era of James Bond films came to an end, most were quick to dismiss the final contribution of Pierce Brosnan to the series. "Die Another Day" received lukewarm reviews when it came out, and years later it's still dismissed by many as the last straw to a tired franchise that had gotten stale and moldy enough to start making penicillin out of it - clearly only being salvageable by scraping everything and rebooting it, which four years later they would do. Even at the time I remember walking out of the theater thinking it was trash.

But here's the crazy thing, and it's something I honestly didn't expect: Upon seeing it again after a decade, I actually don't think "Die Another Day" is that bad. I won't lie to you and say it's a great movie, because trust me it has issues to spare, and when it's dumb it's really dumb. And maybe I was in a bad mood that day in 2002, or maybe I was expecting too much from it. Or perhaps it was because I hadn't yet seen the true lows of the series that I couldn't appreciate it when a Bond movie managed to be merely "alright." While absolving the film of its faults due to other films before it being worse isn't what I'm setting out to do here, I do have to take the big picture into account and offer a moderate defense of "Die Another Day." It's really not anywhere close to as horrible as its reputation suggests.

They're molding him into Ernest P. Worrell. The devious bastards.

The opening finds Bond in North Korea going under cover to disrupt a diamond-trading-for-weapons deal run by Colonel Moon (Will Yun Lee) and his partner Zao (Rick Yune). When, after being betrayed by an unknown source, Bond's cover is blown (along with Zao's face after an explosion imbeds diamonds in it) he attempts to escape but fails, and Moon is presumed dead after Bond drives him off a waterfall. Being disavowed by MI-6, Bond spends the next 14 months in prison being tortured before he is exchanged for Zao, who had been captured elsewhere in the meantime. M (Judi Dench) revokes his 00 status because she thinks he may have squealed under torture, but Bond is too pissed to let Zao run loose on account of him, and there's still a traitor to find. So, like in "License To Kill," he goes off the grid to settle some accounts. In my opinion it's one of the better setups the series has had.

That leads us to one of the weirder plots of the franchise, involving a satellite that can serve as a second sun, a hotel made from ice, weird neon headsets out of "Tron," a billionaire entrepreneur/professional thrill seeker named Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), and gene reassignment therapy, a truly absurd concept that takes the relatively simple process of plastic surgery and makes it a thousand times more complicated and physically impossible. It's kind of a wild ride while it lasts, and while it could be called many things ("silly" being a notable option) it's seldom dull.

Oh, and there's an invisible car, too. Most people will remember that.

As you can see, the gadgets in "Die Another Day" have made a prevalent and clamorous comeback. It's possible that Bond has more toys in this movie than he's had in quite some time, although I have yet to make an official count. Whether or not you like that is up to you. Some people don't care for that aspect of the franchise, but personally I enjoy the gadgets. I always have a good time watching him get good use out of them, which he most certainly does here.

Unlike "GoldenEye" or "The World Is Not Enough" which brought out this sweet car to basically do nothing but drive around, the car in "Die Another Day" gets put through the freaking gauntlet. This car must have gotten more use than any other car since maybe "The Spy Who Loved Me." And the car in that one doubled as a submarine. And yeah, here it's invisible. And yeah, that's dumb. The way they explain the tech is just slightly plausible enough to make you almost buy it, but I'd almost prefer it if Q had admitted that they had found a wizard in the London subway system and had hired him.

I mention this because I think that's one of the things that made "Die Another Day" work for me, at least a little bit. It's so packed to the brim with wild stuff going on and crazy gadgets and locations and action segments that it's a fun ride despite the stupidity. Even when there are scenes like Bond and Graves sword-fighting through a posh mansion like Inigo Montoya and the Six-Fingered Man, it's still a possessing of just enough of a flippant attitude about the whole thing while refraining from being overly goofy about it that I actually found myself having a good amount of fun. They could have made this really silly and did the Roger Moore thing of winking to the camera, but they didn't. And that, to me, made all the difference. It's stupid. It knows it's stupid, but it's not treating YOU like you're stupid. Does that make sense?

Aww! The hovercraft is smiling! He's so happy to be helping James out!

Before you get the wrong idea and think that I'm heaping wild praise upon "Die Another Day," allow me to clear the air a bit: This is still not a very good movie. There are things about it which are bad enough to nearly ruin the experience. It's just that the good things in it are good enough to still make it watchable. It's akin to an argument given by Christopher Hitchens but written down by a dyslexic 4th grader. The grammar, spelling and penmanship is horrid, but man is it full of rock-solid ideas.

I've mentioned the good, mainly being the abundance of action and gadgets, but it's also worth mentioning Brosnan again, since he's just too awesome as James Bond. I can't help it, I love the guy. Toby Stephens is also fun to watch as a Bond villain. He's kind of like what you would get if Hugh Grant and Eric Stoltz screwed. I dug it. I wasn't as big of a fan of Rick Yune, though. He was scary I suppose, but I don't know. I couldn't understand why he never took the diamonds out of his face.

 He'll tell you it's from an explosion a British spy set off in his face, but the real story was that his older brother got really mad at him while they were playing that board game Forbidden Bridge and slammed his head in the box that held all the jewels.

But here's the bad, and it's bad. We'll start with the slightly less awful, being that that the editing in this film is pretty janky. Being the first millennial Bond film, I guess we had to go really stylized with it. And by stylized I mean ""The Matrix" happened." Much like nearly every other action film after Neo said "Whoa," there are some truly bizarre random slow downs and frame-rate sputterings that pop up very often that would look more at home in a music video. In fact the entire movie kind of looks like a car commercial. That's the only way I can describe it. Although in its defense I'm sure it would have aired during the Superbowl. It doesn't go full blown Paul W.S. Anderson, but it's close.

And as much as I actually like Madonna as an artist and am a fan of her music, the opening theme is terrible. It bleeps and bloops at us like a laptop starting up, completely devoid of the style and swagger the best of what came before possessed. You gotta have sleaze and swing in a Bond opening. It's not something you're supposed to rave to, it's something you smoke a carton of cigarettes while playing cards to. But I don't even think this would cut it as a song to play in a club, let alone at the front of a Bond movie. It doesn't put me to sleep or anything, but it does set a tone of things being slightly off.

"Ah yes, Mr. Bond. After this drink, we shall fight to the death in a good-natured fashion. By the way, why is Madonna here? And why is she the only one who gets to wear black?"

However, the most egregious fault the film has can be summed up in four syllables: Halle Berry. Good. Grief. I ragged on Christmas Jones for being insufferable, which she was, but at the same time Denise Richards really can't be blamed for being a terrible actress in it because she's Denise Richards. What did you expect? But Halle Berry has been accused of being good at her craft. Apparently they even saw fit to give her an Oscar for it at one point. I have no idea what her excuse was here.

Here's the thing: Jinx isn't a bad character. In fact she's kind of awesome. She's a CIA Agent who is pretty lethal in her own right, and doesn't always need Bond to save her. She does occasionally, but there are moments where she handles herself just fine, and is pretty useful overall. She's not the kind of whimpering bimbo we're used to. And I liked that. But here's where it starts to go south. Fast.

SHOOP DA WHOOP!!!

You see, I see what they were attempting to do with Jinx. They were trying to make a female James Bond. And I suppose that's an...alright idea. They've done the "Bond meets his equal" schtick before, but that was simply involving skill levels. And Jinx is tough and savvy and is a decent spy, so there they've essentially succeeded. But when I say they were trying to make a female James Bond in this movie, I mean they were trying to clone him. And even if that was a good idea, which it isn't, she's less Pierce Brosnan and more Roger Moore. Oh dear.

The issue comes from the dialogue. That's where you can tell they weren't interested in Jinx as a character at all. They just wanted another mouth to put rejected Bond quips into after they'd been determined too dumb for him to say, so they switched the pronouns and gave them to her. Every line of hers...EVERY SINGLE LINE out of her mouth is some cringe inducing pun or innuendo, oftentimes flying in the face of whatever the situation is and coming across as irritatingly childish at best and horrifyingly distracting at worst. For the love of Sean Connery's toupee, even Bond picked the moments to bust out the one-liners. He wasn't always on. There is a time and a place for snark. If I wanted unfunny crap spewed out constantly no matter the situation, I'd watch something Joss Whedon wrote.

"Switch them off or I'll be half the girl I used to be!" Somebody got paid to write that. Halle Berry got paid to say it.

But for all that is good in this world, I don't think anyone could have given a worse performance than Halle Berry did. It's shocking how bad she is here. Don't get me wrong, the dialogue would have made the character always suck no matter what, but I can envision a scenario in my head that features an actress not making Tanya Roberts look like Meryl Streep in comparison. At least Denise Richards looked like she was trying. It's really stunning how much Halle Berry looks like she does not give one single crap, simply flying by on an eternal smirk saying "Hey look at me! I'm Halle Berry! I'm a Bond girl! Yay! I don't have to act today! This is fun! Penis joke!" All the meanwhile Brosnan is playing it relatively straight and Rosamund Pike is over there completely showing Berry up every step of the way. Where's the justice?

Literally every line of hers can be followed up with the phrase "SHUT UP, HALLE BERRY."

If there was one thing that utterly guts this film, it's her. Everything else is actually not that bad. Like I mentioned before, it's a lot of fun, it's pretty looking despite some weird CGI going on, Brosnan is still the mack daddy, and it calls back to A LOT of older Bond films. A decent drinking game could be made if the players all had good enough knowledge of the series. In fact it seems a bit like an over-caffeinated version of one of the older Connery flicks like "You Only Live Twice" or "Diamonds Are Forever." I kind of liked it.

So with that we bid farewell to Pierce Brosnan. With the exception of one film, I had quite the fun journey with him. With a 75%, he had one of the better records as far as veteran Bond actors go. But once again the series would sit silently in the wings for a brief hibernation once again, as Hollywood broke out their new favorite toy: The Reboot. After this we got a new start along with another new Bond. Nobody was exactly sure what we would get, but it's pretty clear that no matter what it was, it would have a substantial coating of grit.

This is actually a really good trailer, but man it's like reliving my hatred for Halle Berry all over again. Watch at your own risk.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Die Another Day" is not nearly as bad as its reputation suggests. No, it's not that great, but that's mostly due to weird stylized editing and a legendarily bad performance by Halle Berry. But if you can grit your teeth and suffer through her wretchedness, this isn't a bad little action flick. This is middle of the road Bond. Not one of Brosnan's best, but still far from the worst.

JAMES BOND

WILL RETURN IN

CASINO ROYALE

The World Is Not Enough (1999)

Remember that cliff I talked about earlier? You know, the one that the Brosnan Bond series took a nose dive off of after "Tomorrow Never Dies?" Yeah. Yeah, this is the cliff. It's a pretty steep one, too. And as much as I thought myself "Perhaps it's not as bad as I remembered" before rewatching it, as I'm pretty sure I hadn't seen it since it was in theaters, there was always that little voice in the back of my head recalling all the things about it that made me remember yes, it really was that bad. And as I watched it, all that terribleness came flooding back like water into the submarine sinking at the end of the film. This was the first truly, unmistakably bad Bond film since 1985's "A View To A Kill." And that hurts. I was enjoying the streak we had going.

"The World Is Not Enough" is about an oil baron being assassinated, and his daughter, Elektra (Sophie Marceau) taking over his business and completing his dream of building a massive pipeline. Bond is sent to protect her from the people trying to kill her, led by Renard (Robert Carlyle), a terrorist with a bullet in his brain that prevents him from feeling any pain. As Bond investigates, it's clear that Elektra, who had previously been kidnapped by Renard, isn't quite as innocent as she appears. With the help of a nuclear scientist, Christmas Jones (Denise Richards), Bond sets off to get to the bottom of what's going on, and prevent the terrorists from taking out Istanbul in a nuclear explosion.

Oh. Good. Skiing. That's a new one. Thanks, Bond series.

That's the official story, but to be honest I found this to be one of the most confusing, nonsensical entries the series has ever produced. Yeah, "Octopussy" was kind of confusing, but that's because there was a lot going on in it. In "The World Is Not Enough," it's more of a matter of things not being explained very clearly. It's hard to explain, but for example that whole plot with Elektra being kidnapped by Renard is not told to us until about 25 minutes into the film. That's after 25 minutes of things going on during which that information would have been relevant. Because of that not being mentioned, not only did I have no idea as to why the opening scene (as admittedly fun as it is) was going on, but when the whole kidnapping thing is revealed I thought that was a new development that occurred suddenly off screen. Suddenly she's kidnapped and I'm asking "When the hell did that happen? Just now? She was in the last scene!" It's very confusing, and the film has a tendency to do stuff like that fairly often. It's a rather poorly told story, and it's hard to care about anything happening since little of it makes any sense.

It's also boring. This film makes the mistake of having far too much talking going on, which isn't helped by the fact that, like I mentioned earlier, the dialogue is confusing at the same time. When the action does happen it's of the over-the-top zany kind more akin to a Roger Moore entry. Too much wackiness is brought in, be it the parachuting ski-mobiles or the helicopters with giant saws on them. Now it's true that outlandish, impractical things trying to kill Bond is nothing new to the series, but there comes a point when you've got to ask "On what planet would anyone be trying to kill him with saws on a helicopter?"

Keep in mind: This was Plan A.

Like the rest of the lesser Bond entries, "The World Is Not Enough" also suffers from weak villains. Sophie Marceau as Elektra is difficult to pin down, for a couple of reasons. The first is that we don't know she's a villain until the movie is more than halfway over. We have our suspicions, but it's nothing concrete. Secondly, it's hard to tell what exactly her motivations are since the film gives us a number of them to choose from. First they say she's suffering Stockholm Syndrome and under Renard's control. Then they tell us she's enraged at M and wants revenge on her and her father for suggesting to not pay Renard off when she had been kidnapped. Then she wants a monopoly on the oil, so that leads her to blow up Istanbul. Then she's just kind of insane. It's like we're pulling motivations out of a hat until we get one that we like.

And Renard is as bland of a bad guy as you could find. Yeah he's got a bullet in his head, and that's pretty hardcore, but it doesn't mean jack squat. His inability to feel pain never amounts to anything. There's a scene were he picks up a hot rock and is all "whatevs" about it. That's roughly the extent to which he displays his "superhuman" powers. Oh no. Truly I'm terrified of this man. He's going to take a pie out of the oven quicker than Bond because he won't need to put on oven mitts first! The suspense!

In all reality Renard would be an incredibly pathetic villain to go up against, especially in combat. The fact that he has no feeling anywhere in his body means that he would constantly have to be vigilant to not sustain any kind of injury. He would be running away from a fight faster than you could blink. Do you know why? Because of infection. If you don't know, pain is the body's way of telling you you're hurt. If you don't know you're hurt, you don't take care of the wound. It becomes infected. The body part rots and falls off. You die. It's called leprosy. That's who James Bond is up against in this film: A dude who got shot in the head and became a leper. Take that, Scaramanga.

I think we're confusing "Not feeling any pain" with "Being invincible." There is a difference.

Brosnan is still great as Bond, though. Nothing much changed in that regard, and he seems very comfortable in the role. I did like the fact that we get to see him angry and rather more cold-blooded on occasion than usual here, although he does do some really, really stupid things that make me want to smack him. Like that one time he had Renard at gunpoint and could have easily taken him out but was duped by a horrendously transparent lie that made no sense in any context? Yeah, oops on that one, James. Idiot.

Yeah, I've got this same rig in my house. They have to use it on me every time I watch another "Resident Evil" movie.

And finally, it has to be addressed. Denise Richards. Oh boy. The words escape me somewhat, but I'll try my best to convey my thoughts without descending into a frothing, spit-filled spasm: She is not very good. In fact she is quite terrible. Not only her character, who is as helpful as knees on a fish, but also her as an actress. She is awful. Arguably the worst Bond girl ever.

Huh. That was easier than I expected it to be. I'm not even going to get into the fact that all this accused brilliant scientist does when she's in danger is to stand around gape-mouthed until James grabs her and pulls her to safety over and over again like she's a cardboard cutout. It's not worth it because all you have to do is look at her name and it's clearly obvious that this whole thing was a mistake. Denise Richards as Doctor Chri...no, you know what? You don't even have to say the whole name. "Doctor Denise Richards" is far enough.

Here's the thing. I'm not saying that Denise Richards can't portray someone who is smart. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying pretty women can't be smart. That would be laughably ridiculous. But if you're going to cast someone who is supposed to have a doctorate in nuclear physics, the very least you could do is to get an actress who can at least give the appearance of not being two seconds away from having a stroke at the effort of pronouncing a word like "plutonium."

Lots of nuclear physicists wear hot pants, do they? Is that standard lab equipment?

There are a total of three good things I can say about "The World Is Not Enough." First, I like the opening 15 minutes. That was really good. Second, I like Pierce Brosnan. Third, Sophie Marceau is really hot. And that's all I've got. Now bring on Halle Berry. I'm...not looking forward to this.

"Larry. I'm so scared, man. Would you please hold me?"

Well, at least the trailer makes it look interesting.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "The World Is Not Enough" would be forgettable if it weren't so bad. It's still forgettable, but the crap factor makes it memorable simply for things like Denise Richards saying her lines with the practiced skill of a stand-in for a middle school play. It tends to overshadow any of the small amount of good contained within, which was merely standard random 90's action movie stock to begin with. I'd seriously watch *certain* Roger Moore films over this one. This sucked.

JAMES BOND

WILL RETURN IN

DIE ANOTHER DAY