Ah yes, Die Another Day. The Bond series at it's most ridiculous since bloody Moonraker. I remember enjoying this film when it first was released, but looking back on it now it has not aged well at all. In fact, especially in it's second half it was downright excruciating and cheap looking, which is not a good thing.
James Bond (played by Pierce Brosnan) is on a mission in North Korea to investigate illegal diamond smuggling. When the mission goes south and a North Korean General's son is dead, Bond is captured and repeatedly tortured for information. He is eventually traded for a North Korean prisoner, Zao (played by Rick Yune), when MI-6 receives information that Bond has cracked under torture and was hemorrhaging information. Bond assures M (played by Judi Dench) that this is not true, but she suspends him pending investigation. Convinced he's been set up by a double agent in the British government and breaks out of MI-6 custody to track them down. He follows a lead on Zao to Cuba where he runs into NSA agent Giacinta "Jinx" Johnson (played by Halle Berry), who he follows to a gene therapy clinic where patients can have their appearance changed through DNA restructuring. There he finds Zao, who he attempts to kill but Zao manages to escape. However he leaves behind a pendant that leads Bond to a cache of diamonds. The diamonds are identified as conflict diamonds, but bear the crest of British billionaire Gustav Graves (played by Toby Stephens). Bond returns to London and manages to stage a run in with Graves at a local fencing club. After a truly over the top swordfight between the two, Graves invites Bond to Iceland for a demonstration of his new Icarus orbital mirror satellite. Bond accepts and upon arrival, he again runs into Jinx as well as Graves' assistant Miranda Frost (played by Rosamund Pike), who is actually a fellow MI-6 agent undercover. Also lurking about is Zao, so Bond and Jinx partner up to find out what the connection between Zao and Graves is and what they are up to.
There is something really unfortunate about Die Another Day. It starts off really strong with Bond being captured while on a mission in North Korea and being disavowed. It was something the Bond series hadn't really explored before. But then, it makes this slow decline in quality as the film goes on until Q unveils the invisible car and everything just goes to hell. We are also saddled with perhaps the most annoying villain of the Bond series with Gustav Graves, who acts like a spoiled brat much of the time ("Movie? Movie! This cannot be our villain! I refuse to accept this whiny twerp as our villain! I want to speak to your supervisor! This will not stand!"). Half the time I just wanted Bond to slap him. He was just annoying the entire time. Halle Berry does alright as Jinx, who was set up as Bond's equal but has this annoying tendency to need to be repeatedly rescued by Bond. I still wish they had stuck to the original plan and brought back Michelle Yeoh's Wai Lin from Tomorrow Never Dies back for this one instead (which was the original plan, but Michelle Yeoh had a scheduling conflict and the producers were dead set on having this out for Bond's 40th anniversary). There is also a cameo by Madonna, who also sang the title song, as a fencing instructor that introduces Bond to Graves that sticks out like a sore thumb.
Then there is also the overall design of the film. It goes from one noisy, overblown action sequence to the next with a very ridiculous plot involving a space laser harnessing the power of the sun or some nonsense, mixed with DNA therapy to change your appearance and all sorts of other outlandish ideas, including photo realistic virtual reality training programs and that damn invisible car (It makes no sense! Even if the car was projecting images as camoflauge, you'd still be able to see it with the naked eye!). This is all pulled off with some of the worst CGI and green screen effects I have ever seen in a big action movie. I can't help but wonder what exactly went wrong here. Director Lee Tamahori tries to bring Bond into the 21st century, at times employing uses of slow motion that are completely out of place and distracting, but for the most part directs the action sequences reasonably well.
Now there were some moments I liked in the film. I liked M and Bond's meeting in the abandoned railway station in London that had been made into a hidden office for disavowed agents. John Cleese steps in for the dearly departed Desmond Llewelyn and manages to fill the role of Q nicely. I appreciated the callbacks to the previous Bond films as we see Q's office decorated with various gadgets from the past 40 years, including Rosa Klebb's dagger shoe, the jet pack from Thunderball, the alligator sub from Octopussy and many others. It's a fun nod to the past for the fans of the series. I also liked the use of The Clash's "London Calling" for Bonds return to the UK, a rare use of pre-released music in the series. There is also a moment between Moneypenny and Bond towards the end of the film that while being a piece of shameless fan service is still so perfectly executed it damn near redeems the rest of the movie for me.
Die Another Day remains, despite it's few bright spots, one of the worst Bond movies ever made. It was the moment when the series once again became so overblown, over the top and removed from reality that it went full Moonraker all over again. It's not completely unwatchable, but it is very hard to take it seriously at all. It had potential, but the execution was botched from almost the beginning.
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