Bond Remastered - Die Another Day (1-disc) [DVD] [2002]

Ugh. It is hard to know where to start with this film. For the 20th big screen outing for James Bond Pierce Brosnan dons his tuxedo for the fourth and last time. The producers felt that a celebration of the previous films was required, however, this horrible mishmash seems to celebrate the worst, not the best of the series.

The script writers seem to have taken all their inspiration from Diamonds are Forever and Moonraker, undoubtedly the two worst Bond films made (until this one). Brosnan has to contend with an incomprehensible plot involving diamonds in space, Korean politics, ice palaces and invisible cars, a daft pantomime villain and some really REALLY terrible dialogue. Oh, and Madonna gets involved with both the acting and theme song, just to make things even worse. Brosnan, who was very good indeed in his first two appearances in the role, just gives up and coasts through on autopilot.

It's a pity. The film starts out really well with a great pre title sequence and hovercraft chase, followed by his capture and torture in a Korean camp. Then Madonna's `music' starts up and the whole film goes down the tubes. If it could have kept the gritty tone of the intro it would have been superb. But things go wrong almost immediately. Bond making his heart stop and feigning death is the first big mistake, it is just too silly and unbelievable. Halle Berry jinxes the whole thing with a wooden performance worthy of Thunderbirds. And as for Toby Stephens as the supervillain - oh dear oh dear oh dear. And don't get me started on the laughable invisible car or truly terrible ice palace.

As well as bad acting and script writing there is some truly awful directing. Most of the stunts now seem to be badly done CGI effects which really grate and detract from your viewing pleasure. The director uses several camera trick, slow mo shots etc to try and liven things up but they are just annoying. I could go on and on.

It's a pity, I can see what the producers were trying to do but they really over egged the attempt at nostalgia and hired the wrong script team, director and actors. No wonder they `rebooted' the series after this.

Die Another Day was surprisingly impressive first time round but doesn't hold up well to a second viewing for a number of reasons. The pre-title sequence is particularly strong, and the film is plot-led with a good premise that it explores far more effectively than License to Kill - Bond screws up, gets captured and finds his license to kill revoked and has to go it alone. But to many wrong choices are made in the casting of those both in front of and behind the cameras to do it full justice.

Brosnan is certainly a major problem here, getting lazier in the role far sooner than his predecessors. He takes too much for granted and doesn't seem to be putting much effort into it in the assumption that he's got it down pat, when in reality he's starting to go to seed - certainly he must be the only man to come out of 14 months of torture in a Korean prison chubbier than when he went in, something his tendency to spend much of the opening of the film with his shirt off and hidden under a bushy Monty Python castaway beard only exacerbates.

He's not helped much by his co-stars either: Halle Berry, who seems to become a worse actress with each successive film, really can't handle sass or wisecracks, which is a shame since that's almost all her part consists of, and their initial meeting exchange of innuendoes seems more like eavesdropping a married man picking up a hooker to prove he's still got it than anything else. Rosamund Pike's other fatale femme fares a little better purely on he grounds that, while an extremely one-dimensional performer, to least her limited abilities fit the part. Toby Stephens' villain is a bigger problem. While it's a neat touch that he models himself on an unflattering portrait of Bond's vanity, Stephens actually seems to be basing his performance on Rik Mayall's caricatured MP Alan B'stard from sitcom The New Statesman, and the results aren't pretty - a largely ineffectual screen actor, it's no accident that he needs to don an electronic suit of armour to become a credible foe for Bond in the final punch-up. Curiously, two of the better performances on display come from bit-players John Cleese (pleasingly restrained) and Michael Madsen as a distinctly unimpressed company man. Even Madonna's unnecessary cameo as a lesbian fencing instructor is considerably less painful than her terrible title-song, easily the series' worst. Still, the resulting overly enthusiastic swordfight is okay but would probably have been even better had they hired William Hobbs to choreograph it instead of Bob Anderson (Anderson may have coached Errol Flynn, but only in some of his worst films).

The direction adds to the problems. Lee Tamahouri is a maddeningly variable director, and too often its his weaknesses on display here. For a series that prides itself on globe-trotting, he has a very poor sense of place (aside from the Iceland scenes, this is the first Bond film that really looks like they were afraid to leave the studio backlot) and his handling of action isn't always effective - indeed, the car chase actually looks like several shots are missing. Still, at least they manage to just about get away with the science behind the invisible car more effectively than the awful CGI that undermines the series' reputation for doing daring stunts for real: along with the occasionally slo-mo or sped up scene intros, it just seems horribly out of place without ever quite ruining the film.

Another big problem is the tone. As the 20th entry in EON's series, the desire to celebrate its heritage threatens at times to overwhelm the film as it becomes increasingly self-referential. With almost every scene having an homage, a prop or an audio or visual reference to a previous movie, it stops being fun and becomes labored long before the halfway point. Bond is feeding off himself so much here that at times it reminds you of one of those animals that, when caught in a trap, gnaws its own leg off. It just about gets away with it, but it gets messy. There's fun to be had, most of it in the first half before it goes all Diamonds Are Forever, but there's still the feeling that this could and should have been much better.

It's well-worth tracking down the original 2-disc DVD release for the wealth of extra features that weren't carried over to the very underwhelming recent 'Ultimate Edition,' but if you just want the film to fill in a gap in your collection, this single-disc version is a good enough

Personely, i think its ok! Ok, its way too unbeliveable and is the definate worst Pierce brosnan film, yet it is one of the more fun and enjoyable! But ive gotta admit, the last 30:00 are utter CRAP! The rest of the film is ok though! I give die another day a 5/10!