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21 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Ultimate edition, my..., 5 Aug 2006
Following 19 excellent 2-disc sets, Sony lets us down badly with this one. Whereas the makers of the other Ultimate Editions have taken great care not to omit any of the previously released special features, a staggering two hours' worth of material from the previous 2-disc special edition of Die Another Day has vanished like Bond's invisible car.
Both audio commentaries (featuring director Lee Tamahori and producer Michael G Wilson, and actors Pierce Brosnan and Rosamund Pike respectively) and the "MI6 Datastream" (which cues in 19 behind-the-scenes featurettes at appropriate junctures, and displays on-screen information text throughout the film) are present and correct. So too are the documentaries Shaken and Stirred on Ice (25 minutes) and the fascinatingly in-depth From Script to Screen (50 minutes).
But where are the 75-minute documentary Inside Die Another Day; the storyboard to final shot comparisons and multi-angle views of scenes such as the hovercraft chase, car battle and innovative main title sequence; the trailers; the TV spots; Madonna's music video; the making of the music video; and the making of the 007: Nightfire PS2 game? I can't quite believe all this stuff has been missed out, but I've pinched myself, double-checked the review discs and the product information - no, there isn't a third disc that I haven't been sent.
This so-called Ultimate Edition throws us a few scraps to try and keep us happy: the "making of" featurettes Just Another Day (23 minutes), The British Touch: Bond Arrives in London (3 minutes) and On Location with Peter Lamont (14 minutes).
And there's always the movie itself. Die Another Day remains a curious blend of innovation, comforting familiarity and irritation. Nowhere is this more evident than during the opening credits, which, in a novel break from tradition, inter-cut the usual surreal and erotic imagery with the ongoing events of the story. However, this visual feast is let down by a very un-Bond-like title song by Madonna (who also plays a cameo role as the fencing instructor, Verity).
Director Tamahori (Once Were Warriors, Along Came a Spider, xXx 2: The Next Level) provides us with some very exciting fight scenes, including a visceral fencing match between Bond and the main villain Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens). And, of course, there are the usual outrageous stunt sequences, involving hovercraft on minefields and cars on ice, courtesy of action unit director Vic Armstrong. However, the notion of an invisible car seems far-fetched even by Bond standards.
In fact, this is the most fantastical Bond film in years. With its themes of gene manipulation, cloaking devices and heat rays, we haven't seen this many sci-fi elements since Moonraker. Coincidentally, scriptwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have plundered Ian Fleming's Moonraker novel for story elements such as the transformed villain and his apparently benign orbital weapon. At one point, Rosamund Pike's character Miranda Frost was going to be Moonraker's Gala Brand, as the documentary From Script to Screen reveals.
Novel aficionados will also appreciate the fact that James Bond borrows a book on ornithology, just as Fleming "borrowed" the character's name from the author of a bird-watching book. Another novel name-check comes in the form of the Korean Colonel Moon (Will Yun Lee), a character inspired by the villain of Kingsley Amis' Bond book Colonel Sun.
The writers and Brosnan continue to explore Bond's humanity and vulnerabilities. It is quite unnerving to behold his condition after he has been imprisoned and tortured for 14 whole months. Who would have thought we'd ever see 007 as a shuffling wreck of a man with an unkempt beard? This image puts the injuries sustained in Licence to Kill and The World Is Not Enough in the shade. As it happens, there are a few plot similarities to Timothy Dalton's controversial second and final Bond movie, with the agent embarking upon a private vendetta.
But don't go thinking that the trademark comical quips have been omitted, because they are present in force. These range from lines that really work ("So this is where they keep the old relics then, eh?") to those that are rather awful ("That's a mouthful").
Following a rather stilted introductory scene, in which she has to deliver the above dreadful line, Halle Berry makes a big impression as the tough and resourceful Bond girl, Jinx. The elegant Rosamund Pike does an equally splendid job as 007's other love interest, the appropriately frosty Miranda.
The main baddie is a sort of pastiche of Bond himself. With his toothy upper-class sneer, Toby Stephens plays Graves like a cross between Hugh Grant and the dapper Ace Rimmer from Red Dwarf. Writers Purvis and Wade throw in a fair few surprises in terms of certain characters' identities and motivations.
This being the 20th official Bond film, which marked the franchise's 40th anniversary in 2002, the production team also include copious references to the past, including a range of vintage gadgets in the workshop of the new Q (the amusing John Cleese). Jinx rises from the waves wearing (if that's the right word) a costume that echoes Ursula Andress's famous bikini and belt combination in Dr. No. Later on, Bond plucks a grape from a bowl in a hospital ward, a la Thunderball, and reads a magazine article bearing the pull quote, "Diamonds are forever". However, the plot strays from homage to out-and-out repetition when Graves's Icarus satellite plays a similar role to Blofeld's orbital laser in Diamonds Are Forever.
Despite its flaws, Die Another Day is an enjoyable film. The franchise seems to suffering from an identity crisis at the moment, with the departure of Brosnan and mixed messages coming out of the studio as to exactly how action- and gadget-based the new movie will be, or how faithful to Ian Fleming's Casino Royale. Meanwhile, the books have headed back in time with Charlie Higson's Young Bond series. However, I have little doubt that 007 will live to fight another day.
And hopefully some day Sony will release a genuine Ultimate - No, We Really Mean it This Time, Honest Guv - Edition of this movie.
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21 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Anything but the ultimate, 13 Feb 2007
Even in a world full of hyperbole, calling this frankly rather shoddy downgrade an `Ultimate Edition' is taking liberties with the language that border on the actionable. Whereas the first 2-disc release of the 20th EON Bond film boasted a huge array of extras, this supposedly new and improved version drops nearly all of them and merely throws in a few scraps of filler instead. Gone is the 76-minute documentary `Inside Die Another Day,' replaced by a couple of shorter featurettes and some video footage of the location scout. And while the excellent 51-minute `Script to Screen' documentary on the difficult screenwriting process previously only available on the R2 DVD is retained along with the `Shaken and stirred On Ice' featurette, gone are the storyboard-to-film comparisons, multi-angle action sequences, title design and digital grading featurettes, gadget briefings, music video and featurette and even the 8 TV spots a 3 theatrical trailers from the original issue to be replaced by an exotic locations featurette. With so many of the extras being dumped, it's a wonder that the film itself (in apparently exactly the same transfer as previously available) still contains the same audio commentaries and interactive featurettes it had first time round. Frankly, there's no reason whatever to buy this if you already have the original 2-disc release.
As for the film itself, Die Another Day seemed surprisingly impressive first time round but doesn't hold up well to a second viewing for a number of reasons - and not only because Daniel Craig and Casino Royale have taken the series to new heights since. Initially at least DAD seemed to be trying to make one of the series' periodic efforts to take itself more seriously. 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.
Pierce 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 it's 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 laboured 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.
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22 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
One of the weakest Bond Films , 4 Dec 2006
Although Goldeneye is now regarded as one of the best James Bond films, the quality of the Pierce Brosnan films has declined with each subsequent outing following his 1995 debut. In particular The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day are alongside Moonraker the worst entries in the series. Like Moonraker, Die Another Day is simply a step to far into the realms of fanatsy. The invisble car which Bond drives in this film has been widely criticised. I also found it unbelievable that the central villian received a knighthood despite being totally unknown just a few montsh earlier. The one liners in this film become a real distraction and are corny and not at all funny. The effects are also a letdown, a first for a Bond film. Just as Moonraker returned to Earth with the excellent For Your Eyes Only, Die ANothe Day was succeeded by the far more serious and gritty Casino Royale. Thankfully the producers realised their errors.
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