Die Another Day
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Not the best way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of a much-beloved spy franchise...
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Die Another Day is a 2002 British-American spy film and the twentieth James Bond movie, released in 2002. It is also the fourth and final movie in the series to star Pierce Brosnan in the title role. While the film received mixed reviews from critics, the movie is widely considered to be one of the worst James Bond movies ever made, alongside A View to a Kill and The Man with the Golden Gun.
Plot
After a mission gone wrong, James Bond (Brosnan) is imprisoned and tortured by the North Korean military. 14 months later, he is traded for KPA officer-turned-terrorist Zao (Rick Yune) as part of a prisoner exchange. When he gets discharged by MI6, he becomes a rogue agent to continue his hunt for Zao.
While hunting down Zao, he is joined by NSA agent Jinx (Halle Berry). Eventually, the two come across billionaire and diamond mogul Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), who may or may not have connections to the North Koreans.
Bad Qualities
- Overuse of surfing scenes throughout the film, which serves as nothing but unnecessary filler.
- And speaking of surfing, North Korea doesn't have surfable shores.
- Unbelievably terrible and very noticeable computer-generated effects during the para-surfing scene. They even managed to mess up the iconic gun barrel sequence at the beginning by adding in a CGI bullet, which completely ruins the illusion. The slow motion effects especially, look cheap and unneeded too.
- However, in the opening gun barrel sequence, the point of the CGI bullet was to show that Bond can shoot so accurately, that he can aim for down the enemy's gun.
- The film tries way too hard to throw in homages and references to earlier James Bond movies while hoping the audience won't notice the entire plot is also copied from earlier Bond movies.
- The main storyline is essentially copied from Diamonds Are Forever (which was already considered to be Sean Connery's weakest Bond film but still a decent Bond film), with elements of Licence to Kill (Bond's brief stint as a rogue agent operating outside of MI6) tacked on.
- Weirdly-placed product placements, such as British Airways, Philips, Smirnoff vodka, the London Underground and Aston Martin (though, to be fair, Aston Martin has become synonymous with Bond films since Goldfinger). This led to some calling it "Buy Another Day".
- It comes across as a self-parody in several scenes that make it an unintentional comedy, such as a henchman named Mr. Kil and the fact that one of Bond's gadgets is an invisible car.
- You'd think that, after 14 months of captivity, someone would've fished those diamond fragments out of Zao's face before trying to put an entirely new look on him.
- Plot hole: it's never explained how Bond was able to easily fly to the UK to meet Graves if he became a fugitive within MI6.
- Gustav Graves is not a very good villain.
- The pacing is not that good.
- Outlandish moments that come close to the worst of the Roger Moore films ("gene therapy" turns a Korean man white, and Bond somehow knows how to fight with a broadsword and stop his own heart).
- So much bad acting from a lot of the cast, especially Halle Berry.
- Awful theme song by Madonna, with bad autotune and lyrics that don't make sense, thus being completely inferior to previous and better Bond songs.
- Speaking of Madonna, she also makes a pointless cameo as a fencing instructor.
- Laughable and cringeworthy dialogue full of unfunny puns such as implications of sex and masturbation, and when Q calls the Aston Martin Vanquish the "Vanish".
- Despite being a Bond film, the film seems to treat Jinx as more the main character than Bond at some points, suggesting that the producers were using the film to set up a stand-alone Jinx film (which was in development at one point, but was later cancelled).
- Bond, at one point, catches the idiot ball and forgets to check if his gun is still loaded before facing down the bad guys.
- The fencing sequence, although well chorographed, is not well explained and lacks common sense.
- Lee Tamahori's direction isn't very good.
- The film tries to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Bond franchise and does the exact opposite.
- The title sequence is bad and hasn't aged well.
- Just like other bad fourth installments, it killed Pierce Brosnan's Bond era for good.
- Unlike the previous three films which are sort of camp but serious at the same time, Die Another Day seems to be WAY more silly and outlandish.
Good Qualities
- Mostly okay action scenes, for example:
- The hovercraft chase that opens the movie and the car chase on ice.
- The fencing part is still a great action sequence with outstanding choreography and pacing.
- The plane fight scene between Bond and Graves is so exciting.
- The fight on the plane between Berry and Pike is very well choregraphed.
- Depending on your view, the idea of Bond being captured is a good premise and leads to an imaginative use of the traditional opening credits sequence.
- The girls are pretty and likable (including Moneypenny), even if not helped by their characterization (Halle Berry) or acting (Madonna).
- Pierce Brosnan still does an excellent job as the main character, even though his performance is weak.
- John Cleese is a decent replacement for the late Desmond Llewelyn as Q. It's a shame he never appeared in another Bond film after this one.
- If you are a fan of the campier elements of James Bond films, you might like some of it.
- David Arnold's score is excellent as always.
- The Ice Palace is a gorgeous piece of production design from Peter Lamont.
- The Aston Martin V12 Vanquish was an amazing gadget, even though it has a ridiculous contraption.
- At least it didn't kill the whole James Bond franchise. If so, we wouldn't have Casino Royale four years after this film, which is a reboot to the series and is a big improvement over this film.
- Although forced, the scene with Bond and Q is a really clever way to give nods to other Bond films.
- Although Graves wasn't a great villain, Toby Stephens gives the best performance in the entire film.
- Say what you want about Bond fighting with a broadsword. It's still awesome. And he is a secret agent so he could have been taught how to do it.
- With the exception of the CGI bullet and the surfing in Iceland, the CGI is stunning depending on your view.
- Some of the lines are badass, including "Time to face gravity!", as Graves is about to be killed.
Reception
The film received mixed reviews from critics and audiences, with a 56% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 221 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads "Its action may be a bit too over-the-top for some, but Die Another Day is lavishly crafted and succeeds in evoking classic Bond themes from the franchise's earlier installments". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on 43 critics, indicating "mixed and average reviews". However, audiences and fans of the series panned the story, CGI effects and product placements, leaving just a 41% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes score.
Despite the mixed reviews that Die Another Day received when released, a retrospective comment piece in 2020 stated that it is "considered by many to be the worst entry in James Bond’s canon" and compared it unfavorably to The Bourne Identity (released several months previously), which "ushered in a new era of violent, gritty action-espionage movies" and gave rise to the "stripped-down, no-nonsense" Bond of Daniel Craig who debuted in 2006's Casino Royale.
Roger Moore, the third actor to play James Bond, criticized the movie, mainly for its special effects and the Aston Martin Vanquish, stating "I thought it just went too far - and that's from me, the first Bond in space!".
Trivia
- The late North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, who was a James Bond fan, got hold of a copy of the film and thought it was so bad that he declared James Bond an enemy of North Korea.
- Wai Lin from Tomorrow Never Dies was originally supposed to return for the scenes set in Hong Kong, but Michelle Yeoh was unavailable.
- To be fair, at the time, the Spy Kids films were also hit with the same problem as this film with it being the 21st century, the filmmakers chucked as much CGI at them as possible. But this film wasn't hit nearly as bad as those.
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