With Skyfall dropping in theaters in just a few weeks, along with the 50th anniversary of the James Bond series, a close friend and fellow film nerd, Brandon Peters, has generously offered to do a comprehensive review of the entire 007 film franchise. Today is the twentieth entry, with a full review of one of the worst films in the franchise, Die Another Day. I hope you enjoy what is a pretty massive feature leading up the November 9th release of Skyfall. I'll do my best to leave my two-cents out of it. But just because I'm stepping aside doesn't mean you should. Without further ado...
Die Another Day
2002
Director: Lee Tamahori
Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Rosamund Pike, Toby
Stephens, Rick Yune, Judi Dench, John Cleese
PG-13
I’m Mr. Kil
~Mr. Kil
Okay, so I’m starting a little early, but I have to mention
this. This moment is so horrible. Bond gets out of his car and this big goon by
the side of the road just awkwardly and out of place says this to him. FOR NO REASON. Bond doesn’t acknowledge the guy or
anything. Its almost very “I like
turtles” variety. And seriously? Mr. Kil?
That’s like calling Oddjob ‘Mr. Hat’.
Or Red Grant “Blonde Strong”. Or
calling Jaws…uh…oh…well…”Giant Metal Mouth Biting Man”.
STATS
Kills: 16
Bond Girls: Jinx,
Miranda Frost
Cars: Aston Martin
Vanquish
Locales: North Korea,
Cuba, Iceland
Odd Villain Trait:
Zao has the side of his face embedded with diamonds
Song: “Die Another
Day” performed by Madonna
Ridiculous. If I were
to describe Die Another Day with just
one word, that’s what I would choose.
Bond’s 20th film, released on his 40th anniversary
features poor direction, performance and much absurdity with an overabundance
of call backs (some obvious and some very Where’s Waldo-ish). Like the other long tenured Bonds, Roger
Moore and Sean Connery, before him, Pierce Brosnan bows out on an obvious sub
par entry and one of the worst films of the series. Funny, both Pierce and Sean left off with
diamond related satellite-laser beam plots by madmen who are having DNA
reconstruction done to change faces.
Lee Tamahori takes the director’s seat for this one. Prior to this, his notable films were The Edge and the really bad Along Came A Spider (side note, after
this fall, this may not be the worst Alex Cross film anymore). After Die
Another Day he did garbage like xXx:
State of the Union and the embarrassing Next. Bond’s 20th film and 40th
anniversary is a big deal and the producer’s knew it. They delayed production so that they could
hit that mark. So why not bring in a
better known director? Why not pair
Brosnan back up with Martin Campbell.
Pierce Brosnan was championing Brett Ratner for the film, but the
producers wanted a non-American. I won’t
say this about him often, but Ratner would have been a much better choice. Tamahori makes some really weird and
noticeably out of place in the 007 world decisions. To start off, we get a bullet zipping by the
screen during the gun barrel sequence. There
is also an over abundance of some really weird slow motion at times. The film is marred by a heavy reliance on CGI
for its special effects, lacking in the practical stunt work the 007 series is
known for. The opening titles also try to
feed us some story mixed with the silhouette dancers. This would be fine and not so bad, if they
didn’t use a flashback five minutes after to show us everything that just happened
in the opening titles again. When I use
the word ridiculous, most of that aim is going at Tamahori.
There are a lot of really dumb ideas brought into the
film. As if starting with James Bond
surfer dude isn’t enough, later in the film he gets out of a situation in a
RIDICULOUS kite surfing moment that is pretty much entirely CG. It is REALLY bad and possibly the dumbest
moment in the franchise. A lot of the
action is just too much, over the top and too fantastical. I know there’s been some big over the top
stuff moments in earlier films (space, I know), but those were done with
practical, physical effects and stunts.
There’s much more enjoyment and charm watching something you know is
real compared to obviously computer generated stunts, vehicles and
locations. Did I mention there’s an
invisible car? Ridiculous. And the one practical action moment that
should be cool, is just comes off as incredibly juvenile. I love sword fights like everyone else, but
this one has no respect for logic, character or plausibility in the story. Yes, the film forces itself by a few brush
lines to acknowledge what just happened, but it shouldn’t have gone to that
place to begin with.
2/3 of the villains in this one are awful. I’m giving Miranda Frost a pass. Rosamund Pike is pretty good and makes a
pretty thin character more intriguing and interesting than she should be. And it’s not her fault for that stupid costume
during the final battle. Gustav Graves
is turned in by a horrible performance by Toby Stephens. I can tell just by this film why I’ve not
seen him in anything since. The
character in itself is pretty stupid, but Stephens make it worse with his
RIDICULOUS performance. I feel like I’m
watching the villain in a really bad kids movie from the 80s/early 90s with
him. It’s not campy fun, not
so-bad-its-good, just flat out bad. I
don’t have many things to say about Zao other than he is a cool concept, but the
actor stinks.
I have been waiting for this moment for pretty much this
whole series. One of my biggest pet
peeves of this film – HALLE BERRY. I
mentioned last time I preferred Denise Richards to her. Jinx is something we’ve seen before, a rival
spy from another country. For some
reason, Berry can’t bring any credibility to her being this character. She also can’t decide what kind of
personality Jinx should have. She’s so
tough. Now she’s a damsel in
distress. Now she’s a dollar bin Coffy.
Ope, now she’s a smitten teen in love.
It’s all over the place. My
biggest beef with her is she tries to blatantly upstage everyone in any scene
she’s in. It’s rather annoying. Her ego just shines through this whole
thing. You can tell she’s thinking she’s
much better than she is. And to think
they were going to attempt a spin off of this character? NOOOOOO THANKS! We’ve had our share of bad actresses and
miscast women in these films, but nothing as ego driven and determined to steal
scenes with every frame which in turn hurts the overall film. At least the other actresses tried to be a
part of the whole, rather than try to slit throats on their way to the top.
Also of note that Madonna, someone people long wanted to
sing a Bond tune, provides the title song.
However, they got Madonna far too late.
The Madonna you wanted was in the 90s.
Her Razzie award winning song sounds more like a club single remix than
a Bond song. Its really weird and doesn't make a lick of sense (Sigmund Freud? WTF?).
Despite my gripes and the fact this film is rather bad, I
have to say it’s actually watchable. You
will shake your head and groan throughout, but it’s pure shut your brain off
entertainment. The film’s pace really
does move and has lots of explosions, crashes, and gunshots to carry to the end. I’m sure there’s a level of fun people can
have with this movie. The film does
start out with a great concept, but then begins flying off the rails when 007
reaches Cuba. I do like glass shatter
ring gadget and some of the action, while silly, provides some fun. The film also became the highest grossing
film of the franchise. But, the
producers weren’t too trusting that going on in this direction was the right
move. And wisely, they chose to move on
to a different path with 007.
Brandon Peters will return in CASINO ROYALE
Follow me on Twitter – www.twitter.com/@btpeters
E-mail – naptownnerd@gmail.com
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2 comments:
The thing about Die another Day is I always thought the opening in Korea was one of the best in the franchise. I LIKED the fact that Bond got caught and tortured and at the time, it seemed a much darker turn for the Bond franchise and showed an unusual amount of vulnerability for Bond. Then the rest of the movie happened and it was just "where the hell did THIS come from?" Everything else was awful. Which was a shame - because I thought the movie was going in an interesting direction at first. Also, Halle Berry was terrible.
i agree with Alan about the opening--very good. Then we get Pierce Brosnan in a obviously fake beard and bad long-haired wig. That's the warning bell that this movie is going to suck form here on out (that, and Lee Tamahori name as director).
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