Die Another Day (2002)

 

Oh dear, things didn't end on a high note for Pierce Brosnan as Bond, did they? As this is one of the worst entries in the franchise. There are several reasons why, but we'll get into those soon enough.

When Bond is on a mission in North Korea, he is captured and tortured for over a year. He is then traded for another prisoner. MI-6 doesn't want him anymore, as they assume he cracked under pressure and revealed crucial information. Bond however, knows he has been betrayed by someone and is now on the prowl to find this person. 

He also wants revenge on a character named Zao, which is odd, as he didn't have that much interaction with this assassin. 

The path leads him to a rather special beauty clinic in Cuba, where people are actually transformed into other people. He finds Zao, but is unable to stop him. It also transpires that an American woman named Jinx is also after Zao. 

Seriously, there's no reason why they're all specifically after him. Yes, he's a Korean assassin. Yes, he killed people, but this all out revenge-thing makes little to no sense. 

Bond then returns to London in order to investigate a young billionaire named Gustav Graves, who is selling diamonds he claims to have found in Iceland, but which are in reality blood diamonds from Africa. There's an immediate dislike between the two, yet Graves invites Bond over to his ice palace for a demonstration of a new satellite. Here, Bond meets up with Jinx again and of course this humanitarian laser is actually a weapon in not-so-good-a-disguise. Graves also isn't who he seems to be... 

Where to start? Well, the opening in North Korea is excellent. The action is fun and fast-paced and raw. Then, you get a great montage of Bond being tortured during the opening credits, that is alas accompanied by one of the worst songs af the franchise.

I'm sorry Madonna, but your track sucks Bondballs. It's the incessant and horrid autotune that ruins a big part of it.

But this film is a plethora of poor or misguided choices. It starts with director Lee Tamahori: a good director, no question, just not a good director for a Bondfilm. He clearly doesn't know how to frame action and pacing in this respect and that makes this already long film way too long. It doesn't help that a lot of the dialogue is incredibly cheesy. Sure, it might have worked during the 60s or 70s, but here it comes across as unintentionally making this a parody. 

Not good. 

They manage to stuff up Halle Berry as Jinx, but that has more to do with the dialogue than her presence or acting chops. A good thing Rosamund Pike puts more effort into her silly lines, and she feels more at home in this franchise. 

The bad guys are - well - bad. Zao is passable as henchman, but doesn't get a lot to do, and Toby Stephens as Graves is so one note, you could easily replace him with a cardboard cutout and no one would notice the difference. His scowl also feels terribly forced. 

What else sucks? The editing. Seriously, the action is so badly and frenetically cut together, a squirrel strung out on sugar with the most extreme form of ADD wouldn't be able to make heads nor tails of it. Case and point: the car chase in the ice palace. You have no idea who is chasing who or where they are coming from, because the direction keeps shifting. It's unnerving, to say the least. 

This film also has some of the worst compositing and CG I have seen in a long time. It is horrendous. It would be okay for a straight-to-video type film, but for a multi-million dollar Bond, it's ghastly. 

Oh, and don't get me started on the invisible car. This film has quite a few moments where even my suspension of disbelief gets rattled, but that takes the take. 

If you get the feeling I loathe this entry, you are absolutely right. 

It's a shame that this was Brosnan's swansong as Bond, because he is by far the best thing in this turd of a film. Everything else is boring, horribly clichéd, badly written, edited shoddily and just plain bad. 

If you want to see what an expensive disaster looks like, give this a try.