Beginner’s Bond: Die Another Day
“Beginner’s Bond” is a series of posts about closing the largest gap in my personal cinematic history: the James Bond franchise. I am watching all of the movies in order for the very first time and sharing my reactions here. Last time, The World Is Not Enough proved that the Pierce Brosnan era wasn’t all bangers. Hopefully he will get an appropriately heroic sendoff for his final tour in the trademark tuxedo: 2002’s Die Another Day.
007 is sent to North Korea to investigate a shady arms deal using conflict diamonds as currency. Of course his cover is almost immediately blown, resulting in a gunfight that leads to a silly hovercraft chase. Ultimately, Bond is captured by General Moon and thrown into a torture dungeon. The opening credit sequence’s visuals depict 007 struggling to survive months of “enhanced interrogation” by the North Korean military. While James Bond has been captured numerous times before, he always escapes rather quickly. This is the first time Bond has faced the reality of imprisonment in enemy territory, which could be an interesting narrative element if it wasn’t forgotten as soon as he puts on a clean shirt and has a shave.
James Bond follows a lead to Havana, thankfully arriving just in time to see Jinx (played by Halle Berry) get out of the water. Her entrance and the design of her bikini pay homage to the very first Bond girl from Dr. No—Honey Runner, played by Ursula Andress. Unfortunately, it’s the most beautiful shot in this whole film. For the last twenty movies, cinema’s favorite secret agent has been traveling the world and bringing audiences gorgeous pictures of faraway places. So it is puzzling why so much of Die Another Day takes place in an ice palace that looks like a set built by a college theater company. While there is an impressive chase battle between two cars gliding on ice, most of the finale’s big set pieces are rendered entirely in primitive CG that looks like a cut scene from a PS2 game. The best fight of the whole movie happens at about the halfway point, when Bond engages Gustav Graves in an escalating sword duel. Just like Blofeld before him, Graves’ villainous plan uses diamonds to create a giant space laser that he will use to hold the world hostage. I believe that is the fourth space laser plot for the series.
Sadly, Die Another Day is just a straight-up dud. No fun, no excitement at all. The plot is contrived, driven primarily by coincidence rather than character action. It feels like pieces of several different scripts were stitched together to make this cinematic sleep aid. This movie made the same mistake as On Her Majesty’s Secret Service by including so many references to previous, better movies. Die Another Day did not fare well in the comparison.
Now that it’s all said and done, it seems like Pierce Brosnan just shone too brightly in his first two movies. The ones that followed simply couldn’t keep up. The Brosnan version of Bond was a synthesis of what had come before, perfectly splitting the difference between comedian and killer. It will be interesting to see how much 007 will change (or won’t) when Daniel Craig dons the tuxedo for the first time in 2006’s Casino Royale.
