Die Another Day (2002)

Movie Review: "007: Die Another Day" (2002)40 years after the initial Bond production "Dr. No" (1962) produced by Albert R. Broccoli (1909-1996) and Harry Saltzman (1915-1994) with just 1.1 Million Dollar in their pockets comes the twentieth installment of the all too famous MI6-Spy, portrayed with classic charms and high points for elegance by actor Pierce Brosnan at age 49, who encounters a fierce, unusual 13 minutes long pre-title sequence in a gritty North Korea exterior location confronting an hard-boiled martial arts-approved Military General about to get the best of James Bond aka "007".The film production, handled by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson for the final Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer affliate "United Artists" distribution before moving to Sony Pictures in season 2005/2006 for "Casino Royale", punches with a major Hollywood budget of 142 Million U.S. Dollars, newly acquired Computer-Generated-Imagery (CGI) with Bond getting car-chased over a frozen lake under constant spitfire from machine-gun-mounted vehicles to smooth ice wave surfing and an interior-destructing fence-fight with original written "007" antagonist Gustav Graves, who's character has become in the hands of screenwriting duo Robert Wade & Neal Purvis, far-out sketched to such an extent that even the most faithful recurring target group of "The World Is Not Enough" (1999) had to swallow the pill of given-in to an high-end almost comic spectacle over suspenseful thrills.Nevertheless the supporting cast including Halle Berry as U.S. American spy Jinx Johnson builds concrete homages to actress Ursula Andress in "Dr. No" (1962) coming out of the ocean engaging James Bond with light-hearted charms and pin-pointed dialogue lines in order to team up for an over-the-top showdown of a flying kind-of-gunship fortress, antagonist Graves wearing a misconceived metal armor active suit and a well-choreographed cat fight between Agent Jinx and villain-sidekick Miranda Frost, performed by actress Rosamund Pike with hostile convictions of sword-swinging to knife-throwing proportions.The worldwide audience did not bother on the issue of trading sophisticated espionage plot twists over to closing-in science-fiction action themes directed by Lee Tamahori supported by "Star Wars" approved cinematographer David Tattersall with a breaking-out-of-tradition manner. "Die Another Day" marks the most successful "007" installment since the 1970s, at least in terms of box office attendance, giving Pierce Brosnan as the fifth actor to engage the legendary role James Bond a fair send-off by ranging from a torture-close-to-death scenario in a stand-out opening sequence, with a phenomenal theme song by Madonna, to conclusions of diamond-pouring moments of leisure.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

This might not be the most realistic Bond movie ever but it sure is fun. The action sequences are wildly over the top and very stylized, but you know what.... who cares?? This is exactly what it's supposed to be, a fun well acted, action packed Bond film. Pierce brosnan is a very good choice to play James Bond and I like his performance here. The movie also features other great actors that turn in great performances. Halle Berry is one of those great actors, and I loved her performance here as Jinx, very bondish, which is how it must be. Judi Dench is of course great as M, as always. The movie has special effects that are for the most part alright, at times they are a little hokey. They switch from being just okay to sort of fake looking. The writing is enough to keep the audience interested enough and it's enough to suffice for a typical James Bond movie, but it never exceeds that standard, which is alright in my opinion. To be honest a 007 movie isn't supposed to have spectacular out of this world writing, that's not really the point of these films, sure it's wonderful to have a very well written script, but for those kind of movies case, it's excusable to not have one. A pretty fun James Bond movie overall. 7/10.

Watching this movie again after several years made me realize it is better than I remembered it. From the action-packed beginning in a Korean war zone to the beach in Cuba, and from the spectacular ice building to the fights on a plane, there is a lot going on and it never becomes boring. The best fencing sequence in a Bond ever needs to be mentioned, too. There are several enjoyable references to the old Bond days, for example Halle Berry's costume refers to Ursula Andress in 'Dr No', and when Bond talks about ornithology, he casually picks up the book on the subject by a certain Mr Bond who inspired Ian Fleming for his hero's name, as many of you will know. So far, so good.What really spoilt 'Die Another Day' for me is that we don't get convincing gadgets like in the Connery days anymore, but fantasy inventions nobody did believe in (from the invisible car to the, um, cutting edge satellite) and obvious computer effects (the ride on the wave). The second and last time that John Cleese appeared in the series, it must have been too embarrassing to present this mumbo-jumbo. The credibility of the series was damaged, and I thought for the first time that the time had come to let Her Majesty's agent retire. Unfortunately, there was too much money at stake to do that.

I have to admit, I have a soft spot for this film because this is the first James Bond movie I ever saw. However, looking at it objectively, I'll have to admit that it is one of the weaker Bond films out there.Pierce Brosnan is as good as ever in his final outing. He supposedly quit after this one because he didn't want to become the next Roger Moore. Halle Berry's Jinx was attractive, but the character is badly written with a lot of her lines being genuinely cringe-worthy. Rosemund Pike's Miranda Frost isn't that great, either.Gustav Graves, played by Toby Stevens, is a pretty lame villain. He's rather uninteresting and is not at all menacing. Zao, his partner, isn't much better.People, of course, have criticized the story and action-scenes as stretching the limits of plausibility. I'm gonna have to agree with them. There is such a thing as too ridiculous even for Bond, and this movie crosses that line.The opening hovercraft chase is spectacular, but the subsequent action scenes are far too cartoonish for my taste. The CGI effects also don't hold up that well, as shown in many scenes such as the stupid surfing scene.However, I really appreciate the references to previous Bond films. They did this because it was the franchise's 40th anniversary.The film has a few good parts, but it can't make up for the extremely silly and bloated nature of the film as a whole. It's one of the franchise's worst, but I still rank it ahead of "The Man With The Golden Gun." Too bad they would take the fun out of the franchise in the next couple of films.RATING: C