007 DIE ANOTHER DAY (2002) starring Pierce Brosnan as James Bond and Halle Berry

In the days of Sean Connery and Roger Moore, it was pretty clear that which a higher budget, one could attempt to make a bigger or rather a better movie You can see this in the Connery films, when the films of Bond develop from DR. NO to GOLDFINGER and beyond. For Roger Moore's films, there is a very similar development from LIVE AND LET DIE to THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN on to THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and even beyond, to MOONRAKER. Especially in the later instance, bigger does not necessarily mean better. This very same thing happened on the films of Pierce Brosnan. Although the actor got better in the part and really made the role his own, the films grew bigger while the stories lacked a proportionally similar development. In Pierce Brosnan's fourth film, DIE ANOTHER DAY, directed by Lee Tamahori, the story seemed to become slightly less important than how good it looked. Also the film seemed to depend very largely on the presence of special effects and CGI. Maybe too much so.

In an attempt to stop Colonel Tan-Sun Moon trading illegal conflict diamonds for unclear purposes, Bond infiltrates a North-Korean military base where Moon is about to deal with other buyers. Bond however is found out by Moon's assistant Zao and  although he succeeds at disrupting the sales, everything gets blown up and Bond ends up being chased by Moon in cumbersome hovercrafts, until Moon goes over a cliff, seemingly to his death. Bond is then arrested by North-Korean forces under the command of Moon's father, General Moon. 

"I'll Moon You !!!"

The film's title sequence shows Bond being tortured and kept in captivity for over a year. A prisoner exchange deal (Bond is exchanged for ZAO!!) gets him out but M informs Bond he is suspended from active duty because it is believed he leaked vital information while in captivity. Bond is convinced he was betrayed by someone in MI6 and escapes his confinement by MI6, moving to Hong Kong. Here he finds out that Zao is in Cuba and he goes there to meet Giacinta Johnson, Jinx for short, played by Halle Berry, who rises from the Cuban sea very much like Ursula Andress arose from the waters in DR. NO. 

"Gee, I wonder why there are so many men here now!"

Jinx shows Bond that there is a gene therapy clinic that will allow criminals to don new identities by actually changing their bodies and when Bond notes that Jinx goes there, he follows at a distance, finding ZAO in that clinic. Zao escapes but Bond now finds that Jinx is a very capable woman, an American agent herself, as she singlehandedly and easily gets away from the authorities of the island. The conflict diamonds that Zao left behind lead Bond to meeting Gustav Graves at the Blades Club in London, a Club apparently managed by Madonna. Bond engages in a duel of swords with Graves, resulting in hilarity as well as mayhem and afterwards Graves invites Bond to his special demonstration in Iceland of ICARUS. Miranda Frost, Graves's assistant also turns out to be an undercover MI6 agent. Bond is also reinstated as an agent by M in London, where he is equipped by Q (now John Cleese) with the Aston Martin Vanquish, a car with adaptive camouflaging technology, which renders it invisible at times. 

"I told you, M, you can't trust those public transport people. They Are Always LATE !"

In Iceland, Bond again meets Jinx at a spectacular Ice Palace, which then leads to a tremendously spectacular finale, speeding from the destruction of this Ice Palace to a flight in an Antonov thru the concentrated sunlight beam of ICARUS that is supposed to destroy the Korean Demilitarized Zone that will allow North Korean troops to invade South Korea to forcibly reunite the country under the leadership of Gustav Graves, who turns out to be non other than Colonel Moon of the beginning, after having gone thru that gene therapy.

"Well, Diamonds in my face is better than a ring thru my nose !"

Director Lee Tamahori gives DIE ANOTHER DAY a slightly more gritty look by not allowing the title sequence to distract one from the story: Bond is seen being tortured during the title sequence and Daniel Kleinman's visuals are of a rather gruesome nature. When Bond is finally released after more than a year of captivity and torture, his appearance is rather untidy.

"Extensions? What hair extensions?"

Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have crafted a story that in itself does not seem to be far-fetched but when it comes to technology like that of the adaptive camouflaging of the Aston Martin Vanquish (or rather "Vanish" as stated by Q) and the ICARUS beam of concentrated sunlight, one might easily say this might be too much into the realm of Science Fiction.

"Baby, do you wanna ride in my car?"

This is only emphasized once more (or rather twice more) when Q has an admittedly impressive Virtual Reality Training Programme in which any agent can simulate an action sequence (or which ever other action one might wish to conceive of). Although Bond simply states that Virtual Reality is no substitute for the real thing, Moneypenny has perhaps some other use for it.

"Is that you Moneypenny?"

Brosnan clearly shows he has grown considerably in the role and his maturity also reflects his attitude towards M in the film. Halle Berry proves she is not only incredibly hot when she rises from the sea, she also shows that she is a pretty good acress when she goes into action on her own. In the finale, Jinx has an impressive duel with Miranda Frost, which presents us an interesting duel to say the least.

"I slept with him first. Bond is mine!"

The dependency on CGI gets a bit too much when Bond is fleeing the Ice Palace with Graves's Rocket Speedster. Graves uses ICARUS then to cut a path in the ice behind Bond and when Bond goes over the cliff at what seems to be the end of the ice plateau, the ICARUS beam clearly lops off a huge chunk of ice, which creates a tidal wave, that Bond easily covers by windsurfing over it, using a metal plate from the speedster and a bit of his parachute. The windsurfing sequence clearly depends too much on CGI and considering we are now more than 10 years beyond this, we now see that the film suffers for it.

 

          Apparently Brosnan now agrees !!!!!!!!!

Colonel Moon and Graves are not played by the same actor but this hardly seems to matter as neither character really is worked out very well. For instance, upon regenerating himself (Colonel Moon) into this new (Graves) persona, was Graves' identity already known to the world? Was this an existing person who was already alive and whose place he took by having the real guy eliminated or did Moon want to create an original character in Graves? If so, what was done to cover up his lack of a background? After all, Graves wouldn't have had any background from before the 'death' of Colonel Moon, now would he?

Graves, Frost, Madonna and Bond at the Blades Club scene

There are plenty of moments in which the past of Bond is honored. For one, of course, the beautiful shot where Halle Berry rises from the sea, but there is also a precious scene in a storage facility of Q's where all the old gadgets and props are seen, such as Rosa Klebb's spiked shoe from FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE or the jetpack from THUNDERBALL. These scenes (and others, such as the ICARUS beam resembling very much a laser beam from GOLDFINGER, aimed at an unfortunate part of Bond's) are very nice and play an integral role.

It is however a bit unfortunate that the Iceland Chase sequences, impressive as they are, come across as too stylistic due to the jump/cut editing. This does not work in the film's favor. Neither does the heavy CGI work in the Antonov sequence, when the plane has gone thru the ICARUS beam and is falling apart. Whether this was a factor to reconsider afterwards or not, it may have played a role in the decision to go back to basics for the next Bond film.

DIE ANOTHER DAY resulted in all in a tremendously succesful and enjoyable film, in which Brosnan clearly reached his highest marks as Bond. Lee Tamahori directed a good film that however is marred by an unevenly developed script and features some CGI that is now dated and poorly looking. David Arnold's music is FANTASTIC again and becomes a wildly popular landmark of the films. And I would almost have forgotten Judi Dench, Colin Salmon, Samantha Bond and Michael Madsen here as very good supporting characters. But there they are.

"What's that, Bond? You want two pizza's, french fries and a Martini?"

For some time also, it looked like a spinoff film might be developed for Jinx, with Halle Berry attached, to be a springboard for a series of its own. MGM however did not pursue this, just like the earlier time when interest in Michelle Yeoh's character from TOMORROW NEVER DIES was not acted upon. It was quite understandable that Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson were very, very perturbed about this. It would have been indeed, very, very interesting!

But trouble was on the horizon again. And then, there was the REBOOT.

"Well then, let me get my stuff together and clear out!"

Up Next : CASINO ROYALE by EON PRODUCTIONS  in 2006!!!!!!