director
Lee Tamahori
screenwriters
Neal Purvis
Robert Wade
based on
characters created by
Ian Fleming
producers
Barbara Broccoli
Michael G. Wilson
cinematographer
David Tattersall
music
David Arnold
editors
Andrew MacRitchie
Christian Wagner
cast
Pierce Brosnan (James Bond)
Halle Berry (Jinx)
Toby Stephens (Gustav Graves)
Rosamund Pike (Miranda Frost)
Rick Yune (Zao)
John Cleese (Q)
Judi Dench (M)
Michael Madsen (Falco)
Will Yun Lee (Colonel Moon)
Samantha Bond (Miss Moneypenny)
Colin Salmon (Charles Robinson)
Emilio Echevarría (Raul)
Madonna (Verity)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 129m
u.s.
release: 11/22/02
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
other lee
tamahori films
reviewed on this website:
- along
came a spider
- mulholland falls
other james
bond films
reviewed on this website:
- casino
royale (2006)
- goldeneye
- tomorrow never dies
- the world is not enough
|
Critics are hailing Die
Another Day as a return to what makes James Bond great, and
a sign that the franchise hasn't lost steam in its fortieth year.
I'll go so far as to say it passed the time nicely. Pierce Brosnan
is as suave and unflappable a Bond as you could want, but the
007 movies of late -- particularly Tomorrow
Never Dies and The World Is Not
Enough -- have lacked something important: a sense of
their own absurdity. Die Another Day largely dispenses
with all the geopolitical mumbo-jumbo and whittles matters down
to a revenge plot and a big laser gun. It's the first Bond film
in a long time that doesn't seem drenched in flop sweat. It's
a solid if unsurprising piece of work, a perfectly respectable
spy blockbuster.
Brosnan gets to show anger,
pain, and sexual avidity here in a way he hasn't before as Bond.
He's after a spy who sold him out in North Korea, leading to
his fourteen-month capture and torture at Korean hands. (Do the
math on that: it's been fourteen months since 9/11, and after
Bond is rescued and brought back to headquarters, Judi Dench's
M says "The world has changed since you've been gone."
"Not for me," retorts Bond, letting us know that at
least one thing -- the 007 series -- will remain a comforting
constant.) Bond is stripped of his double-oh status, but he goes
rogue in search of that unknown, backstabbing spy. It's not just
"007, you have to do this and stop that before the bad guys
take over the world blah blah yawn" -- although he also
has to do that. The mission this time feels more like a personal
score-settling, with the obsessiveness of a Sicilian vendetta.
Said obsessiveness probably
comes courtesy of this ride's conductor, Lee Tamahori, who made
the scorching Once Were Warriors all those years ago and
then fell into Hollywood stupor (Mulholland
Falls, Along Came
a Spider). I still think he's wasting his talent on formulaic
thrillgasms, but it's clear that whatever's been wrong with his
recent films hasn't been directorial weakness. Tamahori keeps
things chugging along, pausing when necessary for eroticism or
the obligatory tour through Q's gadget room (John Cleese, though
saddled with some awful one-liners, steps into Desmond Llewelyn's
shoes smoothly). He also stages a fantastic gnashing sword fight
between Bond and stinky Brit foe Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens,
who overdoes the sneering Britishness for reasons the plot makes
clear).
Women? Well, Bond has something
of a match in Jinx, played by Halle Berry with self-aware pulchritude
and an infectious happiness at getting to be a Bond girl. As
the first Oscar winner to snuggle into Bond's pecs, Berry sure
isn't there as a career move -- she's there because she wants
to have fun, and it shows. Another Bond conquest, Miranda (Rosamund
Pike), is blank-faced and forgettable, and as if it weren't bad
enough that Madonna inflicts the most heinous theme song on 007
fans since Duran Duran's "A View to a Kill," she also
appears as Verity, a fencing instructor. She trades a few lines
with Brosnan, who -- proving himself a gentleman of unimaginable
proportions -- does not laugh in Madonna's face.
There's large-scale ridiculousness
involving the aforementioned laser gun, and a skidding car chase
through the fragile interiors of a lair made out of ice, and
a helicopter whose rotors kick in just in time .... Die
Another Day has a clear and uncomplicated throughline, and
room enough for the heroes to be witty and the villains to be
nasty. I'm still not a Bond worshipper, but the latest product
off the Broccoli assembly line at least doesn't stall halfway
through. Unlike the last couple of entries, this one feels as
though it was made by people who couldn't wait to go to work
every day -- people, including Brosnan, who wanted to find new
things in Bond while harking back to the films that made them
want to do Bond in the first place. Die Another Day is
both skillful and playful, and that's about as high a compliment
as I can give a 007 film.
|