The actors who’ve played James Bond in the movie series have a tendency – not always, but often enough – to go out on their weakest notes: Connery with Diamonds Are Forever, Moore with A View to a Kill, and definitely Pierce Brosnan with Die Another Day. Brosnan caught something of a raw deal with his four-film run as the character. He started off great with GoldenEye, and I’ll fight for Tomorrow Never Dies against some of its detractors, but his next two pictures fell off a cliff in quality and then he was ousted. The actor himself made a fine Bond, but just didn’t have enough good material to support him.
In many fans’ estimation, including my own for a very long time, Die Another Day has been considered the very worst James Bond movie, supplanting previous duds including the two mentioned above. I’ve long said that I love all the Bond movies, even the bad ones, but watching Die Another Day in the theater tested the limits of my fondness for the franchise. Another rewatch on DVD a few years later did little to improve that opinion.
Until now, I hadn’t tried again for close to two decades. That time and distance can help put things into perspective. Having finally revisited it again now, I just don’t know what to make of the movie at all. Is this the worst 007 film? Maybe. Is it not quite as bad as I originally thought? Also maybe. I might need another decade or two more to clarify my thoughts.
| Title: | Die Another Day |
| Year of Release: | 2002 |
| Director: | Lee Tamahori |
| Watched On: | Blu-ray |
| Also Available On: | Amazon Prime Video Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
The most frustrating thing about Die Another Day is that it’s about half of a good James Bond movie. Admittedly, the opening shots of an animated CGI Bond surfing on gigantic animated CGI waves are terrible. However, while the following hovercraft chase scene may be silly, it’s fully within the bounds of what one would expect from a 007 set-piece since the transition to full-tilt action movies with GoldenEye. Then Bond gets captured, for the first time in his career, and spends fourteen months being tortured in a North Korean prison. In a very unusual and interesting development, the opening credits montage is more than just a flashy music video*, but actually helps tell the narrative. That’s pretty cool.
(*We’ll get back to the Madonna song shortly.)
Watching Bond be pushed to the very edge of his breaking point during this section of the movie offers a surprising amount of psychological depth rarely attempted in the franchise. Of course, that gets quickly thrown away once he’s released, cleans himself up, and jumps right back into being the James Bond we all know. Still, the movie has a little meat on its bones for a while.
Early storylines, in which Bond is let go from British Intelligence and globe-hops around the world to find the traitor who betrayed him, are solid 007 adventure stuff. A fencing match between Bond and billionaire douchebag Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens) is brutal, and the Korean psycho named Zao (Rick Yune), who was wounded in an explosion caused by Bond and has diamonds embedded in his face, is a strong villain henchman. We’re also introduced to undercover MI-6 agent Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike at her most gorgeous) and an American spy named Jinx (then-newly christened Oscar winner Halle Berry, also at her most gorgeous), both of whom have more personal agency than typical so-called “Bond Girls,” even if Bond does still bed them both (no, not together!), the excuses for which are as thin as usual. The producers at EON were so enamored with Berry that they even announced plans to develop a spinoff project for her character, but that clearly fell apart.
All these parts are good. I genuinely like this half of the movie. I’ll even forgive the needless Madonna cameo. She’s only on screen for one scene and honestly doesn’t do anything bad in it, per se. Her techno-dance title song isn’t nearly as grating as I used to find it, at least not in comparison to some of the wretched songs the Daniel Craig years would later give us. (The Sam Smith thing for Spectre, dear lord…)
As the twentieth official James Bond film, the producers insisted on foisting tons of fan-service winks and nods from the franchise’s history into this entry. The most obvious of them is of course Jinx rising from the surf in a tight bikini like Ursula Andress in Dr. No. Another henchman named Mr. Kill is a clear nod to Oddjob from Goldfinger. The jetpack and scuba rebreather from Thunderball are both seen briefly. Other bits of business may be more subtle, but I noticed hat-tips to You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, and even Moonraker. I wouldn’t be surprised if I missed some. All this could have been eye-rolling, but most of it is handled with care.
Unfortunately, once the story gets to the ice hotel, the whole movie goes to hell and never recovers. I won’t belabor all the film’s sins, but the plotting turns egregiously dumb, the pun-heavy dialogue is obnoxious, most of the action and visual effects scenes are beyond cheesy (who thought the CGI parasailing was a good idea?!), and the overkill of outrageous gadgets is ridiculous. Frankly, the much-derided invisible car is the least of them. I’m much more offended by villain Graves’ half-assed mech armor suit with VR goggles and a deadly Nintendo Power Glove.
The “DNA replacement” nonsense is the worst kind of pseudoscience BS. If Zao really wants to change his face and identity, why don’t any of the doctors bother to pluck those diamonds out of his skin? The timeframe of Graves’ rapid rise to prominence and power is wildly implausible given what we learn about him later, and Miranda Frost’s flip-flopping allegiances make little sense either. As much as I appreciate the eye candy, I have no idea why she strips down to a sports bra before starting a sword fight with the only pilot left on their crashing jumbo jet while it plummets toward the ground.
All this is just so, so stupid. I left that theater in late 2002 feeling infuriated that a series I loved had gone so wrong. That may have been an overreaction. I’m still not sure.
James Bond has had many ups and downs over the course of his nearly seven-decade existence. Even within the run of any individual actor, you may find some great movies and some duds. Over time, some of the bad ones get reassessed and possibly redeemed. Once considered the nadir of the franchise, Roger Moore’s Moonraker later found new appreciation as a fun piece of silly 1970s sci-fi cheese.
I don’t know if Die Another Day will ever be afforded that treatment. It hasn’t yet, anyway. Nevertheless, at this revisit, I was left questioning whether this movie was really worse than most other big-budget blockbusters from the time it was made. Yes, the action is ludicrous and the VFX suck, but how is that any different than The Mummy Returns, which had made tons of money the prior year, or Underworld the next?
Even its lousy second half has parts to appreciate. The chase scene over ice between Bond in his tricked-out, weapon-loaded Aston Martin and Zao in his equally tricked-out, weapon-loaded Jaguar is kind-of awesome, its flagrant absurdity well-matched with the muscular direction by Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors).
Ultimately, I’m left unsure how to judge Die Another Day. Perhaps it’s more tolerable today than I felt at the time. Whether it’s the worst Bond film is up for some debate. If not, then what would be? Either way, I doubt it will ever rank in the top half of the franchise for anyone.
The Blu-ray
Despite not liking the movie very much, I wound up owning two copies of Die Another Day on Blu-ray. The first, released in 2008, came packaged in a SteelBook case that I purchased for obsessive completist purposes (believing at that time the entire series would eventually become available in SteelBooks). That same disc was later included within the enormous Bond 50 box set in 2012.
Sometime in more recent years, a 4K SDR remaster of the film hit paid VOD streaming providers. I have neither rented nor purchased that, reasoning that a proper 4K HDR disc will likely come along in the future. For this viewing, I could have at least rented that 4K version, but opted to just watch one of the Blu-rays I already owned instead. I made a mistake there.
I used to think the disc for GoldenEye was the worst Blu-ray in the Bond 50 set, and it may possibly still be, but Die Another Day really gives it a run for its money in that department. This disc looks awful. The 2.39:1 image is plagued by horrendous edge enhancement right from the opening scene. People and objects are surrounded by ugly electronic halos. The picture has a very gritty, unnatural texture and grain is exaggerated to a terribly distracting extent.
The problem may tame down a bit for a little while in the movie’s second half, but it never entirely goes away, and it ramps back up before the end. This isn’t just one of the worst James Bond Blu-rays, it’s one of the worst Blu-rays I’ve every watched, period.
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack is fine, fortunately. As an action movie from the early 2000s, it’s very loud and rumbly, with booming bass and lots of surround activity. Subtlety wasn’t on anyone’s agenda here. If I have any complaint about the audio, the score is dialed down too much and often buried under the much louder sound effects.
I won’t pretend to have the slightest interest in any of the bonus features on the Blu-ray. For what it’s worth, the disc has two audio commentaries, several featurettes, a still gallery, and a dumb thing called “007 Mission Control” that will jump you to specific scenes in the movie by theme (Girls, Gadgets, Villains, etc.).
Related
- James Bond 007
- James Bond books
- James Bond parody
- Halle Berry
- Madonna
The Video File Blog 
Confession. I love this movie. I just watched it like six months ago and had a blast. I love the silliness. The hovercraft chase is legit awesome. So is the ice palace showdown. I have always enjoyed it since the dvd days.
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