Die Another Day-Bond Needs Some New Tricks
I always find it immensely interesting when people complain about some stunt they see in a Bond film. “He could have never survived that fall”, or “that explosion” or “that harpoon”, or whatever. I am always left wondering, why did you come to theater to see a Bond film? Have you actually not see one of the other 99 Bond films? Die Another Day is much the same way. If you have a quarter of a brain, left or right lobe, it doesn’t matter, then you must be aware that Bond doesn’t die in the films and he evades death like politicians evade getting caught taking bribe money from lobbyist.
Die Another Day really pumps some new vigor and style into the franchise. The script is an entertaining one as 007 played by Pierce Bronson gets to take a trip into North Korea where he is captured and treated rather unpleasantly by the North Koreans for a few months. Brace yourself for a bit of a shocker here, the North Koreans were somewhat irritated in the real world by this, well I guess that means Bronson won’t be welcomed in North Korea huh?
The script does call for a variety of excellent chase and action sequences which are some of the better we have seen in recent years. However, without giving away too much, lets just say some of the space mirror elements of the script were a bit far fetched. Apparently the North Koreans we planning to invade South Korea and had a new space mirror system that would allow them to keep from getting nuked when they invade. Great idea, if it wasn’t for cruise missies fired from submarines or a wide variety of other ways to defeat the space based weapon. Give it some thought you’ll think of all sorts of ways that the plot falls apart here.
So the script has many flaws, but there is a lot of fun as well which can offset some mistakes, even if big logic errors are involved. The addition of Haley Barry’s Jinx character is a lot of fun and truthfully she has never looked better. Bronson and Barry do have good screen chemistry which helps hold the shaky script together. Of course, the cars, gadgets and weapons once again serve as the glue that really holds the Bond films together, oh and the Bond girls I suppose. That said, it is clearly a movie aimed at men, just in case that was not brutally obvious.
It would be, oh so nice, to see a little more innovation out of the franchise. Die Another Day, while fun, has a plot that almost seems Austin Powers-like at moments. Writer Neal Purvis, who also wrote The World Is Not Enough and Johnny English, should keep a good distance from Bond films and work instead on a sequel to Johnny English which had many funny moments. Truly it would be nice to see more imagination and less formula out of the Bond scripts. The Bond films are much like science-fiction and this particular script has numerous straight up sci-fi elements. With this being the case embrace more imaginative plots and back it up with science.
Like many other sequels, what the Bond franchise has going for it is name recognition. Truth be told, and this a bit brutal, had this just been another release say XXX instead, Die Another Day would not have made over $400 million dollars. This film made over $400 million dollars because of the Bond name, period. The $120-$140 million dollar budget is also problematic for the results are simply not there for that kind of price tag. Die Another Day likely has a budget higher than a Star Wars film, Shrek and the list could go on and on. Clearly, the Bond crew would point out that the difference between other films and the Bond franchise is that all the sets are built and not virtual. No doubt they would also point out that all the stunts are real and not performed on a blue screen. Undoubtedly this is true, but it is also true that in this era of escalating budgets it may be time for the Bond franchise to consider new approaches and new ideas both in terms of script ideas and filmmaking.
Story C+ (Imaginative at times, but unfocused and full of numerous logic errors. More time and better scientific advisors with concrete suggestions could have helped the script immensely.)
Acting B+
Visuals B+
Originality/Innovation C
Enjoyability Grade C+
Home Theater/HD Factor A
Overall Grade C+
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