Day 20 - Die Another Day (2002) - Film Review

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Toby Stephens & Rosamund Pike

Screenplay: Neal Purvis & Robert Wade

Directed By: Lee Tamahori

Certificate: 12

Day 20 and time for Pierce Brosnan's final James Bond film. Bond infiltrates a North Korean military base where Colonel Tan-Sun Moon is engaged in illegal weapons trading. When Bond is betrayed by someone with insider knowledge and his true identity is made clear, despite his attempt to escape he is captured, imprisoned and tortured for more than a year. When Bond is eventually traded in a prisoner exchange, M revokes his 00 status after it is suspected that he leaked information under duress to the North Koreans. Going rogue once more, Bond sets out to discover who betrayed him on his mission, though the answer appears to be connected to a North Korean operative that he believed he'd killed...

At the time of writing this review, I've recently begun studying for my MA in Film & Screen, and one of the modules on the course looks at the effect of the 9/11 attacks on cinema. Now maybe it's just because the topic is obviously on my mind at the moment, but to me the opening sequence of 'Die Another Day' almost immediately had a post-9/11 feel to it. Beginning with Bond on a mission in North Korea, the on-screen colour palette is grey, drab, washed out and the whole thing seemed to be opting for something a lot grittier than Brosnan's last couple of films. 'Die Another Day' commenced filming at the start of 2002, only a handful of months after the attacks. There wouldn't have been chance to factor it in on a screenplay level, but visually at least it's not too much of a stretch to say that this opening may be trying to some degree to reflect the general mood of the time. It feels appropriate that our hero doesn't emerge victorious, instead being tortured for more than a year. The opening titles are practically a montage of that torture, set against Madonna's eponymous theme.

There's been little consistency with the themes lately - I've either really enjoyed them or found them to be lacking, and in this case I'm afraid it's another miss for me. Credit as usual where it's due for Madonna's theme going for something against the grain for a Bond theme, but it sadly doesn't overcome its poor early-2000s sound. I have mixed feelings as it is towards pop music of the early to mid-2000s, as much of it had a horrible quality to it like Madonna's electronically-tinted vocals here. Sometimes the music of this period can be great dumb cheese but that's far from being every case. It's probably not the worst Bond theme, but I'm just not a fan of this one. The accompanying visuals are pretty good though.

Unfortunately that post-9/11 mood gets completely lost as the film goes on, and instead veers off wildly in the other direction. That isn't necessarily a bad thing though, and this time we have Bond crossing paths with another wealthy entrepreneur, Gustav Graves. One thing that Toby Stephens is fantastic at getting across with this role is Graves' smarmy charm. He's playing the kind of rich boy that you just immediately dislike, so there's an element of satisfaction seeing Bond go toe to toe against him. That said, their first scene together sees them engage in a fencing match. The match escalates so quickly into a full-on brawl with actual swords, they completely trash the club they're fighting in, and it then de-escalates so quickly once they're done fighting that I just burst out laughing at how civilized everyone was suddenly being in the next scene.

However, there are bigger issues with 'Die Another Day' which are almost identical to the problems of the last film. There are a lot of ideas with potential being thrown around, but few of them get the development they really need. For example, Graves' plan to use advanced technology to invade South Korea and reunify the country under Northern rule is decent. Thing is it takes ages before it becomes clear that that's his actual plan, and like the untapped potential of ecological themes in the last film, the opportunities for some decent political commentary go wasted here. It also turns out that Graves is really the North Korean Colonel from the opening, having undergone gene therapy to radically change his appearance. Yeah... that happens. 'Die Another Day' has faced criticism for many of its surface level aspects, such as the ice palace, the noticeably increased product placement, or especially Bond's invisible car. These things have received a fair bit of flack, but in isolation none of them are a problem per say. Instead I'd argue that they just don't gel together in this film specifically, because the more integral elements have gone undercooked. I was really happy to see Rosamund Pike in the cast list since I've loved her in pretty much everything else I've seen her in. But like so much in this film, despite Pike being reliably great she's underserved in the role she's given. I also have mixed feelings towards how her character is treated for not being sexually interested in Bond. It's a bit dodgy that one of the main female characters to reject his advances turns out to also be a double agent, whereas Jinx a character who almost immediately ends up in bed with Bond is coded much more positively.

Don't take that as a knock against Jinx however. On the contrary Halle Berry's Jinx is easily one of the biggest successes of the film. Obviously this comes down to subjective opinion, but whenever I hear the words "Bond Girl", Jinx is immediately the first person who comes to mind. While it's absolutely an example of gratuitous male gaze, the very first shot of her emerging from the sea in her orange bikini is possibly the most famous shot to come out of this film, in fact possibly one of the most famous shots of the entire saga. Jinx's popularity proved so great that like Wai Lin before her, a spin-off film starring her was in the works but ultimately never came to fruition. For the record, even though Jinx outplays her in terms of popularity, I think I'd still prefer to have seen the spin-off about Lin first. But twenty years on I won't go holding my breath to see either film. Jinx is still fantastic though and plays a key role in the climactic finale. For all the film's many faults, I will admit that the ending is good cheesy fun, and one of the most explosive, effects-heavy finales for a Bond film yet. Not only do Bond and Graves fight it out, so too do Jinx and double agent Miranda Frost. Rosamund Pike and Halle Berry having a swordfight in a crashing plane is something I never realized I needed to see and I'm very glad that 'Die Another Day' addressed that for me. 

It's hard to sugarcoat that 'Die Another Day' was a disappointment. Even though I found it to be a mild improvement over 'The World Is Not Enough', it's very clear that Brosnan's last two films don't live up to the heights of his first two. In many ways this film almost leaves itself the most open to criticism, and even though I've tried not to judge these films purely on a surface level by just looking at stuff like the gadgets they feature, 'Die Another Day' ends up feeling like a case of style over substance. This isn't helped by director Lee Tamahori's fondness for slow-mo or rapidly sped-up footage at seemingly random intervals. When you're summarizing a Bond film as "the one with the invisible car" or "the one with the girl in the orange bikini", something's gone wrong. Still, Brosnan's time in the role is now at an end, and the man himself has been reliably good at holding that gauntlet. Tomorrow we arrive at the last stretch of James Bond December as we catch up to the incumbent Bond and take a look at the Daniel Craig era.

6/10

NEXT TIME - Casino Royale