Review of Die Another Day (2002) by Kai82 — 05 Jan 2021

The twentieth James Bond movie and last one in the Pierce Brosnan era. It is for many the worst in the franchise and while I agree that it has a lot of weaknesses it has also a bit of redeeming qualities.

For clarification: I think it has some great ideas and concepts that are misused or don't life up to full potential. I often use following example: Can you retell the story in a way that it sounds awesome and people will be hyped to see the movie? The answer is yes but it did not live up to it.

Lets start at the beginning. It was the twentieth movie in the franchise and they want to to something big. There are also countless homages to previous movies like a store room with gadgets, the Halle Berry scene in resemblance to Ursula Andress or the book with James Bond name patron (This is not made up.

It was truly the inspiration for the name James Bond for Ian Fleming). The story starts when James Bond is send on an investigation to North Korea. There he should investigate Colonel Tan-Sun Moon who is involved in shady businesses.

More than this set up I wont tell or spoil. They break here with a tradition of the James Bond movies and it is a hell of an intro sequence. It is positively shocking and unexpected. It got me hooked and James Bond is in some unfamiliar situation.

Sadly it is a rocky ride from there. Some parts of the story are just awesome on paper but fail on the screen. I often heard and made also myself the statement that it got overblown. There are moments were you are taken out of the immersion immediately.

There is for example a chase scene that is often mentioned as far to overblown even for a James Bond movie. Let this sink in while you remember what we accepted in the history of the franchise because it was awesome or they did it winkingly / with humor (Taking it not that seriously to make it look fake).

For the acting I think we get a good performance. Pierce Brosnan can shine here in an unfamiliar James Bond situation. Halle Berry is a great actress and delivers. Toby Stephens is excellent and when you see behind his facade it is a magnificent idea.

Sadly it is also overblown and if down better he would be a remarkable candidate for a top 10 list. There are other great performances and I will praise Will Yun Lee and Kenneth Tsang for their acting and representation.

Finally we got John Cleese as Q. He does a good job of replacing Desmond Llewelyn who died even if no one can truly fill the shoes. Again Judi Dench as M is a highlight. Generally I say there are some missteps but it has a great cast.

The action scenes work mostly well but like I already mentioned some are overblown. Sometimes a bit less works better (Proverb “Less is more” has sometimes its merits). The scenery and sets are really nice.

While I am at it I find the soundtrack really good and Madonna did a great entry with an enjoyable music video that is also a homage to the franchise. Overall I see why other disliked this movie more than me.

However it has great ideas and moments that work well. Worth watching once and maybe for some in the “So bad its good category”.