Review of Die Another Day (2002) by Joetaeb D — 03 Nov 2015

The first mistake this film made was hiring Madonna (and I don't mind Madonna's music) to sing the opening credits song, and make a cameo in the film? Come on now. That music has no place in this series. The last mistake the film made was making it to theaters at horrible state it was at. The film isn't unwatchable bad, no Bond film is. But not only does it try to do way too much with special effects, but the story is just plain stupid. A lot of Bond films have an issue with being too formulaic and at times Die Another Day is just that. But it's also a horrible CGI fest of characters that either don't make sense, or the performances are are completely overcooked.

Getting Halle Berry and Rosamund Pike as the lead Bond girls is a good idea on paper, but neither of them fit in with the rest of the film, Berry especially. Then we have Toby Stephen's Gustav Graves. A performance so over the top that you constantly feel like he's playing a villain trying to be a Bond villain. What are his motivations anyway? Not once do they really clear that up. There's no originality or any grounded realism to what he's doing. It all feels too comic-booky, as do the fight scenes. Seriously, who's idea was it to bring in slow motion fight sequences? It' felt like another wannabe Matrix film at times. Don't even get me started on the last 15 minutes where it literally copies action straight from any of the Matrix films. Not only that, but the fact that Bond at one point slows his own heart rate down by himself made me laugh out loud. Like, what the hell?

Speaking of action sequences, since when did Bond become a master swordsman? Because that's also a good chunk of an action sequence. Yep, a master swordsman. I just feel like there wasn't any care at all to the directing of the film, or really any aspect. At one point when M and Bond were talking you can clearly see Bond's mouth moving without any words coming out. That may be nitpicking, but with a tent-pole franchise like Bond, you would think that the editors would take extra time with little scenes like that. So with awful CGI, and I mean awful CGI, bad dialogue, over the top performances, and no real sense as to what a Bond film should be, Die Another Day is the worst installment for Bond to date.

-Where did Bond go.

-Unfitting music.

-Wretched CGI.

-Over the top villain.

-Nothing is realistic.

2.6/10.