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Die Another Day- 11/22/02 - PG-13 - 132m
Pierce Brosnan
Halle Berry
Toby Stephens
Director: Lee Tamahori
JEF
I wasn’t sure I wanted to see this movie. It had been years
since I’d seen my last Bond movie. Just to give you an idea, the
last Bond I saw was with Roger Moore. I also was a big fan of Bond movies.
Back in high school, I couldn’t get enough Bond movies. I rented
everyone I could find. I think I even read one of Ian’s books. But,
at some point, I realized each movie was a rehash of the previous movie.
If you saw one, you saw them all. But a friend of mine is really into
Bond movies, and he said this was one of the better ones to come along.
Well, It was action packed, I will say that, but as a movie overall It
didn’t work for me.
Storyline: WARNING- Since this
is a suspense action movie, you may not want to read this. Bond
(Pierce Brosnan) meets up with two Korean Military thugs, who are dealing
in illegal weapons, and diamonds. Bond intercepts the diamonds, and poses
as “the bad guy” trying to get the weapons. Well, the deal
goes bad, apparently because someone from inside has betrayed Bond’s
identity to the Koreans. He’s tortured for 14 months, and then is
released (I won't say how). Now Bond is out for revenge. Not only for
the Korean leader who got away but for the person who betrayed him. His
clues are the diamonds, and are the link for this movie to keep flowing.
In a key scene, a briefcase of diamonds explodes after bond put two nice
neat little packages clearly labeled “C4” (if you’re
gonna booby trap something, don’t ya think you might want to take
the wrapper off that say’s “C4” just incase?) Anyhow,
the briefcase full of diamonds explodes and the diamonds get lodged in
one of the bad guy’s face. For over a year, they are just on the
surface of the skin. Now the story starts to get a little unbelievable…
Through DNA “Gene Therapy” the bad guy (with the diamonds)
is attempting to get his body to transform into another person. Something
about stripping the body of its DNA, and substituting it with someone
else’s will make you “grow” into another person. Huh?
Here’s a tip… spend a couple hundred, and get the diamonds
removed from your face. Weather you’re a white guy, or a Korean
guy, a face full of diamonds might just give you away.
Well, I won’t go more into the story. It does get confusing, and
jumps around. Lets just say lots of explosions, the typical Bond spy gear
that’s way over the top, (for example, the tool that has been done
many times before is the invisible cloaking device for the car. How many
movies now have used this device? It’s not new anymore, and it’s
not very believable, just an excuse to put in some computer graphic effects.
Also Halle Berry is getting tons of exposure from this movie (more than
Brosnan I think, which says something right there). But I didn’t
get it. This was not a movie that utilizes Halle’s acting talents
(which she got an Oscar for in “Monsters Ball”), but just
had her strip down to skimpy bathing suits, and spout off one-liner sexual
innuendos. Not to say her part was bad in this movie, just that it didn’t
utilize her talents is all.
Of course the spy gizmos were all the same from the other bond movies.
The Car was outfit with all kinds of machine guns, and rockets, etc. There
was one cool scene that I liked, where Bond and “Jinx” (Berry),
are dropped from a military transport plane, in these individual gliders.
Kinda hard to describe, but like winged devices, that the person would
lay on, and then once airborne were able to rocket, and steer in their
descent. That was cool. The Cars of course were awesome. Other than that
it’s the same old bond movie with over the top scenarios, spy gadgets,
fast cars with gadgets, explosions galore, gun fights, car chases, ice
sled chases, double crossing, bad guys with strange defects. Nothing new,
just another Bond movie. But like I said, if you like Bond, then you’ll
like this one too.
Another thing that I have to mention that was kinda funny… the bad
guys can’t just kill the good guys. For example, rather than just
shoot “Jinx” no, that would be too easy. They have to strap
her to a mechanical contraption, and then use Laser Beams that are incredibly
slow, to cut her… thus giving Bond just enough time to save her.
This is made fun of in the movies of Austin Powers. I kept waiting to
see “Sharks with friggin “Laser Beams” on their heads”.
Also the “Super weapon” that the bad guys had, was a giant
solar magnifying glass… This weapon was used way back in the 1980’s
from a favorite movie of mine called “Real Genius”.
But, who am I to criticize Bond. This is Bond #20, and apparently, the
studio executives will continue to change the names of the bad guys, throw-in
one or two new spy gadgets, and I’m sure there will be another Bond
#21. So they must be doing something right.
Jef