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Die Another Day (Full Screen Special Edition) Customer Reviews (4 - 6 of 104 Reviews)

Surprisingly good
Many people say this is one of the weakest Bond films, right along with Moonraker and A View To A Kill. Yet, I think this is probably Brosnan's best. Sure, his previous three were good, but Goldeneye was very dark, Tomorrow Never Dies was a little too action packed for its own good, and The World Is Not Enough was kind of slow. Die Another Day is fast paced, exciting, dark (but not too dark), and contains many beautiful women and vodka martinis. All the elements that make a classic Bond film are present here, and in my opinion have been absent from the series for a while. The only problem is that the gadgets are a bit unrealistic (invisible cars?). But hey, you can't say that in 1964, some of the gadgets in Goldfinger weren't unrealistic, or a least incredible, at the time. All I'm saying is, this movie is a bit out there. But all the good Bond movies are (except Moonraker).

In the end, a great END for Brosnan's Bond
Pierce Brosnan will go down thusly: the man who brought Bond back from the dead, and more simply, the best Bond since Sean Connery originated the role over 40 years ago. As much as Brosnan has owned this role from day one, you can see how much more comfortable he is in the tux & cufflinks four pictures into his role as 007.

Die Another Day is EXACTLY what a Bond-movie is supposed to be-- especially with today's budgets for blockbusters. There was the ever-dapper Brosnan as Bond; the bodacious Halle Berry as Jinx, babes abound (Rosamund Pike as well as Madonna in a cameo) & gadgets galore (now THAT is an Aston Martin). There was NON-STOP action, multiple exotic locales & some cheeky one-liners.

In a nutshell, Bond goes after some villainous North Koreans creating serious weapons of mass destruction; gets double-crossed, imprisoned & tortured (nice touch, actually); gets his freedom at a huge price and sets out to avenge the trader who set him up. That all happens in the first 15 minutes. From North Korea to Hong Kong to Cuba to MI6 to Iceland & back, Bonds bests the bad guys with a little help from Berry to boot. The action is throttled on full from the opening credits to the final conclusion.

There are a lot of winks to Bond's past, as Die Another Day came out 40 years after Connery's first turn in 1962s Dr. No. So, for a Bond-historian, this movie will give you some silent chuckles if you know what to look for. There are also nods to past Bond-movies. Brosnan's Bond gets paired up with a Halle Berry's heroine as he did in 1997s Tomorrow Never Dies with Michelle Yeoh. Do I need to mention Ursula Andress in here?! The 00-revoked theme harkens back to Timothy Dalton's 1989 turn in License to Kill when Felix Leiter is murdered & Bond goes against MI6s orders to avenge his death.

The DVD is PACKED full of extras to enjoy-- commentary, videos, et al-- just what you'd expect from one of the big screens biggest legends.

I will end with a salute to Brosnan, whom I will be quite sorry to see vacate the role. I grew up with Roger Moore as James Bond, so that was Bond to me. I then watched Sean Connery as I grew my VHS & DVD collections over the years and quickly saw why Connery IS Bond. Brosnan is second only to Connery's originality. Brosnan brought life back into this franchise with a winner out of the box with 1995s GoldenEye. I only wish Brosnan & the franchise could have reached agreement on a new contact for more pictures. I will leave an open mind for Daniel Craig, but after 40+ years, 20 movies and our 6th Bond (not counting the ORIGINAL Casino Royale), I wonder if the Bond-aura will teeter off some without Brosnan's dashing presence.

Wow!
The name is Goldberg....RUBE Goldberg! This is EASILY the most gadget-ridden Bond film, hands down, of the entire series! It is also, alas, the weakest Brosnan Bond by far. Things are a little TOO fantastic and there are far too many "nods" to earlier Bond films, (so many, in fact, that you can lose count!) for this to actually qualify as its own movie, even! You will recognize "Dr. No", "Thunderball", "Diamonds Are Forever", "You Only Live Twice", "The Living Daylights" and others as this "plot" unwinds.

It's a complex "plot", too. Bond travels to North Korea, (not a great idea for a westerner these days,) to assassinate a crazed NK colonel who has been smuggling diamonds and generally screwing up the international scene with his shenanigans. To make a long story short and not to produce too many spoilers, Bond gets captured after a rousing chase involving hovercrafts and advanced artillery, gets tortured, released, forsaken by MI6, chewed out by "M" and again, as in "Licence To Kill" has to go renegade for the rest of the movie. Along the way, he meets a woman named "Jinx", played by Halle Berry, who also works for the West, and who is after the same North Korean colonel Bond is. They travel to Cuba, then to Iceland, get captured again, have some cutlery tete-a-tetes with the bad guys, run into double and triple crosses, find the true meaning of plastic surgery and get to use the most amazing Bond car ever conceived of.

Believe it or not, the Aston Martin used in this film is equipped with a CLOAKING device, wonder of wonders...something that would have the entire assembly of Bond-o-philes themselves going "you're joking", upon hearing this. Otherwise, it's about as tricked out as Timothy Dalton's was in "Daylights". There's also a nod to Brosnan's run in "Remington Steele", as he walks up to spiffy hotel desk in Hong Kong and asks for "his usual suite" drenched to the bone, with long, scraggly hair and a beard, basically filthy. This is a straight steal from a scene in the two hour, fifth year "Steele" episode, "The Steele That Would Not Die".

Anyway, though it is witty, as usual, and though it's got some nice tense moments, this is easily the hokiest Bond film since Moore's laughable tenure as "Suave, Joe Suave". One of the things that was so refreshing about Dalton and Brosnan's Bond films is that they were TONS more realistic than all of Moore's and even Connery's later Bond films, (post "Goldfinger",) with relevant villains in post-cold war dust-ups or drug kingpin situations. This one harkens back to the bad-old days of ridiculous gadgetry, kaleidoscopic plots that owe too much to earlier movies and a general "Bond-parody" feel, rather than a genuine, glamorized espionage adventure.

You know, Ian Fleming's novels bore more resemblance to Len Deighton's or John Le Carre's work than they did to "The Man From U.N.C.L.E" or Matt Helm. They really should have kept the "realism renaissance" going with this character.

Don't even talk to me about Daniel Craig.

Palooka...JOE Palooka!

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