A vintage 40 year old (James Bond - Die Another Day (Ultimate Edition, 2 DVDs))

Member Name: ultras67

Product:	James Bond - Die Another Day (Ultimate Edition, 2 DVDs)
Date:	17/12/02 (85 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good plot, The Aston, Halle Berry

Disadvantages: Blatant product placement, Very poor effects in a couple of places

I?ve liked James Bond movies for, well, ever really. Xmas day, that special feeling of knowing you would get to see another one. This one has been waited on for what seems like ages - mainly because of the return to the Aston as his car. Bond would NEVER drive anything else.

Lets face it, the movies aren?t extremely complicated, original, or serious, but they are damm good entertainment. I think that Pierce Brosnan is almost equal to Sean Connery as Bond and certainly ahead of the others. In his fourth outing, Brosnan is now completely Bond, his performance feels just as right and ironic / iconic. He's a bit more energized this time out, no doubt due to the better and darker script he gets to work with; as ever, there are the usual larger-than-life baddies, but he has to do so as a renegade - much like Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights I think it was.

And so what to expect. James Bond goes action and eastern. There are so many little additions to bring it up to date or make it trendy ( which ever you prefer ) ie the slow mo tracking and change back to normal speed, the gunbarrell sequence now has a CGI bullet shooting straight to the camera.

The opening sequence as with all Bond films is a great taster of things to come with an exciting hovercraft chase over a minefield in North Korea leads directly into the film's main plot, continuing the precedent set by The World Is Not Enough and setting the decidedly darker, grittier tone for this adventure.

I wont tell you much of the plot so I will say this, you wont be disappointed. It has one of the best plots and co-ordinated stories for a long time. The villan has a neat twist which you may or may not pick up on before its revealed. Gustav Graves may not be as nutty or physically threatening as some of his predecessors, but the script gives him a more fully realized character than one would expect. His right-hand man Zao is a formidable physical challenge for B
ond, not to mention a striking visual: thanks to an explosion and an interrupted cosmetic surgery procedure (both caused by Bond, of course), he is hairless and has diamonds embedded in his face.

CIA operative Jinx makes a lovely bikini-clad entrance from the ocean a la Ursula Andress in Dr. No, which will have males of all ages drooling, and while she then disappears from the film for long stretches, the character ultimately lives up to the stunning introduction. A fun, foxy foil, Jinx is in many ways the female Bond: same style, attitude toward sex, same propensity for the suggestive one-liner - although slightly more vicious in the fight. Berry obviously has a ball. Rosamund Pike holds her own with the more seasoned cast members as the aptly named woman of mystery/fencing expert Miranda Frost.

As the new Q, John Cleese is hilarious, further developing the antagonistic relationship that all Qs' must seemingly have with Bond. Moneypenny has a little more to do this time out and gets one of the film's best jokes in the process.

There are many 40th-anniversary film's clever nods to past Bond films, Berrys' entrance, a Q quip - how many props can you spot in the basement ? As a more annoying thing, how many blatant product placements can you spot ? Sounds like a drinking game or two when it comes out on DVD !

The set pieces always were spectacular but this time they are more spectacular and creative than we've seen in the Brosnan era or perhaps even the entire franchise itself; the jaw-dropping car chase on ice is a certain to go down as one of Bond's best-ever moments, and even more grounded sequences such as a swordfight between Bond and Graves are also great fun. Most impressive, however, is how all of the action appears to come naturally out of the plot rahter than just plonked in, seemingly at random - even the more preposterous bits, like one extended paragliding escape scene which actually had m
e laughing out loud at its preposterousness and the decided amateur quality of the CGI effect, but in the over-the-top world that is 007's, even that feels feels somehow right.

8.5 out of ten

CAST

Pierce Brosnan - James Bond
Halle Barry - Jinx
Toby Stephens - Gustav Graves
Roasmund Pike - Miranda Frost
Rick Yune - Zao
John Cleese - Q
Judi Dench - M
Will Yun Lee - Colonel Moon
Samantha Bond - Miss. Moneypenny
Lee Tamahori - Director
Written by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade

Summary: