Overall Rating
 Awesome: 12.93%
Worth A Look: 25.43%
Average: 20.69%
Pretty Bad: 20.69%
Total Crap: 20.26%
8 reviews, 184 user ratings
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| Die Another Day |
by Greg Muskewitz
"Bond is shaken and stirred, but the martini glass is empty."

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Is the Bond franchise finally becoming too passé?I myself have long been a “Bondophile” since my first introduction (albeit, primarily on video) as a child. And maybe because several actors had already worn Bond’s suit, it was less difficult for me to adjust to the differences in style; while naturally Sean Connery stands out as the “original,” I have been just as satisfied by Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan. (The same cannot be said for David Niven’s aging Bond in the old spoof Casino Royale.) Dalton was good in a new, darker, grittier Bond style, but Brosnan’s first appearance in Goldeneye brought a return to the frolicksome, flirtatious and witty Bond closer resembling Connery’s outings. Tomorrow Never Dies was my first outright disappointment in a Bond film, not entirely unlikable, but showing the signs of an unrepairable wear-and-tear to the formula. I perchance missed the third go-round, The World Is Not Enough, but hoped that Die Another Day might rekindle the freshness of Brosnan’s beginnings. Wrong. If anything, this worst Bond movie yet is a loud and clear argument that 007 has run his course and then some. In the opening sequence, before the techno-Madonna credits opener (the worst of those as well), Bond’s cover identity is blown and gun fire is opened up everywhere. He ends up getting caught in a prisoner’s camp in Iceland for 14 months, but not before believing he got the bad guy. After Bond is traded for freedom, he’s placed on suspension, opting instead to take care of business on his own. Yawn. Even with Goldeneye, Bond movies have been increasingly dropping in terms of memorable, let alone legitimate, bad guys and criminals. They lack the menace and threat of a Dr. No, a Blofeld, a Goldfinger. The Bond Girls, in a pathetic, desperate attempt to conform to PC standards are shallow throwaways — Swimsuit Illustrated body-types with a model’s face, but there only because it’s part of the formula. Die Another Day has Halle Berry as Jinx, built-up to be some sort of a female equivalent of Bond. (Rumor has it that she may have her own spin-off, god forbid!) Yet she’s no different from the rest; by putting a name actress in a no name part guarantees no increase in legitimacy. And the repetition of nostalgia echoed throughout — from her wardrobe’s homage to Ursula Andress’, to a look back at some of Bond’s old gadgets — is clearly reaching out for something no longer there. Unintentionally, the nostalgia helps to shatter the assumable eternal present that it takes place in, as the franchise crumbles to nothing more than the average vapid action vehicle — there’s no thrill or edge left to it, turning the series merely into leftovers. Bond has lost his charm and there seems little chance for amelioration.
Directed by Lee Tomahori. With Judi Dench.[Not to be bothered with.]
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=6358&reviewer=172 originally posted: 12/20/03 15:38:03
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USA 22-Nov-2002 (PG-13)
UK N/A
Australia 12-Dec-2002
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