Rating: 
Summary: Most Impressive
Review: It's interesting to look back upon all 20 of the James Bond films to see the progression (or sometimes lack-there-of) of the character of Bond himself. Back in the 60's, Bond was the Superman of action spies -- this saavy, impenetrable force that lept in, saved the day, and lept out (with the girl, no less). It was the mysterious, almost mythical essence of Bond that intrigued us from the beginning. In the 70's and much of the 80's, Bond lost his edge and was written with a much more comedic side with even less character. Whenever I watch a Roger Moore-era Bond film, I somewhat cringe at how dense his Bond really was, not that I TOTALLY blame Roger Moore for this. I would have to say much of the blandness of this Bond originated with the screenwriters. I'm not even going to mention George Lazenby or Timothy Dalton, I mean, you've heard, you've seen, you know how bad those Bond movies are.
Then Pierce Brosnan's Bond came along, and I can understand why people would be torn between his portrayl of the British super-spy. Brosnan brings something to the table that NONE of the other actors brought -- mortality. The modern Bond is no longer the indestructable superman he once was; this Bond can get hurt. Now, for many, this mortal Bond ruins the legacy completely for everyone, but for others (like me), it is a totally new and intriguing side of James Bond that I never thought I would see. It makes the over-the-top happenings within the movies seem even more realistic, making "Die Another Day" perhaps the most intriguing Bond movie yet.
This movie seems to be the break-out movie of the Bond series, mixing Bond's new mortality with rich drama. But don't get me wrong. There are PLENTY of classic-Bond elements in this film: Heaps of explosions, immensely sexy women, cheeky one-liners, a kickass Bond-car, and of course, a super-bad villain.
My personal favorite of all Bond movies is still "Tomorrow Never Dies", however, this film most definitely ranks as my second favorite, and one of the best action movies I have ever seen. Oh, and Vin Diesel with his "XXX" can just ....
Rating:
Summary: Good, not great.
Review: This is the first Brosnan as Bond film I've seen. He is probably the best Bond since Roger Moore. The opening sequence is terrific. All the special effects are very good. Halle Berry as Jinx, the capable American agent, and John Cleese as Q, are excellent. Judy Dench is not right as M, and I didn't care for Smantha Bond as Moneypenny.It's a typical Bond plot with the usual bad puns and double entendres. The plot takes Bond from North Korea, to Hong Kong, to Cuba, to London, to Iceland. This time the evil genius is a nefarious North Korean colonel. Four things I did not like. First, it was very dark. We actually see Bond being tortured. Also, we see blood. I can't recall another Bond film with blood being shown. Usually there is a suggestion of blood and torture off screen. Second, the theme song by Madonna. It was just awful. More like screeching than singing. Third, with all the references to previous Bond films, I think the producers, writers, etc. are taking themselves way too seriously. Fourth, it was about 10 minutes too long. What I did like were the episodes in Hong Kong and Cuba, they were the film's best. Also, the sword fight was very enjoyable. In the pantheon of Bond films I'd rate it about average. Not as good as "From Russia With Love" or "Goldfinger" better than "Octopussy" or "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." It is worth seeing.
Rating: 
Summary: I am all for suspending disbelief, but pleeeze..........
Review: I, like many other reviewers here, have been a James Bond fan since I was a kid. I remember seeing Thunderball the first time and loving it. Over the years, I have been disappointed by some of the actors chosen to play 007 (Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton, specifically) but really like Pierce Brosnan in the role. With that said, I was completely depressed by Die Another Day. Where should I start? Well, the cheesy sexual innuendos every scene is a good place to start. Whenever Bond was within 3 feet of a woman, he had to drop some lame reference to sex - that, by the way, was telegraphed by the setup of the scene - which the female actors were obliged to respond to with their own cheesy reply. This has always been part of the Bond dialogue, but Sean Connery did not run the routine into the ground. Next, there is the whole element of using the most elaborate, technological tool for the simplest thing. For instance, when 007 is brought back from his imprisonment in Korea, he is hospitalized and scanned with a pseudo-laser body scanner while lying on a standard hospital table. The most advanced hospital in the world doesn't have this kind of technology. Why even use it here? And instead of parachuting into Korea, Bond and Jinx fly out of a cargo plane on little mini-aircraft, THEN parachute off of those to the ground. All with the explanation that the little planes would not be picked up by radar. Huh? And Q gives James a ring that can be turned into a sonic disruptor that will break glass. Why would that be something that you need on any normal mission, where stealth would tend to be the way to go? Exploding glass might sound some kind of alarm. Oh wait - the sonic disruptor might be useful if your car is covered in water and you want to pull someone through the windshield. Q must be quite the visionary. Finally (at least for my review) there were times that you did not have to just suspend disbelief, but you had completely turn off your logic circuits and accept the idiotic situation on the screen. A villain, injured in an explosion of a case full of diamonds is seen 14 months later with the diamonds still embedded in his skin, twinkling like pixie dust. Hmmmm - seems like a pair of tweezers and some alchohol might have been the answer to that little dilemma. And Bond cuts his way through a frozen lake, swims in frigid water to a hot spring, and is no worse for wear. Or the same situation later in the movie where he and Jinx have been soaked to the bone with ice water but the result is that she is saved by the fact that it was so cold, while he is just fine, thank you very much. Or the cargo plane that depressurizes, flys through a gigantic sun-powered laser, catches fire, falls to pieces for several minutes, but remains aloft long enough for James and Jinx to start a conveyor that dumps expensive sports cars from the plane so that they can get to the helicopter which can magically fall from the disentegrating plane and be started just feet from the ground to save our heroes. (And don't even get me started on the final resting place of those sports cars. Physics obviously has no place in this Bond film.) The movie was not totally bad. I liked the tough Jinx, the John Cleese take on Q, Mirand Frost and Moneypenny. Otherwise, this was a mind-numbing waste of time. I tried to enjoy it as pure entertainment, but could not even do that. It probably did not help that I had just seen From Russia With Love a week or so ago. James, how far you have fallen.
Rating:
Summary: The worst Bond Film
Review: This is by far, the worst Bond Movie that has ever been produced (with the exception of Never Say Never Again.) Not only does it stray from the Original Roots of the James Bond Series, it takes place in a futuristic setting that hurts the movie. The movie does have some good scenes, but most of them are the ones that follow the pattern of the old James Bond Movies. Pierce Brosnan is a good Bond Actor, and he was great in the other three movies he made, and if this is his last Bond movie, I am sorry to see him go in this film. In all this movie takes number 20 in the list of Bond films, and I hope that the next one can save the series from Dying another day.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Much Action, No Surprises
Review: Too Much Action, No Surprises . . .The action scenes (i.e. just about every scene in the movie) were cool, but how much action and how little plot can one person take. You know from the very beginning how things will turn out . . . in the end James and his girl of the hour will triumph. I actually dozed off for a few minutes during this movie.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing really new and that's not so bad!
Review: All the ingredients for a Bond film are here: a snappy theme song done by a popular pop artist; a megalomaniac intent on throwing the world into chaos for his own ends; the villain's "deformed" yet lethal sidekick; the lair to end all lairs; the impossible-to-escape-from situations with which Bond finds himself; the one-of-a-kind gadgets at Bond's disposal; enough holes in the plot to drive an invisible Aston Martin through; and the finer-than-anything-else-on-the-planet women.
And for all her "kick-butt" attitude and ingenuity, "Jinx" (Halle Berry) ends up being rescued by James (Brosnan) no less than two times. She's still basically two-thirds liberated and one-third "damsel in distress". But, it is a way to pass a wintry afternoon, just suspend belief for about two hours, as one does in all Bond flicks. This one, like most of the latter-day Bonds, is geared more for the adolescent male than those of the Connery/early Moore era, however. Computer-generated effects, for all their advancement, still look like the fakery that they really are. The scene of Bond "surfing", like most of the film's "big" effects scenes, is so obviously done by computer that it is almost laughable. Give me Ray Harryhausen and his stop-motion models any day.
Rating: 
Summary: This film kicks butt!
Review: Do not wait for this film to come out on DVD or VHS! The sound was awsome! They actually left Bond in a North Korean prison to be torchered. That is unheard of for a bond film. He usually breaks out of prisons or is rescued but no one came to get him and he never escaped. The story was excellent. The action was excellant. The last film was weak. Goldeneye was cool but I'd have to say this one eclipes Goldeneye.
Rating:
Summary: Ian Fleming must be rolling in his grave...
Review: "Die Another Day", the 20th movie in the James Bond franchise, is not like a wine at all. It does NOT get better with age. I doubt this is what creator Ian Fleming was thinking about when he wondered if his franchise would continue. Well, James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) does return here with some help from the NSA agent Jinx (Halle Berry). These two capable actors light up the screen when they're together, but unfortunately, they have to act in such a preposterous plot. Okay. Two North Korean military personnel want to change their identity to escape persecution, and take power of whatever they want with a huge space-weapon. One officer has already changed his entire identity, while the other is almost there, while looking like a true ghost of a villain. The plot is far-fetched (total body-DNA resequencing, helicopters being able to survive falling debris from a super-jet, and so on). Along the way, there's sexy women (Berry and cold, cold, but oh-so-hot Rosamund Pike), an incredible Aston Martin that can cloak (now THAT'S feasible), and top of the line action sequences. But tell me something. Whatever happened to the espionage and infiltration that made the Bond series what it was? Doesn't happen here, and "Die Another Day" could have been directed by John Woo for all we know. I did like Tamahori's speed up and slow down technique, and his beautiful orchestration of the action scenes (esp. with the swords). Madonna's theme song was refreshing simply because it was techno, but the smack in the face is that the Bond series is resorting to huge action sequences and T&A. "Die Another Day" will me enjoyed more for those then went to see "XXX" rather than those who saw "Dr. No".
Rating:
Summary: GrEaT MoViE A LiTtLe oN ThE BoRiNg SiDe LoL (laugh out loud)
Review: Die Another Day was and exiting action packed thriller that threw u off track again and again. It is, obviously, about James Bond. This time he needs to kill a man with dimonds studded in to his face from and explosion. He is in much deeper water, literaly, than he bargained for.
Rating:
Summary: Time to put James Bond to rest???
Review: Well, at least this one was better than the abysmally bad "The World is Not Enough!" But the Madonna theme song has to be the worst ever. And Halle Barry as an armed agent?? Well, not quite as far-fetched as Denise Richards being a nuclear physicist, but still......
Goldeneye was decent and Tomorrow Never Dies was okay as well, but the James Bond series should die a natural death. There's no point in continuing with them, since they clearly can't make them like they used to.
|
