Die Another Day

Invisible car? Seriously?

Die Another Day is Pierce Brosnan's swan song as James Bond 007. (He even hooks up with a woman in a swan-shaped, ice-sculpture bed.) Pushing 50 in this role (he turned 50 in 2003, one year after this film), he looks every bit his age, with his hair flecked with gray. I'm not saying he's the oldest Bond to ever grace the screen, nor is he awkward or slow, but his advancing age is apparent here.

Watching this again, I can tell he (well, everybody) was trying to bring Bond into the next century, scratching and clawing. Gone are the cigarettes (no Bond since Timothy Dalton has smoked them on screen), but here, Bond smokes cigars. What's the damned difference? The martinis, shaken not stirred, share time with mojitos (to be fair, Bond does order martinis in this film too).

He is captured, tortured, and Brosnan even grows out his Robinson Crusoe locks and beard again to show how long Bond was held captive. Or, you know, maybe that's all a weave.

Even with all of that, there's a spirit missing here. Brosnan's Bond films were by turns attempting to incorporate both the traditions of Sean Connery with the cartoonish wink of Roger Moore, while maintaining a modern sensibility. Shit didn't work.

Plus, most of Brosnan's films have the misfortune of co-existing with the Austin Powers films, which all came out around the same period and totally took the piss out of James Bond and the wind out of the last three Brosnan efforts. Only GoldenEye dodges the bullet, no pun intended.

So much went wrong here.

People don't go to Bond films for the story. Most of the time, the story is kind of an unnecessary burden that sort of, kind of attempts to link lavish locations and sets to spectacles of stuntplay. Spin the globe, stop it with your finger, and that's where Bond goes this time (North Korea, Cuba, London). Choose a vehicle to drive off a cliff (here, you get a hovercraft).

But with storytelling, there are rules; this isn't Vietnam. You need to meet the heavy before the 51:00 mark. Most of the good Bond films start with a good story.

And what the heck is Madonna doing not only performing the theme song (which I can live with) but appearing in the film? And Halle Berry, despite her Oscar work elsewhere, sucks ass in this movie. At least Rosamund Pike is here. I admire her work.

But instead of spending more time with her, we get to watch Bond participate in what can only be called "The World of Swordfighting," during which Bond and Graves, the heavy, first fence, then switch to Bushido blades (I think) and finish with...broadswords? Buh?

As Bond flies back to London, we are treated to the bleeding obvious soundtrack: "London Calling" by The Clash, which is not only too easy, but a bit inappropriate. James Bond is no punk rocker. But, then again, apparently he drinks mojitos now, so I reckon anything is possible.

You know, like an invisible car.

Or maybe an ice castle.

How about some gene therapy that turns an Asian into a Caucasian? We got that too.

This is the kind of Bond film that my dad would watch and hate. I'm right there with him. Aside from some memorable set pieces, this is a hard Bond film to sit through. I'll watch this one once every few years, but unfortunately, every few years this film will look more and more like an Austin Powers film, and maintain a spot in my collection only because I'm a completist sucker. This is not my father's Bond, and that's a shame.